Trust and Normative Control in Multi-Agent Systems

Despite relevant insights from socio-economics, little research in multi-agent systems has addressed the interconnections between trust and normative notions such as contracts and sanctions. Focusing our attention on scenarios of betrayal, in this paper we combine the use of trust and sanctions in a negotiation process. We describe a scenario of dyadic relationships between truster agents, which make use of trust and/or sanctions, and trustee agents, characterized by their ability and integrity, which may influence their attitude toward betrayal. Both agent behavior models are inspired in socio-economics literature. Through simulation, we show the virtues and shortcomings of using trust, sanctions, and a combination of both in processes of selection of partners.

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