Trust and Manipulation in Social Networks

Manuel Förster, Ana Mauleon and Vincent Vannetelbosch
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Manuel Foerster

No 172706, Climate Change and Sustainable Development from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)

Abstract: We investigate the role of manipulation in a model of opinion formation. Agents repeatedly communicate with their neighbors in the social network, can exert effort to manipulate the trust of others, and update their opinions about some common issue by taking weighted averages of neighbors' opinions. The incentives to manipulate are given by the agents' preferences. We show that manipulation can modify the trust structure and lead to a connected society. Manipulation fosters opinion leadership, but the manipulated agent may even gain influence on the long-run opinions. Finally, we investigate the tension between information aggregation and spread of misinformation.

Keywords: Institutional; and; Behavioral; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2014-05
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/172706/files/NDL2014-050.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Trust and manipulation in social networks (2016)
Working Paper: Trust and Manipulation in Social Networks (2016)
Working Paper: Trust and Manipulation in Social Networks (2014)
Working Paper: Trust and manipulation in social networks (2013)
Working Paper: Trust and Manipulation in Social Networks (2013)
Working Paper: Trust and Manipulation in Social Networks (2013)
Working Paper: Trust and Manipulation in Social Networks (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:feemcl:172706

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.172706

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Climate Change and Sustainable Development from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().