Coye Cheshire

Current Research Projects:

Exchange Network Transitions: Uncertainty, Risk and Shifts in Mode of Exchange

The National Science Foundation recently awarded a $103,000 grant to the UC-Berkeley School of Information (Coye Cheshire, Principal Investigator) to fund this study. This is part of a collaborative grant that also includes an award of $105,000 to the Stanford University Department of Sociology (Karen S. Cook, Principal Investigator; Alexandra Gerbasi, Senior Investigator). The combined NSF award between UC-Berkeley and Stanford University for the project is $208,000.

About the Project:

Social scientists have accumulated a large and growing body of theory and data on many distinct types of social exchange systems. It has been demonstrated through a long history of social exchange experiments that different forms of exchange yield different outcomes, to some extent as a function of the levels of risk and uncertainty inherent in each form of exchange. This prior work generally begins with fixed networks in which only one type of exchange can occur (e.g. negotiated or reciprocal exchange).

However, there is little or no research on the process of transitioning between different modes of social exchange. What kinds of information do individuals use when they make decisions about engaging in various forms of social exchange? How do individuals behave when a shift in the mode of exchange is initiated by a third party? With the current foundation of research on the structural and perceived differences between the various major forms of social exchange, we are now in an ideal position to investigate these and other questions about the transitions between modes of exchange and the effects of these changes on exchange outcomes. This research project is a first step toward understanding more fully how forms of exchange transition from one form to another. Given the increased interest in real-world systems of B2B and Internet-based exchange (which often challenge many assumptions about exchange processes, attributions, and outcomes), the opportunities for theoretical development and real-world applications in social exchange transitions are substantial.

In this project we develop a set of theoretically-driven arguments for social exchange systems that transition (or shift) between reciprocal exchange and binding or non-binding negotiated exchange. These shifts can be structurally determined (i.e. the form of exchange occurs exogenously from the particular intentions or desires of the participants), or as agent-based transitions (i.e. individuals choose to move to a new form of exchange based on their own experiences and dispositions). We make several predictions about how agent-based transitions occur and about the attributions and contribution outcomes that take place in both structurally-determined and agent-based transitions. This project will help advance the theoretical tradition of social exchange processes, developing the first series of testable hypotheses for how shifts between different types of exchange occur. Furthermore, we will examine how individual attitudes and attributions about exchange partners change over time as a result of these transitions.

Social Psychological Selective Incentives and the Emergence of Generalized Information Exchange

A National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant and a Stanford Graduate Research Opportunity Grant funded the software development and research costs associated with this project.

About the Project:

This project examines how generalized exchange systems emerge when information, as the object of exchange, produces a collective good. In the generalized information exchange systems that I focus on in my research, individuals contribute to a collective good (pool of information), and the rewards that an actor receives come from this collective good. Thus, these exchange systems are also analogous to many public goods or collective action problems. Because it is rational to free ride by receiving information (or information goods) from the public pool of information while not contributing to it, generalized information exchange systems require individuals to overcome a social dilemma. In fact, my dissertation shows that the form of the social dilemma is directly related to the nature of the good in the exchange, such as information. Thus, this project has implications for the development of public pools of information on the Internet, such as those found in popular peer-to-peer networks like the original Napster, Kazaa, Morpheus, and others.

I conducted several experiments requiring subjects to participate in a computer-based exchange system that manipulated either the popularity of a subject's contributions or the observed cooperation in the system. The results of these experiments demonstrate that social psychological selective incentives significantly encourage cooperation in generalized information exchange systems. Specifically, the social approval that individuals receive from others in the network has a significant impact on continued sharing (or cooperation). Interestingly, even low amounts of social approval can dramatically improve cooperation rates in generalized information exchange. In addition, the ability to observe the amount of cooperation that is currently occurring in the generalized information system can have a small, positive impact on cooperation rates when the observed cooperation level is high. The most fascinating aspect about the role of these social psychological selective incentives in social exchange is that they can serve to increase cooperation even though these incentives offer no economic benefit to the participants. Thus, social psychological processes can help generalized information exchange systems emerge (such as peer-to-peer networks on the Internet), even when the economic costs associated with contributing appear to outweigh the benefits.

Trust-Building and Cooperation in Online Settings

In collaboration with Karen S. Cook and graduate researchers in the Stanford University Department of Sociology, this project includes a series of surveys and experimental projects investigating how individuals assess the trustworthiness of potential exchange partners in online (computer-mediated) and offline (non computer-mediated) settings. The first phase of these quasi-experimental surveys were conducted in Spring 2005, and were presented at the Academy Colloquium on Trust and Cooperation in Online Interaction in Amsterdam, Netherlands (May 2005). The next phase of surveys was conducted in 2005-2006, and examines how individuals assess trustworthiness of others who offer services (versus material goods) in online settings.

Local and Cross-Societal Studies of Trust-Building and Cooperation

In collaboration with Karen S. Cook (Stanford University), Toshio Yamagishi (Hokkaido University), and several graduate student researchers at Stanford University and Hokkaido University, we have been conducting experimental studies of trust formation, social exchange, and negotiation in the U.S. and Japan.. Two of these projects examine trust formation in the US and Japan by using the same controlled experiments in both locations (Stanford University and Hokkaido University). Our first study was recently published in Social Psychology Quarterly, and the second is currently under review. In one recent experiment, we examine social exchange between in-group and out-group members by linking our computer laboratories at Stanford University and Hokkaido University so that subjects in both locations can exchange in real time. In addition to these cross-societal studies, we are currently working on a series of social exchange experiments at Stanford University and UC-Berkeley which will investigate how the form of the exchange system (e.g., reciprocal, binding negotiated, non-binding negotiated, generalized exchange) can change over time. This research project will be the first to allow exchange systems to evolve over time with human participants.

Social Networks and Religious Switching

Another current project is a study of sociodemographic dissimilarity and religious switching. Since religions tend to recruit new members through network ties, and people tend to interact with similar others (principle of homophily), I argue that the more dissimilar an individual is from her current religion, the more likely she will switch religions. I use data from the 1987, 1988, and 1989 General Social Surveys to look at aggregated patterns of religious switching over time, and find that racial dissimilarity has a positive effect on switching for whites, but not for blacks and other races. This project shows the importance of social networks in areas of our social lives that we may sometimes think of as very personal and unrelated to our surrounding social structure.