Digital Eliva Press Digital Trust in Adversarial Settings: An Exploratory Analysis Using a Social Deduction Game Paperback

Trust in digital settings is often studied in platform-based environments, while less is known about trust among strangers under distrustful conditions. This exploratory study used the social deduction game Tank Turn Tactics to examine whether trust can be observed as a risky, intentional action in such contexts. Across nine online sessions with 101 participants, 173 trust decisions were identified and validated using thinkaloud protocols, despite an interaction environment dominated by hostile behavior (65.5%). Behavioral trust did not show a robust positive relationship with established self-report measures such as SOEP-Trust and the WVS trust item. The findings suggest that trust in hostile online environments is dynamic, situational, and more strongly shaped by local interaction dynamics than by generalized trust attitudes.