# Fairness and Trust in Virtual Environments: The Effects of Reputation
## 2 Introduction
During ontogeny reputation management develops and people learn to use reputation in a more structured and strategic way [31]. For instance, adolescents unlike adults show high levels of trust but low reciprocity [32]. Moreover, reputation is a mechanism that acts on a pre-existing social structure characterized by roles and status. For this reason, men and women, could be influenced differently by reputation [33; 34]. Previous literature about human interactions in virtual environment highlighted even how anonymity, physical isolation, low identifiability and group salience could affect social influence dynamics [35; 36]. The interaction between these factors could lead to different outcomes, among which, when the social identity is salient, a greater adherence to local norms. Reputation represents a proxy for local norms [37]. Therefore, according to the Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects, anonymous individuals could be influenced more by reputation if the reference group's importance is stressed. Under these circumstances reputation's social influence should appear to foster more pro-social behaviours in virtual environment. In the present work, we tested whether the introduction of a reputation system increased fairness in resource allocation, and whether there was an effect on trustworthiness and trust dynamics during the process of information provision, within adolescents and young adults. We developed a novel experimental paradigm, modifying a previous experiment by [PERSON] et al. [38], in which reputation was implemented as the opportunity to like or dislike an Observer who could provide Receivers with suggestions about a deal proposed by a Donor. Receivers had only partial information about the deal (i.e., they knew the offer amount without be acknowledged about the requested amount), therefore a truthful suggestion from the Observer could help them make a more accurate/safety decision. An important detail of the game was that Observers do not get any direct or indirect benefits from providing wrong or right suggestions, even when they did not acknowledge the Receivers identity. In the experimental condition, we introduced the opportunity for Receivers to punish Observers by giving them bad evaluations as well as to reward them with positive feedbacks. Both the presence of a reputational mechanism within the game/setting, as well as the reputation level of the Observes should enhance the fairness and the trust within an anonymous virtual/cyber community. Overall, the following are the main hypotheses tested in the present study:  
**Hypothesis 1**. : _The introduction of a \"Reputational System\" affects Donors' pro-social behaviour (i.e., fairness) in our web-based multiplayer social dilemma game._  
**Hypothesis 2**. : _A positive reputation have a greater social influence upon the others than the other types of reputational status (i.e., negative, ambiguous) exerting more frequently trust-related behaviours (i.e., suggestion request, suggestion following)._  
**Hypothesis 3**. : _The age of the participants elicits different behavioural patterns about reputation management and usage._  
**Hypothesis 4**. : _Men and women differ in reputation management skills._