Repeated one-way trust differs structurally from the iterated prisoner’s dilemma

Evidence

When it is repeated, the one-way trust game has some of the quality of the iterated prisoner’s dilemma and therefore of mutual trust. It is not a prisoner’s dilemma, however, because there is no outcome that is best for the lieutenant colonel that is simultaneously worst for Trifonov. … If Trifonov is the column player in game 2, the outcome in which the lieutenant colonel’s payoff is 1 and Trifonov’s 4 is not possible; hence a two-by-two matrix representation of the one-way trust game has an empty cell. Still, there must be some degree of mutual trust if they are to continue playing because each time he returns the 4,500 rubles Trifonov must take a risk that the lieutenant colonel will not continue the arrangement after the next and other future audits. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 133

Categorization

• DEFINE: Precisely distinguishes the one-way trust game from the prisoner’s dilemma—key formal scaffolding for Hardin’s trust-as-encapsulated-interest model.