Vincent Busken
Biographic Data
| ID | 906 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Vincent Busken |
| GIVEN NAMES | Vincent |
| FAMILY NAME | Busken |
| SIGNATURE | BUSKEN V |
| AFFILIATIONS | Utrecht University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4483-7238 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 60 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 206 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 60 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Heterogeneity and cooperation in climate change mitigation: An experimental approach to common-pool resource games
The collective action problem associated with CO 2 reduction presents a global challenge that requires cooperation among actors. Two factors are often argued to hinder successful cooperation in this context: endowment heterogeneity and the time delay between environmentally harmful actions and their consequences. This study examines the effects of endowment heterogeneity and delayed feedback on cooperation in common-pool resource management at th…
Cooperation through rational investments in social organization
Repeated interactions and contractual agreements are examples of different ways of organizing interactions in social and economic life and can foster cooperation in social dilemmas. Thus, when involved in social dilemmas, actors have incentives to form long-term relations with repeated interactions or to enter into contractual agreements. We analyze theoretically and experimentally the effects of repeated interactions and contractual agreements a…
When and why do people change their minds in favor of vaccination? Longitudinal analyses of switching Covid-19 vaccination preferences
A majority of initially hesitant people changed their minds about vaccination during the pandemic. Preference switches in favor of vaccination were most strongly associated with beliefs about the vaccine's efficacy in preventing illness. This study underlines the importance of providing up-to-date, balanced information and decisional support for people to weigh the benefits and risks of getting vaccinated versus not getting vaccinated
Graduated sanctioning, endogenous institutions and sustainable cooperation in common-pool resources: An experimental test
To encourage long-term cooperation in social dilemmas such as common-pool resources, the importance of sanctioning is often stressed. Elinor Ostrom advocates graduated sanctioning: the severity of a defector's punishment is dependent on the extent of their history of deviant behaviour. In addition, endogenously chosen sanctioning is argued to induce cooperation due to a higher legitimacy. This study compares the effect of graduated and strict mut…
Building a reputation for trustworthiness: Experimental evidence on the role of the feedback rate
In 25 years, research on reputation-based online markets has produced robust evidence on the existence of the so-called reputation effect, that is the positive relation between online traders' reputations and these traders' market success in terms of sales and prices. However, there is an ongoing debate on what the size of the reputation effect means. We argue that the rate of truthful feedback that traders leave after completed transactions is n…
Social proof is ineffective at spurring costly pro-environmental household investments
One of the most popular techniques of persuasion in online marketing is social proof, also referred to as social validation. It takes advantage of the fact that when other individuals have decided in favor of a particular behavior people are more likely to follow that behavior as it is perceived as more valid. Yet there is a theoretical reason to be skeptical about the effectiveness of this persuasion technique for the encouragement of more costl…
A fairway to fairness: Toward a richer conceptualization of fairness perceptions for just energy transitions
Current energy justice literature has developed a strong empirical approach to describe how justice plays a role in energy transitions. We argue that the individual-level perception measures are insufficiently developed within this field, while they are vital for a successful just energy transition. Reviewing studies on how people (citizens, users or consumers) perceive fairness in the context of the energy transition, we first investigate how fa…
Sharing Risk Under Heterogeneity: Exploring Participation Patterns in Situations of Incomplete Information
Motivated by the emergence of new Peer-to-Peer insurance organizations that rethink how insurance is organized, we have proposed a theoretical model of decision-making in risk-sharing arrangements with risk heterogeneity and incomplete information about the risk distribution as core features. For these new, informal organizations, the available institutional solutions to heterogeneity (e.g., mandatory participation or price differentiation) are e…
Do self-talk phrases affect behavior in ultimatum games
The current study investigates whether self-talk phrases can influence behavior in Ultimatum Games. In our three self-talk treatments, participants were instructed to tell themselves ( i ) to keep their own interests in mind, ( ii ) to also think of the other person, or ( iii ) to take some time to contemplate their decision. We investigate how such so-called experimenter-determined strategic self-talk phrases affect behavior and emotions in comp…
Health behavior homophily can mitigate the spread of infectious diseases in small-world networks
Research has repeatedly shown that the spread of infectious diseases is influenced by properties of our social networks. Small-world like structures with densely connected clusters bridged by only a few connections, for example, are not only known to diminish disease spread, but also to increase the chance for a disease to spread to any part of the network. Clusters composed of individuals who show similar reactions to avoid infections (health be…
Cooperation between newcomers and incumbents: The role of normative disagreements
Cooperation in groups often requires individual members to make costly contributions that benefit the group as a whole. Prior research suggests that shared norms can help to support ingroup cooperation by prescribing common standards of how much to contribute. These common standards may be disrupted when groups undergo membership change, i.e., when members from outgroups enter the ingroup. When newcomers and incumbents have different notions abou…
Covid-19 vulnerability and perceived norm violations predict loss of social trust: A pre-post study
Networks and new mutualism: How Embeddedness Influences Commitment and Trust in Small Mutuals
Mutualism is reviving again in several countries, replying to state and market failure with an alternative, social insurance setup. We study participation in such new mutuals with a focus on embeddedness. We distinguish group-level embeddedness (network structure) and individual embeddedness (the type and quantity of ties to other group members) and study how these relate to members' commitment to mutuals and their trust in the commitment of othe…
How Rich is Too Rich? Measuring the Riches Line
Is it possible to identify a 'riches line', distinguishing the 'rich' from the 'super-rich'? Recent work in political philosophy suggests that this istheoreticallypossible. This study examines for the first time theempiricalplausibility of a riches line, based on novel data collected from a representative sample of the Dutch population. The data reveal that the Dutch indeed draw such a line, namely between 1 and 3 million euros. Strikingly, respo…
Individuele verschillen in sociale dilemma’s: Het effect van vertrouwen op straffen in een publiekgoedspel
Individual differences in social dilemmas: the effect of trust on costly punishment in a public goods game The establishment of cooperation in public goods dilemmas is important to real life problems such as improving the environment. Cooperation is facilitated when people are able to punish uncooperative behavior. Individual characteristics of persons, however, can affect cooperation and punishment behaviour. This study focuses on individual dif…
Clustering of chronic hepatitis B screening intentions in social networks of Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands
The findings of our pilot study show clustering of screening intention among individuals in the same network. This provides opportunities for social network interventions to encourage participation in hepatitis B screening initiatives
How dominance hierarchies emerge from conflict: A game theoretic model and experimental evidence
Investments in and returns on network embeddedness: An experiment with trust games
Strategic tie formation for long-term exchange relations
Theory and empirical research have established that repeated interactions foster cooperation in social dilemmas. These effects of repeated interactions are meanwhile well known. Given these effects, actors have incentives for strategic tie formation in social dilemmas: they have incentives to establish long-term relations involving repeated interactions. Perhaps surprisingly, models accounting for strategic tie formation are scarce. We introduce …
Individual training and employees' cooperative behavior: Evidence from a contextualized laboratory experiment
Employers are constantly seeking to improve employee performance by means of investing in employee training. The results of training are to a large extent dependent on employees' willingness to behave productively in a cooperative manner. Yet, systematic evidence investigating the causal relation between training and employees' cooperative behavior is rare. Here, we present results from a contextualized laboratory experiment in which subjects, wh…
Trust Games
This article offers an overview of different variants of trust games and shows how game-theoretic modeling can contribute to an analysis of conditions for placing and honoring trust in such games. The focus is on explaining trust rather than on explaining consequences of trust for individual behavior or for outcomes such as societal cohesion or economic prosperity. Specifically, game-theoretic modeling allows for analyzing how the “embeddedness” …
Antecedents of trust in the sharing economy: A systematic review
Users and potential users of the sharing economy need to place a considerable amount of trust in both the person and the platform with which they are dealing. The consequences of transaction partners’ opportunism may be severe, for example damage to goods or endangered personal safety. Trust is, therefore, a key factor in overcoming uncertainty and mitigating risk. However, there is no thorough overview of how trust is developed in this context. …
Partner-specific behavior in social networks: Coordination among actors with heterogeneous preferences
Information Acquisition and Exchange In Social Networks
n Contains fulltext :\n 179681.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)\n
Rational Choice Theory in Sociology
Micro-Macro Links and Microfoundations in Sociology
Using Coleman's well-known scheme as an anchor, we review key features of explanations of social phenomena that employ micro-macro models. Some antecedents of micro-macro models and of Coleman's scheme as well as some paradigmatic examples of micro-macro links are sketched. We then discuss micro-level assumptions in micro-macro explanations and the robustness of macro-level implications to variations in micro-level assumptions. We conclude with a…
An Experiment on the Effects of Embeddedness in Trust Situations: Buying a Used Car
This article describes a vignette experiment on the effects of temporal embeddedness and network embeddedness in trust situations. The experiment uses a setting in which a buyer wants to buy a used car from a car dealer. We distinguish between effects on trust of the past relation and the effects of the expected future relation between the buyer and the dealer. A buyer can learn about the trustworthiness of the dealer from past transactions of th…
Dynamics of Networks if Everyone Strives for Structural Holes
When entrepreneurs enter structural holes in networks, they can exploit the related benefits. Evidence for these benefits has steadily accumulated. The authors ask whether those who strive for such structural advantages can maintain them if others follow their example. Burt speculates that they cannot, but a formal demonstration of this speculation is lacking. Using a game theoretic model of network formation, the authors characterize the network…
A New Model for Information Diffusion in Heterogeneous Social Networks
This paper discusses a new model for the diffusion of information through heterogeneous social networks. In earlier models, when information was given by one actor to another the transmitter did not retain the information. The new model is an improvement on earlier ones because it allows a transmitter of information to retain that information after telling it to somebody else. Consequently, the new model allows more actors to have information dur…
How Rich is Too Rich? Measuring the Riches Line
Is it possible to identify a 'riches line', distinguishing the 'rich' from the 'super-rich'? Recent work in political philosophy suggests that this istheoreticallypossible. This study examines for the first time theempiricalplausibility of a riches line, based on novel data collected from a representative sample of the Dutch population. The data reveal that the Dutch indeed draw such a line, namely between 1 and 3 million euros. Strikingly, respo…
Consent or Conflict: Coevolution of Coordination and Networks
Societies are sometimes divided into groups that behave in different ways or have strongly opposing opinions. At other times, everyone seems to behave according to similar principles and opinions. It is likely that individual decisions on behavior or opinions are affected by social networks through influence and selection processes. However, the outcomes are not necessarily optimal for the society as a whole. Two types of problems might arise: (a…
A fairway to fairness: Toward a richer conceptualization of fairness perceptions for just energy transitions
Current energy justice literature has developed a strong empirical approach to describe how justice plays a role in energy transitions. We argue that the individual-level perception measures are insufficiently developed within this field, while they are vital for a successful just energy transition. Reviewing studies on how people (citizens, users or consumers) perceive fairness in the context of the energy transition, we first investigate how fa…
Covid-19 vulnerability and perceived norm violations predict loss of social trust: A pre-post study
The Interplay Between Gender and Structure: Dynamics of Adolescent Friendships in Single‐Gender Classes and Mixed‐Gender Classes
This study reviews theories on striving for closure in adolescent networks related to trust issues of adolescents and further examines whether adolescents in mixed‐gender and single‐gender classes are different in striving for closure. Stochastic actor‐based models for network dynamics are applied to test our hypotheses based on longitudinal friendship nominations of 406 Taiwanese adolescents in mixed‐gender, all‐boy, and all‐girl classes. The re…
Imitation and Learning under Uncertainty: A Vignette Experiment
Trust is important in organizations, e.g. in teams or small working groups in which the performance of team members depends on the performance of other members in the group and in which team members have only an incentive to perform well if they trust that others perform as well. Existing theories regarding effects of communication on trust problems stress the influence of information about behaviour of potential partners. Effects of imitation ar…
Cooperation between newcomers and incumbents: The role of normative disagreements
Cooperation in groups often requires individual members to make costly contributions that benefit the group as a whole. Prior research suggests that shared norms can help to support ingroup cooperation by prescribing common standards of how much to contribute. These common standards may be disrupted when groups undergo membership change, i.e., when members from outgroups enter the ingroup. When newcomers and incumbents have different notions abou…
Coordination in Dynamic Social Networks Under Heterogeneity
People often make choices or form opinions depending on the social relations they have, but they also choose their relations depending on their preferred behavior and their opinions. Most of the existing models of coevolution of networks and individual behavior assume that actors are homogeneous. In this article, we relax this assumption in a context in which actors try to coordinate their behavior with their partners. We investigate with a game-…
Sequential Power-Dependence Theory
Existing methods for predicting resource divisions in laboratory exchange networks do not take into account the sequential nature of the experimental setting. We extend network exchange theory by considering sequential exchange. We prove that Sequential Power-Dependence Theory—unlike Power-Dependence Theory and most other exchange theories—has a unique point prediction for resource divisions in every network, and we show that these point predicti…
Cooperation via Social Networks
Sufficiently frequent interaction between partners has been identified by, a.o., Axelrod as a more-or-less sufficient condition for stable cooperation. The underlying argument is that rational cooperation is ensured if short-term benefits from opportunistic behavior are offset by the long-term costs of sanctions imposed on the culprit. In this paper, we develop a model for ‘embedded trust’ in which a trustee interacts with a number of trustors wh…
Embedding Trust: A Game-Theoretic Model for Investments in and Returns on Network Embeddedness
Social relations through which information disseminates promote efficiency in social and economic interactions that are characterized by problems of trust. This provides incentives for rational actors to invest in their relations. In this article, we study a game-theoretic model in which two trustors interact repeatedly with the same trustee and decide, at the beginning of the game, whether to invest in establishing an information exchange relati…
The Dynamics of Closeness and Betweenness
Although both betweenness and closeness centrality are claimed to be important for the effectiveness of someone's network position, it has not been comprehensively studied which networks emerge if actors strive to optimize their centrality in the network in terms of betweenness and closeness. We study each of these centrality measures separately, but we also analyze what happens if actors value betweenness and closeness simultaneously. Network dy…
Trust in Intimate Relationships: The Increased Importance of Embeddedness for Marriage in the United States
Due to the rise of a market for casual relationships, investing in a serious relationship now requires more trust than it did four decades ago. We develop a theory of trust and embeddedness in intimate relationships. One implication of the theory is that given the increased importance of trust, the effects of embeddedness on marriage chances should have increased. Analyses were performed on data from the Chicago Health and Social Life Survey. Var…
How to convince someone that you can be trusted? The role of ‘hostages’
We consider how credible commitments ('hostages') in the sense of Schelling affect trust and trustworthiness. Using the Trust Game as a metaphor, based on game theoretical modeling and previous results with the Trust Game, we derive several hypotheses on which hostages are more likely to effectively influence the degree to which actors are willing to trust others. Two main characteristics of hostages are highlighted. To overcome a lack of trust, …
Health behavior homophily can mitigate the spread of infectious diseases in small-world networks
Research has repeatedly shown that the spread of infectious diseases is influenced by properties of our social networks. Small-world like structures with densely connected clusters bridged by only a few connections, for example, are not only known to diminish disease spread, but also to increase the chance for a disease to spread to any part of the network. Clusters composed of individuals who show similar reactions to avoid infections (health be…
Networks and new mutualism: How Embeddedness Influences Commitment and Trust in Small Mutuals
Mutualism is reviving again in several countries, replying to state and market failure with an alternative, social insurance setup. We study participation in such new mutuals with a focus on embeddedness. We distinguish group-level embeddedness (network structure) and individual embeddedness (the type and quantity of ties to other group members) and study how these relate to members' commitment to mutuals and their trust in the commitment of othe…
How dominance hierarchies emerge from conflict: A game theoretic model and experimental evidence
Strategic tie formation for long-term exchange relations
Theory and empirical research have established that repeated interactions foster cooperation in social dilemmas. These effects of repeated interactions are meanwhile well known. Given these effects, actors have incentives for strategic tie formation in social dilemmas: they have incentives to establish long-term relations involving repeated interactions. Perhaps surprisingly, models accounting for strategic tie formation are scarce. We introduce …
Combining Statistical Evidence From Several Studies: A Method Using Bayesian Updating and an Example From Research on Trust Problems in Social and Economic Exchange
The effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable is often evaluated with hypothesis testing. Sometimes, multiple studies are available that test the same hypothesis. In such studies, the dependent variable and the main predictors might differ, while they do measure the same theoretical concepts. In this article, we present a Bayesian updating method that can be used to quantify the joint evidence in multiple studies regarding the eff…
Theory and Empirical Research in Analytical Sociology: The Case of Cooperation in Problematic Social Situations
The integration of theory and empirical research in analytical social science has always been a core topic of Analyse & Kritik. This paper focuses on how analytical theory and empirical research have moved closer to each other in sociology, using rational choice theory and game-theoretic models as well as empirical research on problematic social situations (social dilemmas, collective action problems, etc.) as an example. We try to highlight the …
Building a reputation for trustworthiness: Experimental evidence on the role of the feedback rate
In 25 years, research on reputation-based online markets has produced robust evidence on the existence of the so-called reputation effect, that is the positive relation between online traders' reputations and these traders' market success in terms of sales and prices. However, there is an ongoing debate on what the size of the reputation effect means. We argue that the rate of truthful feedback that traders leave after completed transactions is n…
The social structure of trust
A New Model for Information Diffusion in Heterogeneous Social Networks
This paper discusses a new model for the diffusion of information through heterogeneous social networks. In earlier models, when information was given by one actor to another the transmitter did not retain the information. The new model is an improvement on earlier ones because it allows a transmitter of information to retain that information after telling it to somebody else. Consequently, the new model allows more actors to have information dur…
Cooperation via Social Networks
Sufficiently frequent interaction between partners has been identified by, a.o., Axelrod as a more-or-less sufficient condition for stable cooperation. The underlying argument is that rational cooperation is ensured if short-term benefits from opportunistic behavior are offset by the long-term costs of sanctions imposed on the culprit. In this paper, we develop a model for ‘embedded trust’ in which a trustee interacts with a number of trustors wh…
An Experiment on the Effects of Embeddedness in Trust Situations: Buying a Used Car
This article describes a vignette experiment on the effects of temporal embeddedness and network embeddedness in trust situations. The experiment uses a setting in which a buyer wants to buy a used car from a car dealer. We distinguish between effects on trust of the past relation and the effects of the expected future relation between the buyer and the dealer. A buyer can learn about the trustworthiness of the dealer from past transactions of th…
How to convince someone that you can be trusted? The role of ‘hostages’
We consider how credible commitments ('hostages') in the sense of Schelling affect trust and trustworthiness. Using the Trust Game as a metaphor, based on game theoretical modeling and previous results with the Trust Game, we derive several hypotheses on which hostages are more likely to effectively influence the degree to which actors are willing to trust others. Two main characteristics of hostages are highlighted. To overcome a lack of trust, …
Social Networks and Trust
Social Networks and Trust discusses two possible explanations for the emergence of trust via social networks. If network members can sanction untrustworthiness of actors, these actors may refrain from
Collective Commitment: A Theoretical Understanding of Human Cooperation
Embedded trust: Control and learning
This paper discusses two mechanisms through which social embeddedness can affect trust among actors in cooperative relations. Trust can be based on past experiences with a partner or trust can be built on possibilities for sanctioning an untrustworthy trustee through own or third-party sanctions. These two mechanisms are labeled learning and control. The mechanisms are often left implicit or discussed in isolation in earlier research. Learning an…
Trust in Intimate Relationships: The Increased Importance of Embeddedness for Marriage in the United States
Due to the rise of a market for casual relationships, investing in a serious relationship now requires more trust than it did four decades ago. We develop a theory of trust and embeddedness in intimate relationships. One implication of the theory is that given the increased importance of trust, the effects of embeddedness on marriage chances should have increased. Analyses were performed on data from the Chicago Health and Social Life Survey. Var…
Imitation and Learning under Uncertainty: A Vignette Experiment
Trust is important in organizations, e.g. in teams or small working groups in which the performance of team members depends on the performance of other members in the group and in which team members have only an incentive to perform well if they trust that others perform as well. Existing theories regarding effects of communication on trust problems stress the influence of information about behaviour of potential partners. Effects of imitation ar…
Theory and Empirical Research in Analytical Sociology: The Case of Cooperation in Problematic Social Situations
The integration of theory and empirical research in analytical social science has always been a core topic of Analyse & Kritik. This paper focuses on how analytical theory and empirical research have moved closer to each other in sociology, using rational choice theory and game-theoretic models as well as empirical research on problematic social situations (social dilemmas, collective action problems, etc.) as an example. We try to highlight the …
Sequential Power-Dependence Theory
Existing methods for predicting resource divisions in laboratory exchange networks do not take into account the sequential nature of the experimental setting. We extend network exchange theory by considering sequential exchange. We prove that Sequential Power-Dependence Theory—unlike Power-Dependence Theory and most other exchange theories—has a unique point prediction for resource divisions in every network, and we show that these point predicti…
Consent or Conflict: Coevolution of Coordination and Networks
Societies are sometimes divided into groups that behave in different ways or have strongly opposing opinions. At other times, everyone seems to behave according to similar principles and opinions. It is likely that individual decisions on behavior or opinions are affected by social networks through influence and selection processes. However, the outcomes are not necessarily optimal for the society as a whole. Two types of problems might arise: (a…
Dynamics of Networks if Everyone Strives for Structural Holes
When entrepreneurs enter structural holes in networks, they can exploit the related benefits. Evidence for these benefits has steadily accumulated. The authors ask whether those who strive for such structural advantages can maintain them if others follow their example. Burt speculates that they cannot, but a formal demonstration of this speculation is lacking. Using a game theoretic model of network formation, the authors characterize the network…
The stability of exchange networks
Social context and network formation: An experimental study
The Rationale of Rationality
Our research starts from the assumption that actors use a single decision theory to guide them on how to behave in all possible one-shot two-person encounters. To address which decision theories perform well, we let 17 theories compete in a large number of randomly selected symmetric 2 × 2 games. It turns out that the decision theory that optimizes its own payoff under the assumption that the other actor behaves randomly wins by a small margin. S…
Trust in triads: An experimental study
Co-evolution of conventions and networks: An experimental study
Zur Dynamik prosozialen Verhaltens in einem asymmetrischen sozialen Dilemma: Ein Beitrag zur experimentellen Spieltheorie / The Dynamics of Pro-social Behavior in an Asymmetric Social Dilemma: A Behav…
In diesem Beitrag untersuchen wir prosoziales Verhalten im Sinne wechselseitiger Hilfeleistungen. Als formales Modell verwenden wir ein asymmetrisches wiederholtes Solidaritätsspiel zwischen zwei Akteuren. Wir modellieren Asymmetrie in drei Dimensionen: (1.) Nutzen, den ein Akteur aus der Hilfeleistung des anderen zieht, (2.) Kosten der eigenen Hilfeleistung und (3.)Wahrscheinlichkeit, mit der ein Akteur Hilfe benötigt. Wir untersuchen die Effekt…
Micro-Macro Links and Microfoundations in Sociology
Using Coleman's well-known scheme as an anchor, we review key features of explanations of social phenomena that employ micro-macro models. Some antecedents of micro-macro models and of Coleman's scheme as well as some paradigmatic examples of micro-macro links are sketched. We then discuss micro-level assumptions in micro-macro explanations and the robustness of macro-level implications to variations in micro-level assumptions. We conclude with a…
Coordination in Dynamic Social Networks Under Heterogeneity
People often make choices or form opinions depending on the social relations they have, but they also choose their relations depending on their preferred behavior and their opinions. Most of the existing models of coevolution of networks and individual behavior assume that actors are homogeneous. In this article, we relax this assumption in a context in which actors try to coordinate their behavior with their partners. We investigate with a game-…
Trust in triads: Experience effects
The rationality of social structure: Cooperation in social dilemmas through investments in and returns on social capital
The Dynamics of Closeness and Betweenness
Although both betweenness and closeness centrality are claimed to be important for the effectiveness of someone's network position, it has not been comprehensively studied which networks emerge if actors strive to optimize their centrality in the network in terms of betweenness and closeness. We study each of these centrality measures separately, but we also analyze what happens if actors value betweenness and closeness simultaneously. Network dy…
Economics (38 works) · Psychology (35 works) · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (33 works) · Computer Science (32 works) · Microeconomics (29 works) · Social Psychology (28 works) · Political science (25 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Game Theory and Applications (21 works) · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence (19 works)