Dynamics of human trust in recommender systems

The trust that humans place on recommendations is key to the success of recommender systems. The formation and decay of trust in recommendations is a dynamic process influenced by context, human preferences, accuracy of recommendations, and the interactions of these factors. This paper describes two psychological experiments (N=400) that evaluate the evolution of trust in recommendations over time, under personalized and non-personalized recommendations by matching or not matching a participant's profile. Main findings include: Humans trust inaccurate recommendations more than they should; when recommendations are personalized, they lose trust in inaccurate recommendations faster than when recommendations are not personalized; and participants report less trust and lower overall ratings of personalized but inaccurate recommendations compared to not-personalized inaccurate recommendations. We make connections to the possible implications of these psychological findings to the design of recommender systems.