From the most basic split between the X and Y chromosomes to subtle distinctions in communication styles, men and women possess more than a few differences.

This extends to how they decide which strangers they can trust, according to new research. A study found that men tended to trust people who were part of a group with them. Women, on the other hand, were more likely to trust strangers who shared some personal connection, such as a friend of a friend.

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"There are different ways to determine who is a part of your in-group, to decide who you can trust when you first meet a stranger," said Marilynn Brewer, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Ohio State
University.

"For women, this in-group is me and my friends and family and their friends and family. For men, the in-group is my team or my company or my club. These are the people we feel we can trust."

"Men look for symbolic connections that you get from belonging to the same group, rather than for personal connections that women prefer," Brewer explained.

"The bottom line is that women tend to trust strangers if they think they are connected to that person in some extended friendship network. Their network is based on interpersonal relationships," Brewer said.

"Men showed trust more on a symbolic rather than an interpersonal basis – you're either in my group or not in my group. You can see this in male-dominated groups like the military or football teams – there's a clear distinction between 'us' and 'them.'"

While in this study it might appear that women would trust more people than men,in everyday life the results suggest women would have a smaller circle of trusted people, Brewer said.

That's because women's in-groups would be based on interpersonal connections, while men are more likely to embrace people from a large, symbolic group, even if they don't have close personal relationships with them.

While it may seem surprising that the participants would trust someone based simply on the fact that they attended the same university – or even just attended a university in which they knew someone – that's a part of American culture, Brewer said.

"At least in our culture, it doesn't take much to activate an initial trust," she said." Americans are willing to trust others at first until they are proved wrong. When we talked to participants after the study they would actually say things like 'Someone from Ohio State wouldn't let me down.' That level of trust is important in our society because it allow us to do business with each other and develop new relationships."

That level of trust and openness is not found in every culture. In a previous study, Brewer and her colleagues found that people in Japan were, overall, more like the women in this study: they tended to reserve trust for people in which they had some interpersonal connection. They were not as willing to trust people simply based on a shared group membership.

"It is an important aspect of our culture that we are willing to invest that initial trust without a lot to base it on," Brewer said. This study, and the previous one comparing Japanese and Americans, were supported by the National Science Foundation and the Russell Sage
Foundation.

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