Are women more trusting than men?

Marilynn Brewer professor of psychology at Ohio State University doesn't think so but they do use fundamentally different methods of determining who they will trust.

A man decides whether to trust someone or not based on their membership of a group, such as his team, his company, his club. Women on the other hand decide based on personal connection, for example whether the other person is a friend of a friend. She says

Researchers sometimes claim that men are less socially oriented than women, but our research shows that men can be very connected to other people – they are just connected in a different way.

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

The male approach would seem to have very tribal origins and it is easy to see how the military exploit this characteristic of masculine trusting. Dr Marilynn's study used university students (they are so easily available afterall) it would be interesting to see whether female soldiers are consistent with normal female behaviour or whether they have adopted a more masculine approach based on the military culture within which they must survive.

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