Gender Influences Who We Trust

From the study:

“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.”

Reading the methods and the results of this study gave me pause for consideration. I certainly don't base my feelings of trust in the manner women are said to, but I don't often have an affinity for team, company, or club either. Trust, for me, wavers between trusting without question, and then, once I'm burnt, not trusting at all for quite a lengthy period of time. When I'm in 'trust' mode, I find I'm vulnerable, naive and socially inept. Once burnt, no group of friends, family, team or club will break through my skepticism until I'm ready to try trusting again. Weird how that works. It causes a lot of withdrawal from/alienation of people and sure doesn't help with the social skills, but that's just how it is.
I think if I had participated in this study, the stakes were set low enough that I would have trusted all strangers. Monetary considerations weigh a lot less for me than empathetic considerations. posted by Cyndy | link | | |
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