Abstract

This paper investigates gender differences in cooperation and trust through a cross-methodological study that combined lab experiment and trust survey. First, we performed a repeated investment game played by 108 students, where a trust-based market interaction was modeled based on asymmetries of information. Results indicated that females were more trustworthy, being more sensitive to cooperation when being trusted by others, whereas males tended to take higher risk investment when trust was relatively more rewarding. A trust survey on a population of 488 students completed the experimental results by looking at general aspects of trust perception of subjects. Also empirical results confirmed significant gender differences in trust, being females more influenced by generalized trust and interpersonal obligations.