Based on the established finding that there are gender differences in the type and use of social capital, we suggest that males and females also differ in the ways they engage in intra- and inter-group interactions. An experiment was conducted to explore how gender affects group-based trust in China. The results demonstrated that male participants were significantly more trusting of unknown partners than were female participants. In addition, we found that male participants’ high trust toward unknown partners had a strong relationship with expectation of reciprocity from their partners while female participants’ low trust toward unknown partners was associated with a strong fear of exploitation from their partners. These findings were examined in the context of a discussion of gender differences in social capital.
