# When Do People Trust Their Social Groups?

## TL;DR

This study develops a comprehensive framework for predicting trust in social groups, based on individual traits and group characteristics, using survey and behavioral data from Facebook Groups users.

## Contribution

It introduces a new predictive model for group trust that incorporates individual trust propensity and group structural features, validated with large-scale data.

## Key findings

- Trust propensity correlates with trust in groups.
- Smaller, older, and more homogeneous groups are trusted more.
- Group structure and individual position predict trust and friendship formation.

## Abstract

Trust facilitates cooperation and supports positive outcomes in social groups, including member satisfaction, information sharing, and task performance. Extensive prior research has examined individuals' general propensity to trust, as well as the factors that contribute to their trust in specific groups. Here, we build on past work to present a comprehensive framework for predicting trust in groups. By surveying 6,383 Facebook Groups users about their trust attitudes and examining aggregated behavioral and demographic data for these individuals, we show that (1) an individual's propensity to trust is associated with how they trust their groups, (2) smaller, closed, older, more exclusive, or more homogeneous groups are trusted more, and (3) a group's overall friendship-network structure and an individual's position within that structure can also predict trust. Last, we demonstrate how group trust predicts outcomes at both individual and group level such as the formation of new friendship ties.