Gender Differences in Risk Assessment: Why do Women Take Fewer Risks than Men?

Abstract

Across many real-world domains, men engage in more risky behaviors than do women. To examine some of the beliefs and preferences that underlie this difference, 657 participants assessed their likelihood of engaging in various risky activities relating to four different domains (gambling, health, recreation, and social), and reported their perceptions of (1) probability of negative outcomes, (2) severity of potential negative outcomes, and (3) enjoyment expected from the risky activities. Women’s greater perceived likelihood of negative outcomes and lesser expectation of enjoyment partially mediated their lower propensity toward risky choices in gambling, recreation, and health domains. Perceptions of severity of potential outcomes was a partial mediator in the gambling and health domains. The genders did not differ in their propensity towards taking social risks. A fifth domain of activities associated with high potential payoffs and fixed minor costs was also assessed. In contrast to other domains, women reported being more likely to engage in behaviors in this domain. This gender difference was partially mediated by women’s more optimistic judgments of the probability of good outcomes and of outcomes being more intensely positive.

Gender differences in the endowment effect: Women pay less, but won’t accept less

“…Quite a bit of research has indicated that women are more risk averse than men (e.g., Byrnes et al, 1999;Carr & Steele, 2010;Croson & Gneezy, 2009;Dwyer, Gilkeson & List, 2002;Eriksson & Simpson, 2010;Finger & Weber, 2011;Harris, Jenkins & Glaser, 2006). General acceptance of this conclusion may be potentially problematic because it becomes part of gender discussions on topics such as competitiveness, management style, labor markets and investment success (Booth & Nolen, 2012;Eckel & Grossman, 2008;Kahan, Braman, Gastil, Slovic & Mertz, 2007;Kristof, 2009;Wieland & Sarin, 2012).…”

Cognitive ability and risk aversion: A systematic review and meta analysis

“…Another viable solution would be to use different risk elicitation tasks to extract a common risk factor (R), thereby increasing ac-curacy and reducing measurement error (Frey et al, 2017). Extending this possibility, risk could be measured in a variety of domains, both to study effects in each domain and to extract a cross-domain general factor (e.g., Harris, Jenkins & Glaser, 2006).…”

Imbalanced weighting of proactive and reactive control as a marker of risk-taking propensity

“…Indeed, cognitive capacities, and in particular executive functions, are known to decrease with age. Moreover, men may take more risks than women [44][45][46]. Hence, the effects of sex and age on the three variables of interest were analyzed individually to orient the structure of random effects, using t-test and linear regression analyses, respectively.…”