Going All In

Abstract

When faced with risky decisions, people typically choose to diversify their choices by allocating resources across a variety of options and thus avoid putting "all their eggs in one basket." The current research revealed that this tendency is reversed when people face an important cue to mating-related risk: skew in the operational sex ratio, or the ratio of men to women in the local environment. Counter to the typical strategy of choice diversification, findings from four studies demonstrated that the presence of romantically unfavorable sex ratios (those featuring more same-sex than opposite-sex individuals) led heterosexual people to diversify financial resources less and instead concentrate investment in high-risk/high-return options when making lottery, stock-pool, retirement-account, and research-funding decisions. These studies shed light on a key process by which people manage risks to mating success implied by unfavorable interpersonal environments. These choice patterns have important implications for mating behavior as well as other everyday forms of decision making.

Adolescent school injuries and classroom sex compositions in German secondary schools

“…This is despite the fact that key risk factors for adolescent school injuriesaggression and risk-takinghave consistently shown to be highly susceptible to contextual influences. Moreover, a growing body of literature suggests that male-skewed sex ratios increase adolescent risk-taking and in particular physical aggression (34,36,40,53,54,(57)(58)(59)61,(71)(72)(73)76,77). In this paper, we bring together these spheres of expertise to explore the role of classroom sex compositions as a contextual risk factor for adolescent school injuries.…”

“…Evidence for sex ratio effects on risk-taking also exists. For instance, male-dominated contexts appear to instigate risk-taking in experimental (54,55,77) and health-risky behavior in non-experimental studies (59,78,79). Similarly, a study of risk-related mortality in Northern Ireland suggests that women might behave more risk-prone in male-skewed sex ratio environments (80).…”

Operational Sex Ratio Predicts Binge Drinking Across U.S. Counties

“…An imbalanced sex ratio within a population influences behaviors related to both mating strategies and resource acquisition. For example, sex ratios have been linked to divorce rates (South, Trent, & Shen, 2001), marriage rates (Trent & South, 1989), risk-taking behaviors in investment (Ackerman, Maner, & Carpenter, 2016), economic decisions (Griskevicius et al, 2012), frequency of sexually transmitted infections (South & Trent, 2010), teenage pregnancy rates (Barber, 2001), national violent crime rates (Barber, 2000), and violence against women across the United States (Avakame, 1999) and across other nations (South & Messner, 1987). Most of these observed relationships between sex ratios and mating strategies have been considered using a broad theoretical approach grounded in evolutionary theory.…”

“…A higher OSR predicts both women's and men's risk-taking and mating behaviors. In women, a higher OSR is associated with increased odds of marrying a high status man (Lichter et al, 1995), decreased tendency to choose a high-risk/highreturn financial investment option (Ackerman et al, 2016), and decreased sexual receptivity, as demonstrated by trends of decreased teenage pregnancies (Barber, 2000) and the tendency of women to wear less revealing clothing (Barber, 1999) within those populations. Meta-analyses (Janicke & Morrow, 2018;Weir et al, 2011) found that a higher OSR was associated with increased male intrasexual competition and aggression (cf.…”

“…In this study, we indirectly explored the idea that binge drinking is part of a short-term mating strategy by examining the relationship between sex ratio and binge drinking rates at the population level. Just as other risky behaviors, such as engaging in risky sexual activities, have been linked to sex ratios in the population (Ackerman et al, 2016;Bien, Cai, Emch, Parish, & Tucker, 2013), the consumption of excessive alcohol may also be influenced by the sex ratio. In particular, the association between sex ratio and binge drinking is also expected to occur primarily among young adults.…”