Gender Differences in Risk Taking

        Theories are often judged to be adequate to the extent that they can explain similarities or differences in performance among various groups (e.g., male vs. female participants, younger vs. older students, experimental vs. control groups). All things being equal, a theory that can explain gender differences is more adequate than a theory that cannot. Risk-taking literature reveals that researchers have not been particularly interested in explaining or uncovering gender differences using the most widely cited theoretical models of risk taking. Instead, they have tended to examine gender differences in a secondary manner that does not consult existing studies or frameworks. Nevertheless, it is useful to briefly consider the types of results that would be more or less consistent with particular types of theoretical approaches in order to avoid gender stereotypes in the domain of risk taking.

Byrnes, Miller, and Schafer (1999) examined 150 studies that looked at risk taking differences for men vs. women across a wide spectrum of situations. Byrnes et al operationally defined risk taking as any type of behavior that has more than one possible outcome and at least one of those outcomes is either undesirable or dangerous. Three general types of risk taking research currently exist: The first, is that there is research that suggests that risk taking is inherently greater for men because men have either a lower level of arousal or that the need to take risks is instilled in them, Secondly, there is research that investigates how different situations will promote more or less risk taking, and lastly, there is research that explains why only certain people take risks in certain situations.

The findings from this study revealed that men tended to take more risks than women across nearly every situation. However, several findings in this study seem to require further explanation and analysis. The first pertains to intriguing differences in the age trends for the four types of self-reported behaviors. Studies were coded with respect to type of task (e.g., self-reported behaviors vs. observed behaviors), task content (e.g., smoking vs. sex), and 5 age levels. Results showed that the average effects for 14 out of 16 types of risk taking were significantly larger than 0 (indicating greater risk taking in male participants) and that nearly half of the effects were greater than .20. However, certain topics (e.g., intellectual risk taking and physical skills) produced larger gender differences than others (e.g., smoking). In addition, the authors found that (a) there were significant shifts in the size of the gender gap between successive age levels, and (b) the gender gap seems to be growing smaller over time.

 The results of the study showed the shift between high school and college seems to promote a sharper increase in drinking and drug use in men than in women. At present, it is not clear whether this finding reflects the fact that men are confronted with risk-inducing contexts more often than women (e.g., they attend a greater number of parties) or whether women have a greater capacity to negotiate themselves through these risk-inducing situations than men. The latter would not appear to be the case because women seem to be significantly more likely to smoke during their college years than men and also seem to be more likely to drink, take drugs, or engage in risky sexual activities in their post-college years. Such findings could be interpreted in one of two ways. The first would be that contexts make different demands on men and women at different points in time. The second interpretation would be that men are somewhat “precocious” (i.e., men engage in these activities earlier than women but women eventually catch up and surpass men). Future research should determine which of these explanations seems to be more accurate.

To add greater clarity to the study of gender differences and risk taking, research needs to accelerate in three different domains: 1. Unambiguous measures of both appropriate and inappropriate forms of risk taking should be constructed, 2. Valid measures tapping the core constructs of several different theories of risk taking should be constructed in order to see which of the remaining viable theories is the most adequate, and 3. These measures should be given to multiple age groups (to further probe the meaning of age trends). The findings from such studies would make an important and much-needed contribution to the literature and would provide important insight into possible ways to improve the risk-taking skills of children, adolescents, and adults for both genders. The findings from such studies would make an important and much-needed contribution to the literature and would provide important insight into possible ways to improve the risk-taking skills of children, adolescents, and adults.

 Dipti Balwani 

Byrnes, J. P., Miller, D. C., Schafer, W. D. (1999). Gender differences in risk taking: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 367-383.