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

By Christine R. Harris, Michael Jenkins, D. Glaser. Judgment and Decision Making, 2006

831 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, General Decision Sciences

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2a21479941a8c85fd81a4c02a9e73965c671b62c

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In General Decision Sciences

Citations in the corpus

Biases in casino betting: The hot hand and the gambler’s fallacy (2006, neutral): “A large literature identiﬁes individual differences in risk attitudes (e.g., Weber et al.,1992; Blais & Weber, 2006; Harris et al., 2006).”
Sex, Risk and the Newsvendor (2013, background): “Harris et al. (2006) have shown that men tend to score more highly on the financial sub-scale of the DOSPERT, but that there are no gender differences on the social sub-scale.”
Sex differences in impulsivity: a meta-analysis. (2011, neutral): “59 29 27 3 1 0 0 1 23 Heaven (1991) SS/RT 0.”
What’s My Style? The Influence of Top Managers on Voluntary Corporate Financial Disclosure (2010, neutral): “Research in psychology and economics suggests that women tend to be more risk-averse, both in general Byrnes et al. 1999; Harris et al. 2006 and in financial decisions Powell and Ansic 1997; Watson and McNaughton 2007; Sapienza et al. 2009 .”
Emotional reactions to losing explain gender differences in entering a risky lottery (2010, background): “Results from a recent study by Harris et al. (2006) are consistent with this hypothesis.”