A little while back, we posted a piece about how women and men may differ in their approach to physical adventure and risk (and why men’s bicycles have that potentially hazardous high bar on them). But what about other risks? Is it really all chemical? And how much impact, over how many life fields, does our hard-wiring have?
This piece that ran in the New York Times last fall suggested that testosterone, and the way it plays out in cycles, might actually have contributed to the Wall Street bubble/burst collapse. A more in-depth look at the subject can be found on voxeu.org. (This piece looks at the role testosterone may have played in the crisis, but in context with other factors that influence both personal and group decision-making and behavior. )
But are hormones that influential in how we approach financial risk? Depends who you ask. This study, conducted by the University of Michigan, concluded that hormonal changes might affect how men and women act in competitive trading and bidding situations.
But this study, conducted by researchers at the Stockholm School of Business, concluded that hormones do not affect women’s financial risk-taking behavior.
And new research by the Simmons School of Management, based in Boston, contends that female managers take more risks than previously believed. They just don’t seek out as much credit for it.
But perhaps it just depends on what kind of risk is involved. Author and management consultant Jim McCormick conducted surveys to evaluate men’s and women’s approach to risk and found some interesting results.
Men, he found, were most afraid of financial and emotional risks than women, while women were less inclined to take physical risks. Both men and women were most comfortable taking intellectual risks. But the result of his I found most intriguing was that women’s inclination to take risks went up with age, while men’s went down. Do women come into their own later in life? Or do they simply have less to lose? Interesting food for thought.
But while women as a whole may be less inclined to take physical risks, that doesn’t mean all women fit that mold. And here’s proof: a video of Libby Saulter, the first woman to highline the Lost Arrow Spire in Yosemite. Amazing stuff, although not for the faint of heart or the acrophobically inclined.
