Gender differences in risk taking: A meta-analysis

The authors conducted a meta-analysis of 150 studies in which the risk-taki ng tendencies of male and female participants were compared. Studies were c oded with respect to type of task (e.g., self-reported behaviors vs. observ ed behaviors), task content (e.g., smoking vs, sex), and 5 age levels. Resu lts showed that the average effects for 14 out of 16 types of risk taking w ere significantly larger than 0 (indicating greater risk taking in male par ticipants) and that nearly half of the effects were greater than .20. Howev er, certain topics (e.g., intellectual risk taking and physical skills) pro duced larger gender differences than others (e.g., smoking). In addition, t he 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 b e growing smaller over time. The discussion focuses on the meaning of the r esults for theories of risk taking and the need for additional studies to c larify age trends.