Study examines the relationship between life circumstances and risk-taking among older adults
Numerous studies have found that people generally become less willing to take physical, social, legal, or financial risks as they age. But is that decline universal across cultures and countries? Do social and economic conditions — such as poverty, violence, or income inequality — alter how risk propensity changes over the life span? Researchers from the University of Basel and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin investigated these questions in a large cross-national study published in the journal Psychological Science.
The researchers analyzed responses from 77 countries and found that in many nations, including Germany, Russia, and the United States, risk-taking declines with age and men typically report higher risk propensity than women. However, this pattern is not uniform worldwide. In countries such as Nigeria, Mali, and Pakistan, overall risk-taking is higher, shows smaller declines with age, and male–female differences are reduced. These cross-country differences suggest that age-related changes in risk behavior depend on local living conditions and social environments.
To understand what drives these differences, the team compared national indicators of hardship and living conditions, including economic and social poverty, homicide rates, income per capita, and income inequality. They found a clear relationship between hardship and risk propensity: in countries facing greater scarcity and harsher living conditions, people are more likely to maintain a high willingness to take risks into older age. In those environments, external pressures and competition for limited resources may encourage continued risk-taking across the life span, for both men and women, and may help explain the smaller gender gaps observed there.
“We show that when resources are scarce and living conditions are difficult, the propensity to take risks remains high even in old age,” says Rui Mata, assistant professor and director of the Center for Cognitive and Decision Sciences at the University of Basel. These findings point to the importance of environmental cues in shaping life-history strategies and decision-making patterns over time.
Ralph Hertwig, co-author and director of the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, emphasizes the broader implication: “For research on decision making, this means that — contrary to the common assumption of stable preferences in some economic models — individuals’ risk propensity is not fixed across the life span. Rather, people tend to take fewer risks as they age in many cultures, but the extent of that decline depends on local living conditions and existential needs.”
The study used data from the World Values Survey, an international survey that measures values, attitudes, and beliefs across many countries. The analysis included 147,118 responses from participants aged 15 to 99, of whom 52% were women. Risk propensity was measured with a single self-report item asking respondents how similar they were to someone who is adventurous and willing to take risks, using a scale from one (very much like me) to six (not at all like me). By aggregating responses across countries and age groups, the researchers assessed how risk-taking varies with age and how that age-risk relationship differs across social and economic contexts.
Building on the cross-sectional World Values Survey results, the research team is conducting follow-up analyses using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). These longitudinal investigations aim to track individual changes in risk propensity over periods of up to ten years. The longitudinal study will examine how risk attitudes evolve in different domains of life — including finance, health, career, leisure, and social relationships — across adulthood.
Anika Josef, the main author of the follow-up study and doctoral student at the Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, notes: “This will be the first long-term longitudinal study surveying adults across all ages to investigate individual changes in risk disposition in multiple life domains.” Such work will help clarify whether observed cross-sectional age trends reflect true developmental change or cohort and contextual effects.
Source: Kerstin Skork – Max Planck Institute
Image Source: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: “Propensity for Risk Taking Across the Life Span and Around the Globe” by Mata, R., Josef, A. K., and Hertwig, R., published in Psychological Science (online January 7, 2016).
Abstract
Propensity for Risk Taking Across the Life Span and Around the Globe
Past research indicates that aging is generally associated with a reduction in risk-taking. This study examined whether that pattern holds across diverse ecological and cultural contexts. Using World Values Survey data from 77 countries (N = 147,118), the authors find that propensity for risk taking tends to decline across the life span in the majority of countries. However, systematic variation exists: countries experiencing greater hardship (for example, higher infant mortality and other indicators of scarcity) exhibit higher overall levels of risk taking and flatter age-risk curves. These results suggest that hardship functions as an environmental cue shaping life-history strategies, and that age-risk relations must be interpreted in light of local demands and affordances.