In his article "Risk-takers: Who are they?" (2011), which can be found in the "Current Directions in Psychological Science" (Vol.20,Issue 4), Charlie Wittman argues that the personality trait of being risk-taker depends on biological, psychological, age and gender factors.
According to the writer some people are more risk-taking than others because they have few active receptors to control the level of dopamine received.
To support his argument, wittman gives evidence of a research of the Vanderbuilt University of Nashville and Albert Einstein College of Medicine of New York on a group of men and women (The Journal of Neuroscience, 2008).
As regards psychological reasons, Wittman states that "sensation-seeking is a personality trait that describes the desire to find activities that bring us pleasure" (Zuckerman, 1964).
What is more, according to a study of Zuckerman (2007) the 60% of the risk-taking personality trait is probably inherited by our parents.
Another aspect that has influence on our personality is age.
The writer of the article declares that people until the age of 25 have a tendency to take more risky behaviours instead of adults.
Clearly it is due to the development of our pre-frontal cortex, that is the part of our brain that controls our actions (Giedd, 2008).To conclude, a further important aspect is gender.
A research of the Columbia Business School in the U.S.
(2011) reports that financial risks are typical of men, while women tend to take social risks.
However, despite these results, both men and women have a different perception of a situation, because they have a different experience background.
June 2017
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