This surprises me because I have always believed that some degree of risk aversion is inate in us -- it seems to me that most people without the 'risk averse gene' would have long since departed from our gene pool.
Taking more precautions than the risk might merit to avoid the lion seems like a good survival mechanism, and, over enough generations, I would have guessed that those who do not would have died out. This study suggests otherwise.
2 comments:
Some innate degree of risk aversion is not inconsistent with risk aversion increasing with age. Which makes perfect sense because we have the capacity to learn from our mistakes and stop taking risks that we realise can hurt us.
Lee -- I think I agree. Some one else wrote the below to me. I am now thinking that as a young child, being risk-loving can be beneficial to learning, but as an adult, perhaps not. I wonder if this is inate or learnt. See quote below:
"Interesting Paper, dubious use of animals, but at least they stoped short of wiring up the Children. From Observing my little lab rat [sender's child] I have noted that being risk averse would significantly slow down the aquisition of new skills and be a disadvantage plus there are alway a few risk averse adults around to chase the lions away. No wires or mystery boxes required for that nugget"
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