Abstract
Risk-taking is a complex form of decision-making that involves calculated assessments of potential costs and rewards that may be immediate or delayed. Thus, making predictions about inter-individual variation in risk-taking due to personality traits, decision styles or other attributes can be difficult. The association of risk-taking with gender is well-supported; males report higher propensity for risk-taking and show higher risk-taking on tasks measuring actual risk-taking behavior. Risk-taking also appears to be associated with circadian phenotypes (chronotypes), with evening-types reporting higher levels of risk-taking—but this association may be confounded by the fact that, in certain age groups, males are more likely to be evening-types. Here, we test for gender by chronotype effects on risk-taking in young adults (n = 610) using a self-reported risk propensity questionnaire, the health domain of the DOSPERT, and a behavioral task measuring risk-taking, the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART). Our results show that males report and take significantly more risks than females in this population. In addition, evening-type individuals have significantly higher self-reported risk propensity and tend to take more risks on the BART. Interestingly, there is no significant difference in risk propensity or risk-taking behavior across male circadian phenotypes, but evening-type females significantly report and take more risk than female intermediate and morning types. In regression analyses, we found both gender and chronotype predict risk propensity and risk-taking. Path analysis confirms that chronotype has an indirect effect on gender differences in both risk propensity and risk-taking. Furthermore, we found that trait anxiety (STAI) and sleep disturbance (PROMIS), significantly correlate with chronotype and gender in the complete dataset, but do not independently predict differences in female risk-taking. These results suggest that chronotype mediates gender effects on risk-taking and that these effects are driven primarily by morning-type females, but are not related to gender-specific differences in trait anxiety or sleep quality.
Highlights
Individuals vary in the timing of internal circadian rhythms, resulting in variation in sleepwake cycles and/or preferences for timing of activities [1,2,3,4,5]
Chronotype mediates gender differences in risk propensity and risk-taking preference) [1,2,3,4,5]. These circadian behavioral phenotype variants can be characterized into three general categories or chronotypes: morning types (MT), evening types (ET) and intermediate types (IT)[3]
Risk propensity was significantly different across diurnal preference groups (F(2,572) = 11.355, p
Summary
Individuals vary in the timing of internal circadian rhythms, resulting in variation in sleepwake cycles (sleep-wake chronotypes) and/or preferences for timing of activities Chronotype mediates gender differences in risk propensity and risk-taking preference) [1,2,3,4,5]. These circadian behavioral phenotype variants can be characterized into three general categories or chronotypes: morning types (MT), evening types (ET) and intermediate types (IT)[3]. Morning types tend to wake up early and prefer activities earlier in the day; evening types generally wake up later and prefer to time peak activity during the late afternoon or evening. Inter-individual differences in circadian rhythms can influence human cognitive behavior and decision-making, but these effects vary widely across behaviors (reviewed in Adan et al (2010)) [4]
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