Chronotype mediates gender differences in risk propensity and risk taking
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.
PloS one