Practicing a high degree of risk aversion and having a boring personality aren’t always the same thing.
Behavior experts explain why.
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Essentially, risk-seeking people engage in those activities readily, and risk-averse folks typically dont.
Though risk-averse people may stray far from any of the activities above, thatsnotto say theyre inactive people.
Instead, risk aversion tends to show up in personality traits in a far more nuanced way.
Christine Constantinople (she/her), PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Neural Science at New York University and an Associate Investigator at the Neuroscience Institute at NYU Langone Medical Center.
And those are key reasons why risk-averse folks tend to belessdifficult, more sociable people than the big risk-takers.
And those tendencies likely fuel the studiedconnection between risk aversion and anxiety.
So, a high degree of risk aversion doesnt nod to aboringpersonality so much as the potential for ananxiousone.
Is it possible (or even wise) to become more risk-tolerant?
Similar to the Big Five personality traits noted above, risk aversion is pretty deeply rooted.
As a result, actively increasing your level of risk aversion would take some time and concentrated effort.
I think we have to remember that each of our interests was initially new to us.
And over time, we got more comfortable with it as we built more familiarity, she says.
If youre perfectly happy avoiding most risks, thats also perfectly fine.
Christine Constantinople (she/her), PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Neural Science at New York University and an Associate Investigator at the Neuroscience Institute at NYU Langone Medical Center.
After all, getting intotoo muchrisky business is just that: risky.
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