Gender Might Influence Approach to Risk, Research Shows

Barbara Morrongiello tells about the boy who climbed onto a garage roof to retrieve a ball.

“His mother said, ‘Don’t you realize you can fall?’ ” Morrongiello said. “The boy said, ‘Well, but I might not.’ ”

To the Canadian psychologist, the incident illustrates how boys think--which, according to Morrongiello, is different from how girls think.

Boys are more likely to see if the benefit is worth the risk, but to underestimate the risks, said Morrongiello, a professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Girls tend to base their decisions on whether they could be hurt at all, she said. And this difference in attitude helps to explain why boys are two to four times more likely than girls to get hurt, she said.

Morrongiello and her colleagues looked at risk assessments among 290 6-year-old to 10-year-old boys and girls in Ontario schools. The students were shown drawings of children biking or on playground equipment and were asked their beliefs about the likelihood and severity of possible injuries.

Eighty percent of the time, she could tell which sex the child was, based on the attitude toward injury, Morrongiello said. She presented her findings at recent meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development.

Boys were less likely to say they would get hurt, and also less likely to think an injury would be severe.

Boys won’t consider avoiding a risky situation unless they think there is a strong potential for injury, while girls will consider avoiding it if there is any potential, Morrongiello said.

But the gender differences are not absolute. Some girls have a greater tolerance of risk than some boys, Morrongiello said.