The psychology of why we take risks.
Interview: Catherine WeyerWhy does the same situation feel risky to one person and safe to another? Psychologist Loreen Tisdall explains how emotions, experience and age shape our perception of risk. And why recognizing a danger doesn’t always stop us from taking a chance.
This interview is also available as a podcast (in German).
Loreen Tisdall, how can two people look at the same situation and see totally different levels of risk?
We talk of risk when we don’t know exactly how a situation is going to turn out. This uncertainty is a key aspect of risk. There’s usually also a possibility of something negative happening. Take a hiking trail: Two people can assess the likelihood of an accident differently, as well as the severity of the potential consequences and how well they would cope. There’s an emotional component too: The hiking trail might seem very intimidating to one person but cause barely any concern in the other.
If perception is so personal, how well can we assess the actual risks of a situation?
Not always that well. There are various systematic biases that influence how we perceive risk. One example is “optimism bias”: We often judge it far less likely that something bad will happen to us rather than to other, comparable people. This has been shown by meta-analyses in relation to the consequences of climate change or to COVID-19, for example.
Another bias is that we tend to overestimate our own control over events. This even applies in situations over which we realistically have little control because so many things come down to chance. This sense of control also leads us to consider a risk to be lower.
How do these assessments ultimately influence a decision on whether or not to take a risk?
Various factors come into play here, too. Let’s look at hiking again: I can judge the path to be risky but still decide to take it because I want the experience. Whether or not we take a risk doesn’t just depend on how high we consider it to be; it also depends on what we want to achieve.
Can the same person be willing to take risks in one area of life and be very cautious in another?
Motivation in particular can differ greatly depending on the area of life. A person can be very cautious about financial decisions because they may be investing to build long-term wealth. Meanwhile, a leisure activity such as hiking in the mountains is about having fun, challenging yourself or experiencing something special.
Are some people simply born more daring than others?
There are definitely some innate factors. Studies of twins show that varying openness to risk are partly hereditary. Estimates lie between 25 and 55 percent depending on the particular study and which area of life. Other studies indicate that genetic differences can influence aspects such as how our brains respond to rewards and thus how attractive we consider the return on a risk to be. Our experiences as well as our inherent nature also help to shape how we handle risks.
How do we learn to deal with risks?
Children learn to deal with danger through direct experiences with risk and uncertainty in an age-appropriate, protected environment. On a jungle gym, for example, they have to assess how high they dare go, what they’re already able to do and what their limits are. Experiences like these are also important for self-efficacy and autonomy: Children get to see that they can make things happen, make decisions and deal with the consequences of their actions. Parents can support this process without removing every uncertainty from their child’s path.
And when children become teenagers?
Adolescents are particularly willing to take risks in many areas. One explanation for this is that the reward system in our brain responds especially strongly to potential stimuli, while our cognitive control systems are still developing. But once again, this is just part of the explanation. Your peers play a key role in this phase, as does experimenting with and developing your own identity. This means that our motivation to take a specific risk also changes throughout our lives.
Are changes in risk-taking particularly distinctive in certain areas as we age?
We see particularly robust changes in financial risks and in health and safety: Our willingness to take risks here tends to decrease as we get older. Findings are much more mixed in social aspects.
Why do we become more cautious about financial decisions as we age?
Timescale is a significant factor. At 30, I potentially have many years to make up for a financial loss, but at 70 it’s much harder. This can change how strongly a potential loss will influence a decision. Our goals also adapt as we grow older: Our younger years are more about building and growing; later on, we tend to focus on keeping and securing what we’ve achieved.
So far, we’ve spoken mostly about our own experiences. But what we hear and see about risk shapes our perception, too. What role does the media play?
Unusual but spectacular events get significant media attention; for example, if a child is attacked by a dog. This can cause us to see such events as more likely than they are. Harmless everyday interactions between children and dogs never feature in the media. If we don’t have our own experience and if we draw mainly on media reports, we can end up overestimating the risk.
So the media can distort our perception. Can it also make a risk appear less harmful than it actually is?
Absolutely. Social media is one example. If I keep seeing posts that make it seem fine to hike the Alpstein mountains in flip-flops, that can also influence my perception. Then I’ll mainly see examples of times when things went well, and I might not reflect as much on what could go wrong. This can make something seem easier and less risky than it actually is.
You also explore when we feel safe or unsafe in a particular place. What role do such impressions play here, and what about the environment itself?
What we’ve heard about a place or seen about it in the media can shape our expectations. But we’re also guided by very specific local signals: If I’m out in an area that I don’t know well, for example, then green spaces, clean streets and good visibility are likely to influence my feeling of safety. On the other hand, trash and graffiti, deserted streets but also spaces with restricted views or unclear sightlines can create a feeling of unease. We still know surprisingly little about how our sense of safety develops and how it changes over the course of our lives. There have been very few studies on this so far, but these insights are needed to help design spaces where people feel safe and want to be.
How does our assessment change if an environment is familiar to us?
If we know an area well, we have our own empirical data and are better able to assess individual signals. In an unfamiliar environment, we don’t have this data. Certain characteristics may carry more weight then and have more impact on our assessment of safety or risk. Therefore, how safe we feel depends not just on the place itself, but also on the things that we associate with it.
More articles in this issue of UNI NOVA (November 2026).