Risky business
Are you a thrill-seeker or a fence-sitter? The answer, say researchers, may lie in our genes. By Remy Rippon.
If you’ve ever skied in Australia you would be familiar with the ‘Milo Club’ ski school. You may have even witnessed a conga line of these knee-high kids decked out in eye-catching green ski-suits whiz past, bunny-hop a mogul then disappear down the mountain. While such bravado could be put down to being young and reckless, lacking the experience to assess danger, or possibly even possessing a low centre of gravity, recent studies have found that risk-taking behaviour may instead lie in our DNA.
“Modern genetic studies of thousands of people can determine if a specific DNA variant is associated with a trait of interest, in this case risk-taking behaviour,” says Professor Naomi Wray, research fellow at the University of Queensland. According to a breakthrough study of over one million people published this year in the journal Nature Genetics, more than 100 genetic variants of our DNA influence our general risk tolerance. “The effects of each of the 124 genetic variants on an individual basis are all very small, but their combined impact can be significant,” noted researchers from Vrije University Amsterdam.
According to the study, our tolerance to risk can be seen as both a help and a hindrance. It calls out typically ‘risky behaviours’ – like smoking, drinking and drug-taking – and assesses how these genetic markers may increase our likelihood of engaging in such habits. However, in the right circumstances the ability to take a calculated risk can be helpful, and necessary.
Research professor and author Brené Brown’s theories on the relationship between vulnerability, courage and risk, have found a loyal following with the success of her 2010 TEDx talk (which has since been viewed on YouTube more than 40 million times). More recently, her eponymous Netflix show has gone viral and people like Oprah, Melinda Gates and Reese Witherspoon have come out as famous fans. Put simply, Brown surmises that vulnerability is “the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees”, and without engaging in decisions where the outcome is unknown – in other words, taking a risk – we also reach a roadblock when it comes to belonging, joy, love and creativity. “If you are not willing to fail, you can’t innovate. If you’re not willing to build a vulnerable culture, you can’t create,” Brown says.
This is possibly best seen in the modern workplace. Jo Thomas, chief operating officer at the Australian Institute of Business, says: “Risk and innovation go hand in hand – every time you try something new there’s a risk that it
won’t work.” Of course, that’s not a green light to make hasty, irresponsible decisions. Adds Thomas: “You never want to be taking a risk from a perspective of fear. It always needs to come from a thoughtful and confident place and that’s how you get that stick change in innovation, rather than that incremental change.”
We all have that friend who arrives at a life-changing decision with ease. Or, on the flip side, analyses every risk and decision with a painstakingly detailed list of pros and cons. Of course, whether riskiness is hard-wired or not can also be attributed to upbringing and environmental factors. But it’s interesting to see how genetics may influence how far you hover on the risk-adverse to thrill-seeker scale. “Genetic influences on risk-taking behaviours are not deterministic and, thus, humans have the ability to be in control and change their behaviour, though it may be easier or harder for different people depending on their circumstances,” says Richard Karlsson Linnér, one of the researchers from Vrije University who made the link between risk and DNA. “Risk tolerance is far from being perfectly heritable.”