Decisions involving risk are pivotal in shaping human behaviour, influencing everything from financial decisions to health outcomes. People vary in their risk preferences across populations and social contexts. However, how such preferences develop in early childhood and the evolutionary roots of these influences remain unclear.
My PhD project will address this question by investigating how social influences shape risk-taking in both developmental and evolutionary contexts. First, it will examine how factors such as authority, peer status and risk-proneness affect decision-making in middle childhood, a critical period for social development, adapting a decision-making paradigm traditionally used with non-human primates. Second, it will explore the evolutionary foundations of these social influences by testing chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), our closest relatives. By applying developmental and comparative approaches, my PhD will illuminate shared social influences that drive risk-taking and clarify species-specific differences – testing fundamental questions about the ontogeny and phylogeny of economic judgement.
This research has important socioeconomic implications: risk-taking is a key consideration when designing effective educational interventions, public policy or broader industrial strategies. This project is supervised by Dr Elizabeth Price, Dr Francesca De Petrillo, and Dr Till Weber.
