rogat+-+sustp+-+matrix+annotation+1

Michelle Rogat Sustainability Problems Matrix - Annotation #1

"Gender differences in risk taking: A meta-analysis" by Byrnes, Miller, & Schafer

Byrnes, J. P., Miller, D. C., & Schafer, W. D. (1999). Gender differences in risk taking: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 125(3), 367–383. doi:10.1037//0033-2909.125.3.367
 * 1. Full citation. **

This research paper was published in the academic journal called Psychological Bulletin, and was written and researched by:
 * 2. Where does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials? **
 * James P Byrnes, a PhD, Associate Dean of Research and Professor in the Department of Psychological, Organizational, and Leadership Studies in Education at Temple University, PA. Byrnes has a profile on Research Gate where you can view 47 of his publications (including this one) and learn more about his what his expertise is, like developmental psychology. From that site it seems that most of his written work has been on cognitive behavior what is involved in goal orientation and the decision making process specifically in children and how it differs between males and females.
 * David C Miller is one of Byrnes' top co-authors, including with this paper. He is a PhD in the Education Program at the American Institute for Research, and more of his credentials and research can be found here. Most of his research seems to be focused on decision making for children and young adults and how this affects their education.
 * Wiiliam D Schafer was the third author of this paper, but I can't narrow down his credentials easily. It seems that his name is more popular and there are a few candidates online that could be him. I assume that he is has the correct credentials that make his work worthy enough because of the weight of the credentials of the other two authors.

The main argument of this paper was that men take more risks than women, and then the authors went on to explain why by analyzing different scenarios to understand the gender gap when it came to risk taking decision.
 * 3. What is the main topic or argument of the text? **

The authors did what seems to be an extensive literature review by citing what other scholars have researched and concluded on the topic, they then did a meta-analysis on 150 previous studies done on this matter where they coded the studies findings based on type of content, type of risk, and by age levels, and then they found reasons for differences in the gender gaps.
 * 4. Describe at least three ways that the main topic or argument is fleshed out. **
 * 5. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text? **
 * "For now, it is important to point out an important implication of the foregoing analysis: Risk taking can either be adaptive or maladaptive. It is maladaptive whenever the benefits of some activity are far less likely to occur than the potential hazards. It is adaptive whenever the converse is true. In other words, people do not successfully adapt to their surroundings by avoiding all the risks they face. In fact, it would be impossible to do so. Instead, they successfully adapt by systematically pursuing certain risks while avoiding others (Baumrind, 1991; Byrnes, 1998)."
 * "At a general level, our results clearly support the idea that male participants are more likely to take risks than female participants."
 * "... factors may independently or collectively influence males and females in different ways at different times. Wigfield and Eccles's (1992) model suggests that gender differences would arise whenever males and females hold different expectations and values."

The evidence and resulting theories supports my research focus by supporting the theory that men do take more risks than women, and since men hold more of the higher and decision making decisions in the job market, then being a patriarchal society affects how much our country takes risks. This paper gives support to another scholar's argument that I am using, Naomi Klein, that being a patriarchal society helps explain the culture of risk-taking and "collective recklessness". In addition, the paper mentions that resisting a risk includes certain levels of self-regulation, which I believe to be a key part of being sustainable through transparency and actually learning from our mistakes instead of sweeping them under the rug to not attract negative attention.
 * 6. Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports your research focus. **


 * 7. List at least two details or references from the text that you have used in your presentation and wiki post. **
 * "Zuckerman's (1991) account of the sensation-seeking personality and the "Risk as Value" hypothesis as described by Kelling, Zirkes, and Myerowitz (1976). Here, a single factor such as (a) a naturally lower level of arousal in men or (b) a socially instilled belief that risk taking is a highly valued masculine tendency motivates high levels of risk taking across contexts in men."
 * "One further benefit of using the broad definition is that it helped us reveal two additional findings that might have been missed had we limited our analysis to just prototypical forms of risk taking. The first is an apparent lack of discernment on the part of men and boys. In one of our analyses, we showed that males took more risks even when it was clear that it was a bad idea to take a risk. The same analysis revealed the opposite was true for women and girls; that is, they seemed to be disinclined to take risks even in fairly innocuous situations or when it was a good idea to take a risk (e.g., intellectual risk taking on practice SATs). Whereas the former finding suggests that men and boys would tend to encounter failure or other negative consequences more often than women and girls, the latter finding suggests that women and girls would tend to experience success less often than they should. In our view, both of these trends are a matter of concern."
 * "Byrnes (1998) suggested that developmental increases in risk taking are a function of the fact that children are more likely to find themselves in novel, unmonitored environments as they grow older (e.g., going away to college). Resisting the temptation to take a risk requires a certain amount of self-regulation (i.e., a calibrated sense of uncertainty, self-corrective strategies for dealing with distractions and troublesome personality traits, and a tendency to learn from mistakes)."