Why natural disasters make men take more risks

Author: Matthew Davis / Source: Big Think

The 2011 earthquake in Japan was among the most intense earthquakes to occur in recorded history.
Thanks to regularly distributed surveys, however, it also became a unique research opportunity to compare civilians’ behaviors from before the earthquake with their behavior after.
Новости СМИ2
Now, researchers have found data that suggests being exposed to a natural disaster tends to make men more prone to engage in risky behavior, like gambling and drinking, over the long term.

In March of 2011, the tectonic plate that lies under the Pacific Ocean lurched its way below the neighboring Okhotsk tectonic plate, which supports a portion of the Japanese islands. As the Pacific plate burrowed beneath the Okhotsk, it produced a megathrust earthquake, among the most powerful types of earthquakes to occur.

The resulting Great East Japan Earthquake became a magnitude 9, the strongest ever in Japan’s recorded history and the fourth most powerful in the world. In addition to the earthquake itself, Japan was rocked by a resulting tsunami 133 feet high and several nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. All told, the World Bank estimated the disaster’s economic cost at $235 billion.

Suffice it to say, the earthquake was quite a shock to the people of Japan and has left a lasting impression. But the earthquake may have done more than just destroy property and scare civilians — research from the American Economic Institute suggests that the 2011 earthquake made Japanese men more prone to taking risks.

JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty Images

A tsunami breaching the coast of the city of Miyako in Japan.

Keio University regularly distributes the Japan Household Panel Survey (or JHPS) to thousands of Japanese to collect data on economic behavior and information, such as income, education, employment, and risk tolerance. This last item attracted the attention of economic researchers Chie Hanaoka, Hitoshi Shigeoka, and Yasutora Watanabe.

Prior research had shown that natural disasters affect victims’ risk tolerance, but there had never been an opportunity to compare data from before a natural disaster. Since the JHPS is distributed to the same people over regular intervals, the tragedy of the 2011 earthquake also represented an exciting research opportunity. With this dataset, the researchers set out to determine how negative experiences affect risky behavior and to gain insights into the broader economic impact of disasters.