Why People Take Risks
Why We Take Risks—It’s the Dopamine
By Alice Park
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1869106,00.html
Erika Bizousky
1/5/09
Before reading this article, I really did not have any prior knowledge about dopamine and it’s effect on the brain. The research question in this article was “What makes people take risks?” When you think about it, it really doesn’t make sense to take risks. If no one ever took any risks, then there would probably be a lot less deaths happening everyday, or a lot less injuries. Yet people are still taking risks. Scientists at the Vanderbilt University of Nashville, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City had a hunch that some kind of chemical in the brain must have been being released every time a person takes a risk. They conducted research and experiments to prove that dopamine was the chemical that made people take risks. Dopamine is a chemical in people’s brains that makes you feel good or happy, so it would make sense that it is somehow involving in risk-taking. A professor at Vanderbilt University named David Zald conducted a study to prove their hypothesis. He had 34 men and women complete a survey on their risk-taking tendencies, and then he scanned their brains to figure out how many dopamine receptors the participants. He predicted that the people who liked to take more risks would have less receptors because then they could achieve unusually high dopamine levels whenever they took a risk. The results of the experiment proved Zald’s theory correct. The people who would take more risks didn’t have as many dopamine receptors. The rush of unusually high dopamine in the brain caused these people to take more risks like they were a drug addict. Professor Zald knew his results were valid because before they tested the same experiment on rats which had the same results.
The study showed that dopamine was definitely the cause of why people take risks. They can also conclude that people kept wanting to take risks because of the feel-good effects of the dopamine and that people who had bad or few dopamine receptors wanted to take more risks than people with better receptors. I think the research is very informative and interesting. I have wondered why people take silly risks or do things without thinking, and these studies answered this question. The people who conducted the research were professors at colleges in New York and Tennessee. I believe that the reason for the research was to figure out more about the brain and why people do the things they do. The human mind is a very complex thing and should really be studied more.
Some questions I have for further understanding of this subject is “What activities produce high dopamine levels?” and also “How can dopamine affect your mind and make you feel happy?” This study really relates to my life because a lot of times I wonder why I do risky or stupid things without thinking, and now I know it is because of dopamine.
January 5th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Why are some people greater risk takers than others? Do they inherit the risk taking gene? If this tendency is inherited, can it willfully be controlled?
January 14th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I did some research on these questions and found some interesting information. An article called “Risk Taking: Is it in our genes?” by Jamie Appling said that you can in fact inherit a risk-taking gene. There is a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4 and if you have a certain distinction in this gene than you are probably prone to taking more risks. So I think that some people are greater risk takers than others because they probably have a different DRD4 gene than most people. I think that the distinction in the gene probably causes the person to have less dopamine receptors so that they are able to reach unusually high dopamine levels when they take risks. I also think that if this tendency were inherited, you could probably willfully control it. Before every decision you make you think about why and how you want to do it. So if you were aware that you wereprone to risk-taking, you could think more about the decisions you make and choose more safe or wiser ones.
Article Source:
http://media.www.dailyhelmsman.com/media/storage/paper875/news/2007/04/17/SpecialSection/Risk-Taking.Is.It.In.Our.Genes-2846992.shtml
January 19th, 2009 at 8:20 am
This is very interesting. I do not think that we can prevent people from taking risks but it is very good to know why people do. Could this be prevented? Could doctors make dopamine levels lower?
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:48 pm
I found this article to be very interesting. It was interesting that you compared the dopamine levels spiking to a drug addict; because I think risk-taking can be very addicting as far as the adrenaline and the feelings. I wonder if this chemical release is in fact related to adrenaline in any way? I thought this article was very informative and very well written, and it proves that the answers to many everyday questions, like why people do stupid or reckless things, can be found within the complexity of the human brain.