What If Women Ran Wall Street?: Testosterone & Risk

Anna Dreber, an economics researcher at Harvard’s Kennedy School, started studying testosterone as a possible explanation for why there tend to be few women in certain fields—math, say, or kickboxing. Through studies conducted at the Harvard biological-anthropology department, Dreber found that appetite for risk in simulated investment games correlated with high testosterone levels and with facial characteristics such as sharp cheekbones and strong jaws that are normally associated with the hormone. “There is a clear sign that something biological explains risk taking,” she says. Testosterone is not the only chemical that affects it—the stress hormone cortisol has a role, as well as the neurotransmitter dopamine, among others—but it’s by far the most powerful.