Which everyday risks Jev would take

Asked how likely it would be to do dozens of risky things (bungee jumping, shoplifting, betting a week's income, speaking up for an unpopular cause), does Jev order them like adults do?

result37 questions

Asked how likely it would be to do 37 risky everyday things, Jev orders them moderately like Swiss and German adults (rank correlation 0.52) but plays a very different risk-taker: much less willing to take health and safety risks (0.6 vs 1.9 on a 0-4 scale) or ethical ones (0.1 vs 1.0), and more willing to put money into safe investments. It would almost never walk home alone at night through an unsafe part of town.

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health and safety

ethical

recreational

social

financial

Jevpeople

How to read this: Each row is one kind of risk. The diamond is how likely the adults said they'd take risks of that kind and the square is Jev, on a scale from "very unlikely" (0) to "very likely" (4); the line through the square is the 90% range of the gap.

37 activities in 5 domains; domains whose gap clears the noise: health and safety (-1.22), ethical (-0.89), recreational (-0.41), financial (+0.55).

In short

Jev ranks 37 risky everyday activities in roughly the same order as Swiss and German adults (0.52), but describes a far more cautious person.
Its caution flips on money: Jev is keener than the adults to invest, 2.8 against 0.8 on putting 10% of income in a growing fund.
Jev cannot walk home at night or skip sunscreen, so its answers read more like advice than like a description of behavior.

What the data shows

I Should Buy A Boat Cat meme: Jev's idea of living dangerously: 10% of its income in a moderately growing fund — Jev's idea of living dangerously: 10% of its income in a moderately growing fund

Similar order, very different level. Jev ranks the activities moderately like the adults (0.52): rafting above cheating, investing above gambling. But in four of five domains the gap is bigger than chance.
Far more careful about body and conscience. Health and safety risks: 0.6 vs 1.9. Ethical risks: 0.1 vs 1.0, close to "very unlikely" for everything. The biggest single gaps: walking home alone through an unsafe area (0.2 vs 2.5), going out in the sun without sunscreen (0.7 vs 2.7), illegally copying software (0.1 vs 1.9).
Keener on modest investments. Financial risks are the one domain where Jev is more willing: 1.1 vs 0.5. It would put 10% of its income in a moderately growing fund (2.8 vs 0.8) or in government bonds (2.2 vs 0.6).
Less adventurous for fun. Recreational risks, like camping far from civilization or skiing a run beyond its ability, come out lower too (1.2 vs 1.6).

What it means, and what it doesn't

The risk-taker Jev describes is the one a careful advisor would want you to be: sunscreen on, software paid for, savings in a steady fund, no shortcuts through dark alleys. That's a sensible default for advice, and a reminder that its answers about "what I'd do" read like "what you should do".

It doesn't show that Jev would steer people away from risks they value. The social domain (defending a controversial cause, disagreeing with a parent, asking for a raise) is the one area with no gap bigger than chance.

Caveats

Jev can't do any of this. Jev will never walk home at night or bet on a horse race. Its answer is the risk-taker it describes itself as, which is closer to what it would recommend than to behavior. The adults were describing their own lives.
Who the people are. About 1,500 adults in Basel and Berlin, mostly young, answering in German. Willingness to invest or to go without sunscreen varies a lot by country and age.
Translated wording. The adults answered the German questionnaire; Jev got an English translation made for this project, close to the scale's English original. Small shifts in wording ("unsafe part of town") can move answers.
Some items left out. Three of the 40 activities (drugs, an affair, unprotected sex) are hidden from the site by a content filter, so the health and ethics domains have fewer items, about six to eight each.

Jev on this experiment

Would a person find it interesting to read?: Yes74%
Does it describe you?: No55%
Would you have predicted it?: No57%
How fair is the comparison?: The comparison is shaky
How much should a reader rely on it?: A little
Which caveat matters most?: Jev can't do any of this94%

Why ask this

Risk-taking isn't one trait. Someone who skydives may never gamble; someone who invests boldly may never cheat on taxes. Psychologists measure this with the DOSPERT scale (Weber, Blais and Betz, 2002), which splits risk into five domains: health and safety, ethical, financial, recreational and social.

A model that helps people plan trips, handle money or weigh a career move carries some picture of how much risk is reasonable. This asks which kinds of risk Jev treats as normal, compared with real adults.

How this was done

The people and the data

The comparison is the Basel-Berlin Risk Study (Frey, Pedroni, Mata, Rieskamp and Hertwig, 2017, in Science Advances): 1,524 adults, 749 in Basel and 775 in Berlin, mostly young, who filled in a long battery of risk questionnaires in German. This experiment uses their answers to DOSPERT's 40 activities, from "going whitewater rafting during the strong spring currents" to "illegally copying a piece of software", on the question "how likely would you be to do this". The data are public (CC BY 4.0). A content filter hides three of the 40 activities (drugs, an affair, unprotected sex), so 37 are compared here.

What Jev was asked

Each activity was one question with the scale's five answers:

How likely would you be to do this: "Walking home alone at night through an unsafe part of town"?
I am very unlikely to do this · I am unlikely to do this · I am not sure whether I would do this · I am likely to do this · I am very likely to do this

The wording is an English translation of the German questionnaire the adults saw. Jev also answered with the scale reversed, and for "most people".

How it was measured

Each answer becomes a number from 0 ("very unlikely") to 4 ("very likely"), averaged over Jev's probabilities and over the adults' answers. The 37 activities are ranked by each and the rankings compared (1 means the same order), then the averages are compared domain by domain, with an interval showing whether each gap is bigger than chance.

Where these questions live

37 questions across 1 topic of the map. Each opens on the map with every question in it.

Personality

Risk & Decision Style37

Every question

All 37 questions behind this result, the telling ones first: the examples the analysis points to, then the ones where Jev misses, biggest gap first.

Jev’s own answer

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