National Risk Register news article + personal risk

Do you think autistic people are less likely to be risk takers than allistic?

An interesting hypothesis and initial investigations would give some weight to this being possible.

For example, NT brains develop a more intuitive connection between risky actions and consequences in the late teens to early 20s typically:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-wide-wide-world-psychology/201506/why-are-teen-brains-designed-risk-taking

Many autists maintain a late teen mental state for an aweful lot longer than this, plus our whole brain development is different, so it seem entirely possible that the two are linked.

I wonder if we could secure funding for a medical study into this...

So I see a dichotomy between being taken advantage of by others, leading to risks, primarily emotional and taking risks because of trying to cope.

I assume that both of these risks had a foundation of autism.

I think I've taken risks in my life without realising how risky the behaviour is and have been taken advantage of emotionally, causing me harm.

I think though that when you move into the physical realm I'm not so much of a risk taker eg. I wouldn't do any risky sports - however, when I was young I self-medicated* with alcohol and drugs.

Taking those led me to some very risky behaviour indeed and I'm probably lucky to still be here.

* to deal with stress and overload.

I think if autistic people had referendums on preparing for all of those scenarios, we'd decide to prepare way more than is currently being done. There'd be less "we'll, I'm sure we won't have flooding/a pandemic so let's do the bare minimum"

We see things differently and process differently to most people so we don't always see the risks but then again we're more likely to plan ahead and be prepared than most so I would say we're less likely to take risks than most are.

Interesting topic thanks for sharing.