Empathizing and systemizing skills influence risky decision making in children

• Two-mode theories (e.g., E-S theory) can help to understand the course of risk taking.
• Children with higher empathizing ability show higher risk taking tendencies.
• Systemizing skills are inversely associated with risk taking.
• High systemizing and low empathizing predict sensitivity to punishment.
• With increasing age from 7 to 12, children engage in more risk taking and show a lower sensitivity to punishment.

Tow-mode theories explain that risky behaviors in young individuals may be the result of competition between an affective system (e.g., Empathizing system) and a deliberative system (e.g., Systemizing system). We aimed to investigate a total of 134 children aged 7–12 years old on scores of risky decision making and empathizing and systemizing measures. The primary analysis indicated that systemizers showed higher sensitivity to punishment than those in balanced or empathizer classes (F (2,130) = 14.8, p < 0.001). Furthermore empathizers indicated higher level of risk taking than balanced and empathizer children (F (2,130) = 5.027, p = 0.005). Providing further support for two-mode theories in risky decision making, findings suggest that empathizing and systemizing measures may be useful indexes for addressing affective and deliberative systems.