The study was based on a survey sent in 2004 to all the managing directors and general directors of Spanish banks and savings banks (70 banks and 46 savings banks). The survey contained a selection of questions related to the emotional traits and demographic characteristics of the executives. In addition, to evaluate the level of economic risk of banks and savings banks, various measurements were used related to the general risk, the credit risk and lending portfolios .

The investigation also compares the connection between business risk and previous experience in the banking sector, educational level, experience of the executive in a risk area and their participation in property."The most significant of these aspects is the educational level of the directors, in other words, it has an influence if the director has a degree, a master's or a doctorate. The higher the degree, the greater the level of risk assumed by the bank they manage", states Delgado.

Is there a correlation between risk aversion and gender? In articles in BusinessWeek, Rochelle Sharpe and researcher Zahid Iqbal and colleagues, writing in the Atlantic Economic Journal, concluded that female executives took fewer financial risks than did male executives. John Coates, a researcher at the University of Cambridge in neuroscience and finance, has said that if women made up half of the financial world, there would be fewer "volatile swings" in the markets. Women would serve to temper all that testosterone.

In his book, Highwire Management: Risk-Taking for Leaders, Innovators and Trailblazers author Gene Calvert, a professor of management at Johns Hopkins University, concluded the following about executives and risk taking:

• Managers who are more successful take more risks than managers who are less successful--a moderate number of calculated modest-sized risks was characteristic of top executives and that taking balanced risks equates with successful careers. Less successful managers seem to trade off career security over career advancement.
• Female managers risk differently than male managers. Female managers are believed to take fewer risks by men and by women -- but research doesn't support the reality. Women tend to blame themselves for the failure, while men blame other factors.
• Managers driven to high achievement don't take high risks frequently. Managers oriented to high achievement take moderate risks and avoid perceived high-risk activities that are beyond their grasp. 
• High fear of failure does not inhibit taking high management risks. Managers with a high fear of failure are less likely to take moderate risks. Instead, they tend to take big risks (which impose a limited sense of responsibility) or little risks (which cause little anxiety and have small potential loss).
• Skill does not matter more than chance in taking large or small risks. Your beliefs determine your behavior; there is little reality to perception of specific risk, since you have no real way of knowing. Belief in the power of skill to determine the outcome increases the willingness to take moderate risks and does not influence the willingness to take big or little risks. Conversely, believing chance is the determining factor decreases the tendency to take moderate risks and increases the tendency to take big and little ones.
•  Managers in larger firms don't take more risks than managers in smaller firms.
• Managers with graduate degrees (such as MBA's) take more risks than those not having graduate degrees. They do, but the reasons are not clear. There are no differences between college and high school graduates.

Lastly, active risk takers rarely label themselves as such, in part because their risk taking does not seem terribly risky to them. Estimates are that about 30% of North Americans are true risk takers who are serious, regular, experimental, rule-bending, entrepreneurial risk takers.