From
Lagattuta 2007,
an illustrated story
was used to demonstrate
negative past events to
4-6 year olds.
Kristin Hansen Lagattuta (2007) found that children as young as 3 were able to understand that negative past events could cause story characters to worry about them repeating. Girls were more likely than boys at all age ranges to assign worry about negative events repeating as the cause of people's behavior or feelings.
The literature is rich with examples of differences in men's and women's risk perception.
Per E. Gustafson's 1998 review suggests that quantitative and qualitative studies gave contradictory results about gender differences in risk perception.
Weber et al (2002) suggests that women are more risk-averse than men in financial, health/safety, recreational, and ethical decisions, but not in social decisions. However, Weber et al found that engaging in a risky activity is not associated with gender, meaning that other factors probably come into play in women's assessment of possible risky activities.
The Daily Democrat reports Lagattuta's research as "Women Anticipate Potential Threats Better Than Men", while
ScienceDaily headlines the story with "Females More Likely To Believe Negative Past Events Predict Future". Neither article gives a name or gender for the headline writer, but I have my suspicions. I'm unconvinced that understanding motivations in story characters is necessarily the same as worrying about an event yourself. I also have concerns about agency in the experimental stories; having a favorite toy stolen by a particular person strikes me as different than, say, losing it on a boat ride.