Personality and domain‐specific risk taking

The concept of risk propensity has been the subject of both theoretical and empirical investigation, but with little consensus about its definition and measurement. To address this need, a new scale assessing overall risk propensity in terms of reported frequency of risk behaviours in six domains was developed and applied: recreation, health, career, finance, safety and social. The paper describes the properties of the scale and its correlates: demographic variables, biographical self‐reports, and the NEO PI‐R, a Five Factor personality inventory (N = 2041). There are three main results. First, risk propensity has clear links with age and sex, and with objective measures of career‐related risk taking (changing…