Personality and risk taking

Abstract

There is a long-standing and persistent belief that risk-taking is a stable personality trait, often referred to as risk attitude or risk preference. This belief implies that a given individual will take similar risks across a range of situations. The article reviews different definitions of risk attitude that show cross-situational consistency to varying degrees. Additionally, several important person-related and situation-related factors affecting risk-taking and its underlying mechanisms are reviewed, including risk perception, risk–value tradeoffs, affective and deliberative processes, and emotion regulation.