The Relationship between Young Adults’ Risk Taking Behavior and their
Understandings and Evaluations of the Socio-Moral Aspects of Risk Taking Behavior
Leigh Shaw, Eric Amsel, Joshua Schillo, Brooke Bosgieter, Jamie Garner, & Michael Thorn
Weber State University
Introduction
Adolescents and young adults participate in various risk
behaviors, including alcohol use, drug use, and dangerous
driving. Adolescents are overrepresented in experiencing
negative outcomes associated with these activities, such as
alcohol abuse and driver fatalities (Caffray & Schneider,
2000). Why do adolescents engage in such risk behaviors?
Research on this question has focused on risk and protective
factors that may promote or inhibit risk behavior (e.g.,
Jessor & Jessor, 1993). Such research ascribes a minimally
active role to adolescents themselves and fails to account
for adolescents’ own understandings of risk behaviors.
The present study examined adolescents’ own
characterizations of their involvement in risk behaviors, and
their understandings of risk behaviors from a social domain
perspective (Killen, Levinton, & Cahill, 1991; Nucci,
Guerra, & Lee, 1991; Smetana & Turiel, 2003). This
perspective asserts that adolescents’ risk taking
vulnerability is related to their understandings and
evaluations of the moral (preventing harm to others),
prudential (preventing harm to self), conventional
(upholding social norms), and personal (asserting personal
choice) aspects of risk behaviors. Social domain research
(Killen et al., 1991; Nucci et al., 1991) has shown that
individuals’ understandings and evaluations of drug use
systematically account for and vary contingent on the
salience of moral, prudential, conventional, and personal
domains.
The present study extended previous findings in three ways.
First, we elicited individuals’ thinking about risk behaviors
in a more open-ended format to examine whether they
appreciate risk taking as involving multiple socio-moral
aspects (moral, prudential, conventional, personal). We
expected that those who grasp the multiplicity of sociomoral aspects would be less likely to engage in risk-taking.
Second, we examined individuals’ frequency and intentions
to engage in three realms of risk behavior: alcohol use, drug
use, and risky driving. Previous research has relied on ratio
and interval scales to measure risk taking frequency that
may not distinguish between different intentions for
engaging or not engaging in risk behavior. For example, not
engaging in risk taking may reflect an Avoidant (i.e.,
avoiding risk out of fear of endangering one’s health and
welfare) or an Opportunistic (i.e., not engaging in risk due
to a lack of opportunity or resources) status. Similarly,
engaging in risk taking may reflect a Curious (i.e., engaging
in risk because the opportunity presented itself and one
wants to know what it feels like), or a Risk-Seeking (i.e.,
actively seeking out risks and openly identifying with
others who have engaged in similar behavior) status. Pilot
data found evidence for these statuses, and that these
statuses varied within-subject by realm of risk behavior.
Method
Participants
Participants were 108 undergraduates, 19 males and 89
females (mean age 19.2 years, range 18-21) recruited in
their classes or through a campus bulletin at a public
university in a mid-size Western city. Participants received
either extra credit or the chance to be entered to win $100.
Consent was obtained for all participants.
Figure 1: Percentage of Participants in Each Risk Taking
Intention Category, by Risk Realm
100
Avoidant
Opportunistic
Curious
75
Risk Seeking
% 50
Design, Assessments, and Scoring
Participants completed a four-section, on-line
questionnaire developed for this study, in part on the basis
of pilot data. In Section 1, participants provided
demographic information. In Section 2, participants’ risk
taking behavior was assessed using two scales. The Risk
Taking Frequency Scale recorded participants’ frequency of
risk taking behavior on a 5-point scale (from never to
frequently) for each of three risky behaviors in each of the
three risk realms (alcohol use, drug use, driving). The Risk
Taking Intention Scale involved participants selecting one
of the following as the best characterization of their risktaking intention in each of the three risk realms:
Avoidant: “I did not and I never would have engaged in any
these risk behaviors because I felt that these behaviors
were very dangerous for my health, welfare and violated
my sense of values.”
Opportunistic: “I did not engage in any of these risky
behaviors, but I might have if the timing or circumstances
had been different. I didn’t really think about the
consequences of these behaviors, and I wasn’t too
worried about them anyway.”
Curious: “I tried these risky behaviors a few times because
I was curious and the opportunity presented itself. I did
not brag about it to my friends and I wasn’t trying to look
cool or anything, I just wanted to know what it felt like.”
Risk Seeking: “I was a person who participated in these
behaviors and I hung out with others who also did so as
well. I wanted to engage in these behaviors and I never
hid having done them from those who I wanted to know.”
25
0
Alcohol Use
Drug Use
Risky Driving
Table 1: Correlations Between the General Risk Taking Factor
and Risk Taking Intention Categories
Avoidant Opportunistic Curious Risk Seeking
Risk Taking
Factor Score
-.71***
.11
.44***
.53***
*** p<.001
Figure 2: Mean Baseline and Final Multiplicity Score by Realm
2
Baseline
Final
1.5
Multiplicity
Score
1
In Section 4, participants completed other assessments
which were not analyzed for this poster.
Realm Specificity of Risk Taking
Although the mean frequency of risky behavior was low,
there was more risky driving (M=1.7) than alcohol use
(M=1.3), and more alcohol use than drug use (M=1.1),
F(1,107)=107.07, p<.001. Although the frequency of drug
and alcohol use were positively correlated (r=.56, p<.01),
neither was correlated with risky driving.
The percentage of participants in each Risk Taking Intention
category varied by risk realm, X2(9) = x.xx, p<.001 (Figure
1). The percentage of participants who avoided risk was
greater in alcohol (70%) and drug (82%) use than in driving
(41%). The percentage of participants who did not engage in
risk due to a lack of opportunity was greater in driving (15%)
than in alcohol (6%) or drug (2%) use. The percentage of
participants who engaged in risk out of curiosity was greater
in driving (33%) than in alcohol (8%) or drug (13%) use.
And, the percentage of participants who actively sought out
risk was greater in alcohol use (16%) and driving (11%) than
in drug use (3%). Only 29% of participants reported the
same intention category across all realms (mostly Avoidant),
15% reported no consistency, and 17% reported being a Risk
Seeker in one realm and Avoidant in another.
Risk Taking Scale Comparison
Each of the four Risk Taking Intention categories was
summed over the three risk realms and correlated (removing
age and sex) with overall risk taking frequency (derived by
averaging risk taking frequency scores in each realm) (Table
1). Overall risk taking frequency was significantly and
negatively correlated with the tendency to be Avoidant, but
not Opportunistic. Overall risk taking frequency was
significantly and positively correlated with the tendency to be
Risk Seeking and Curious, but more strongly for the former
than the latter.
0.5
0
Alcohol Use
Drug Use
Risky Driving
Risk Realm
In Section 3, participants’ evaluations of and justifications
for behaviors in each risk realm were elicited in a baseline
situation and in the context of explicit moral, prudential,
conventional, and personal concerns. In the final situation,
the baseline situation was presented again and evaluations
and justifications were elicited. Evaluations were scored on
a 5-point scale from really not alright to really alright.
Justifications were scored according to the number (from 0
to 4) of socio-moral aspects (i.e., moral, prudential,
conventional, personal) given. Inter-rater reliability was
calculated at xx%.
Results
Table 2: Partial Correlations Between Risk Taking Intention
Categories and Baseline and Final Mutiplicity Scores
Avoidant Opportunistic Curious Risk Seeking
Multiplicity Score
Baseline
Final
** p<.01
.32**
-.02
*p<.05
-.22*
.01
-.11
.09
-.31**
.01
Multiplicity Scores
Participants’ justifications for why a protagonist should or
should not engage in a risk behavior in the baseline and final
situation in each realm were coded for multiplicity (whether
none, one, two, three, or four of the socio-moral aspects were
given, Figure 2). An analysis of the effect of Situation
(Baseline, Final) and Risk Realm (Alcohol, Drugs, Driving)
on Multiplicity score revealed only a main effect of
Situation, F(1, 107)=15.80, p<.001. A majority (53%) of
participants had a higher multiplicity score in the final, as
compared to the baseline, situation in all risk realms.
Multiplicity Scores and Risk Taking
Baseline and Final Multiplicity scores were correlated
(independently of age and sex) with frequency of Risk Taking
Intention category (Table 2). Only the Baseline Multiplicity
score significantly correlated with Risk Intention: positively
with Avoidant, negatively with Opportunistic and Risk
Seeking, and unrelated to Curious. These findings suggest
that having a spontaneous grasp of multiple socio-moral
aspects of risk taking is related not only to more avoidance of
risky behavior, but also to fewer cases of seeking out or
hoping to try such activities.
Discussion
Adolescent risk taking was considered from a social
domain perspective, which presumes an active and
intentional adolescent who acts in accord with broader
socio-moral understandings of risk behaviors, an
assumption not always made in risk literature.
Based on this perspective, two new assessments were
developed: The Risk Taking Intention scale assessed
adolescents’ reasons for engaging (Curious, Risk Seeking)
or not engaging (Avoidant, Opportunistic) in risk taking.
The intention categories were related to differences in
predicting overall risk taking, providing predictive validity
to the scale. The Multiplicity score indexed adolescents’
grasp of multiple socio-moral aspects of risky behavior. A
majority of adolescents’ spontaneous (baseline) grasp of
the multiple socio-moral aspects of risk taking was shown
to improve through mere exposure to other aspects.
There was little consistency in adolescents’ risk taking
intention or frequency across risk realms, with a sizable
minority showing extremes in their intentions (Avoidant
and Risk Seeking). These data suggest that rather than a
general tendency to engage in risk taking, adolescents
select the realms in which they do and do not take risks.
How do adolescent represent realms in which they do and
do not take risks? Adolescents who spontaneously
represent more of the socio-moral aspects of risk taking
tend toward more Risk Avoidance and less Risk Seeking
and Opportunism. Thus, those who do (Curious, Risk
Seeking) and do not (Avoidant, Opportunistic) engage in
risk taking vary in their understandings of such behavior.
There are a number of explanations for the relation
between socio-moral multiplicity scores and risk-taking
intention, including there being a direct relation between
such representations and risk taking behavior. However,
other explanations include the impact on risk taking of
merely representing more reasons (moral, prudential,
conventional) to not to do it, or the general socioemotional maturity of those scoring high in multiplicity.
Further research is needed to test these and other
explanations in a larger and younger sample of adolescents
who may engage in more risk taking behavior than those in
the present sample.
References
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