Friday, June 22, 2007

A Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT) scale for adult populations
Ann-Renée Blais1Defence Research and Development Canada TorontoToronto, Ontario, Canada, Elke U. WeberCenter for the Decision SciencesColumbia University

Abstract

This paper proposes a revised version of the original Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT) scale developed by Weber, Blais, and Betz (2002) that is shorter and applicable to a {broader range of ages, cultures, and educational levels}. It also provides a French translation of the revised scale. Using multilevel modeling, we investigated the risk-return relationship between apparent risk taking and risk perception in 5 risk domains. The results replicate previously noted differences in reported degree of risk taking and risk perception at the mean level of analysis. The multilevel modeling shows, more interestingly, that within-participants variation in risk taking across the 5 content domains of the scale was about 7 times as large as between-participants variation. We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of the person-situation debate related to risk attitude as a stable trait.
Keywords: risk attitude, risk perception, risk taking, personality, psychometric scale.


http://journal.sjdm.org/06005/jdm06005.htm

1 comment:

Michael99 said...

From the article "We did not attempt to explain why the groups differed in risk perception, risk taking, and perceived-risk attitude when they did"

Some findings which may relate to this-

Perhaps recently experienced unfavorable events may lower expectations and depress the reference point. Consequently, when a favorable outcome occurs in the future, it may be even more enjoyable than if it had not been preceded by an unfavorable event. However, because people have limited resources for dealing
with emotionally impactful events the impact of these prior unfavorable events might vary with the intensity of the affect evoked.
from- Monga and Rao (2006)- Domain based asymmetry in expectations of the future.

From a trait rather than a state perspecitve in her PhD Gergana Yordanova demonstrates that it is important to consider both the extent to which people consider outcomes and the positive or negative focus people have in relation to those outcomes when trying to predict how people make decisions about the future. This is her questionnaire below. She has related it to several instruments which are connected with time preferences such as the "Consideration of future consequences", "Impulse buying", "Risk aversion", "Optimism" and "Need for cognition". She has also used it to discriminate between people in the type of investment decisions they make and to account for differences in susceptibility to descriptive variance effects.

Generation/Evaluation of potential outcomes.
1. Before I act I consider what I will gain or lose in the future as a result of my actions.
2. I try to anticipate as many consequences of my actions as I can.
3. Before I make a decision I consider all possible outcomes.
4. I always try to assess how important the potential consequences of my decisions might be.
5. I try hard to predict how likely different consequences are.
6. Usually I carefully estimate the risk of various outcomes occurring.
Positive Dimension, α = .87
7. I keep a positive attitude that things always turn out all right.
8. I prefer to think about the good things that can happen rather than the bad.
9. When thinking over my decisions I focus more on their positive end results.
Negative dimension, α = .87
10. I tend to think a lot about the negative outcomes that might occur as a result of my actions.
11. I am often afraid that things might turn out badly.
12. When thinking over my decisions I focus more on their negative end results.
13. I often worry about what could go wrong as a result of my decisions.

These findings have got me thinking about the role of emotion in time preferences. As usual a dual-process type account seems to be coming out from my reading. Barrett (2006) puts concept like the need to evaluate, need for cognition and rational engagement under the title "Propensity to think" and the behavioural inhibition and sensitivity to reward aspects under the term "Valuation sensitivity". For me this is closely related but perhaps more attractive term than impulsivity or impatience in the discounting models in that it considers the personal contraints and biases which influence evaluation and how they are influenced by the situation and previously experienced outcomes.

Emotionally the valence focus one takes from the situation is generated based on sensitivity to valenced information (which partially explains desciptive variance susceptibility effects). Her model which I need to look at in greater details aims to explain differences in valence focus which have effects on observable behaviour.

Self-regulatory resources should be closely related to these findings and the capacity to take risks may be mediated by the extent to which we can handle potential negative outcomes which are generated in ways as described by Barrett.