Assessing risk-taking: what to measure and how to measure it

Abstract

Risk-taking has been a major field of interest for scientists and for applied purposes since decades. However, many researchers have noted that the current measurement instruments fail to show adequate validity and predictive power. Given the recent calls to develop new measures, this paper aims to highlight six key points that should be kept in mind when constructing or using measures of risk-taking concepts. Specifically, we encourage risk-taking scholars (a) to pay close attention to the terminology used in studies, (b) to distinguish measures of general and specific risk-taking, (c) to distinguish risk-taking from the appeal of risky activities, (d) to keep in mind the subjectivity of risk-taking, (e) to consider the measurement of passive risk-taking, and (f) to favour more realistic risk-taking tasks. Overall, these recommendations should help researchers to design and use more relevant risk-taking measures.