Choice Dilemma Questionnaire Research Articles

Risk Preferences as Related to Judged Consequences of Failure

In order to explore why the most widely used measure of risk proneness (Choice-dilemmas Questionnaire) yields so much internal variation, its items were filled out in the usual manner and then in terms of how serious the consequences of failure would be in each case. Correlations between the usual risk recommendations, consequences of failure, and national norms for magnitude of risky shift suggested a positive relationship between risk preference and degree of shift toward risk, a negative relationship between seriousness of consequences of failure and risk preference, and a negative relationship between seriousness of consequences and degree of shift toward risk. The findings suggest empirical and theoretical specificity for the speculation that different items engage different values.

THE EFFECTS OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES AND THEIR CONGENER CONTENT ON LEVEL AND STYLE OF RISK TAKING1

ABSTRACTThe risk taking behavior of sober subjects on the choice dilemma questionnaire was compared to that of subjects drunk on bourbon, vodka and synthetic alcohol. The results indicated that (a) contrary to previous findings, drunk subjects will accept greater subjective risk than sober subjects and (b) subjects drunk on bourbon, which is very high in congener content, will take greater risk than those drunk on the other two beverages, which are low in congener content. Alcohol produced greater elevation on some items in the questionnaire than on others. Earlier research has shown that older age produces a decrease in risk on the same items, while group discussion produces an increase in risk on a different subset of items. This may indicate, among other things, that the shift toward greater risk taking that occurs under the influence of alcohol is not produced by the processes that are responsible for the risky shift in group discussion.