In real life, benefits are positively correlated with risks. In order to achieve high benefits people have to take risks. However, people sometimes engage in risky situations for other reasons, e.g. for excitement. We call this former tendency instrumental risk taking, and the latter - stimulating risk taking. It is assumed that individual differences can be described among people in their willingness to take one kind or another kind of risk. Here, we test the idea that instrumental risk takers, who have a more analytic style of thinking, show more sensitivity towards risk perception, i.e. they recognize greater differences between certain risk levels than stimulating risk takers do, who have a less sensitive risk evaluation. These hypotheses are supported herein by the results of the following empirical study. Additionally, we discuss gender differences in the relationship between risk propensity and risk perception sensitivity.
This paper proposes a new way of differentiating among risks. We assume that an important factor in risk perception is whether people perceive risk taking as a pleasure or as a necessity to reach a goal. Two studies are presented. Study 1 examines whether different risks can be divided into two categories: the category of instrumental risks (risk-as-necessity), and the category of stimulating risks (risk-as-pleasure). The results of this study indeed show that risk can be divided into two categories: 1) stimulating risks (e.g., bungee-jumping), and 2) instrumental risks (e.g., taking a bank-loan). Study 2 tests whether the perception of instrumental risk is more rational (probability as a basis for risk estimation) and the perception of stimulating risk is more emotional (fear as a basis for risk estimation). The main effects of the analysis of variance as well as post-hoc tests confirm this assumption.
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