Leigh Shaw, Eric Amsel, Joshua Schillo, Brooke Bosgieter, Jamie Garner, & Michael Thorn Weber State University

1. Table 1: Correlations Between the General Risk Taking Factor and Risk Taking Intention Categories Avoidant Opportunistic Curious Risk Seeking Risk TakingFactor Score -.71*** .11 .44*** .53*** *** p<.001 Table 2: Partial Correlations Between Risk Taking Intention Categories and Baseline and Final Mutiplicity Scores Avoidant Opportunistic Curious Risk Seeking Multiplicity ScoreBaseline .32** -.22* .01 -.31** Final -.02 -.11 .09 .01 ** p<.01 *p<.05 The Relationship between Young Adults’ Risk Taking Behavior and their Understandings and Evaluations of the Socio-Moral Aspects of Risk Taking Behavior 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 hasfocused 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 socio-moral 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. 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 risk-taking 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.” 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%. In Section 4, participants completed other assessments which were not analyzed for this poster. Results Realm Specificity of Risk TakingAlthough 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 ComparisonEach 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. 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 TakingBaseline and FinalMultiplicity scoreswerecorrelated (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 socio-emotional 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. Figure 1: Percentage of Participants in Each Risk Taking Intention Category, by Risk Realm Leigh Shaw, Eric Amsel, Joshua Schillo, Brooke Bosgieter, Jamie Garner, & Michael Thorn Weber State University Figure 2: Mean Baseline and Final Multiplicity Score by Realm References Caffray, C.M. & Schneider, S.L. (2000). Why do they do it? 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