scholarly journals People Envision Risk-takers as More Stereotypically Black and Masculine, Particularly When the Risks are Reckless Versus Responsible

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Wages ◽  
Sylvia Perry ◽  
Allison Skinner ◽  
Galen Von Bodenhausen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
White Men ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Risk Takers ◽  
Risk Taker ◽  
Associate Risk

Who do people view as the risk-takers of society? Given that risk permeates everyday decision-making, understanding whether people mentally associate risk-taking with social groups is a valuable yet unexplored question. We propose that the concept of risk-taking connotes gendered race associations. With four experiments (N = 1404, mostly White Americans), we test whether gendered race stereotypes are conceptually associated with risk-takers, broadly construed, as well as with reckless versus responsible prototypes of risk-takers. We find that people perceive Black men as more masculine than White men, and therefore, more willing to take risks (Study 1). We further find that people envision reckless risk-takers as more stereotypically Black and masculine (and less White and feminine) than responsible risk-takers in trait attributions (Studies 2-3) and mental images constructed with the reverse correlation task (Study 3). Finally, when provided an opportunity to invest real money that could be tripled or lost, we find that people financially discriminate against reckless risk-takers in favor of responsible risk-takers (Study 4). Findings suggest that gendered race stereotypes and risk-taker prototypes are conceptually intertwined and consequential.

Personality Profile of Risk-Takers

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Elizabeth D. Joseph ◽  
Don C. Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Big Five ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Personality Profile ◽  
Risk Propensity ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Risk Takers ◽  
Risk Taker ◽  
Propensity Scale

Abstract. Risk-taking is a long-standing area of inquiry among psychologists and economists. In this paper, we examine the personality profile of risk-takers in two independent samples. Specifically, we examined the association between the Big Five facets and risk-taking propensity across two measures: The Domain-Specific Risk-Taking Scale (DOSPERT) and the General Risk Propensity Scale (GRiPS). At the Big Five domain level, we found that extraversion and agreeableness were the primary predictors of risk-taking. However, facet-level analyses revealed that responsibility, a facet of conscientiousness, explained most of the total variance accounted for by the Big Five in both risk-taking measures. Based on our findings across two samples ( n = 764), we find that the personality profile of a risk-taker is extraverted, open to experiences, disagreeable, emotionally stable, and irresponsible. Implications for the risk measurement are discussed.

scholarly journals Identity and the Legislative Decision Making Process: A Case Study of the Maryland State Legislature

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Brown
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Black Women ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Black Men ◽  
White Women ◽  
White Men ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Women Legislators ◽  
Men I

Both politicians and the mass public believe that identity influences political behavior yet, political scientists have failed to fully detail how identity is salient for all political actors not just minorities and women legislators. To what extent do racial, gendered, and race/gendered identities affect the legislation decision process? To test this proposition, I examine how race and gender based identities shape the legislative decisions of Black women in comparison to White men, White women, and Black men. I find that Black men and women legislators interviewed believe that racial identity is relevant in their decision making processes, while White men and women members of the Maryland state legislature had difficulty deciding whether their identities mattered and had even more trouble articulating how or why they did. African American women legislators in Maryland articulate or describe an intersectional identity as a meaningful and significant component of their work as representatives. More specifically, Black women legislators use their identity to interpret legislation differently due to their race/gender identities.

scholarly journals Race–Crime Congruency Effects Revisited: Do We Take Defendants' Sexual Orientation Into Account?

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D. Petsko ◽  
Galen V. Bodenhausen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Congruency Effect ◽  
White Men ◽  
Juror Decision Making ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Crime Type ◽  
Black Defendants

Decades ago, social psychologists documented a juror decision-making bias called the race–crime congruency effect: a tendency to condemn Black men more than White men for stereotypically Black crimes but to do the reverse for stereotypically White crimes. We conducted two high-powered experiments ( N = 2,520) to see whether this pattern replicates and to examine whether it is attenuated when the defendant is gay. When participants reported on what the average American juror would do (Experiment 1), we observed greater harshness toward Black defendants accused of stereotypically Black crimes but not the previously documented reversal for stereotypically White crimes. Defendant sexual orientation did not moderate this pattern. When participants reported their own judgments about the same criminal cases (Experiment 2), they expressed greater harshness toward White (vs. Black) defendants and toward heterosexual (vs. gay) defendants. These effects were not moderated by crime type. Implications for the race–crime congruency effect are discussed.

Taking Risks: A Requirement of the New Superintendency

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 290-310
Author(s):  
C. Cryss Brunner
Keyword(s):  
Risk Taking ◽  
School Administrators ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Women Superintendents ◽  
National Study ◽  
Successful Leadership ◽  
Life Circumstances ◽  
Risk Takers ◽  
Risk Taker

According to Cantor and Bernay (1992), “Risk taking is a critical factor of successful leadership” (p. 158). Surprisingly, however, the literature about the superintendency does not report that superintendents are risk takers. In fact, school administrators, at large, have never been portrayed as risk takers (Konnert & Gardner, 1987). In contrast, I found the theme of risk taking in the narratives of twelve women in a national study that I did between 1993–1997. The purpose of this article is to examine the practice of women superintendents in order to get a glimpse of what it takes for superintendents to be or to become risk takers. The study revealed that the women had life circumstances and personal characteristics that helped them to relax and take risks. There were two primary circumstances: (1) community, and (2) challenge; and two primary personal characteristics: (1) courage, and (2) curiosity. If risk taking is an important part of practice in the superintendency, then we would be well served to use the knowledge gained from examinations, like this study of women superintendents’ practices, that clearly identify what it takes to be a risk taker in the role.

scholarly journals Personality Profile of Risk Takers: An Examination of the Big Five Facets

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Joseph ◽  
Don C. Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Big Five ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Personality Profile ◽  
Risk Propensity ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Risk Takers ◽  
Risk Taker ◽  
Propensity Scale

Risk taking is a long-standing area of inquiry among psychologists and economists. In this paper, we examine the personality profile of risk takers in two independent samples. Specifically, we examined the association between the Big Five facets and risk-taking propensity across two measures: The Domain-Specific Risk-Taking Scale (DOSPERT) and the General Risk Propensity Scale (GRiPS). At the Big Five domain level, we found that extraversion and agreeableness were the primary predictors of risk taking. However, facet-level analyses revealed that responsibility, a facet of conscientiousness, explained most of the total variance accounted for by the Big Five in both risk-taking measures. Based on our findings across two samples (n = 764), we find that the personality profile of a risk taker is extraverted, open to experiences, disagreeable, emotionally stable, and irresponsible. Implications for the risk measurement are discussed.

An Investigation of Adolescents’ Reported and Self-Perceived Risk-Taking

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 772-788
Author(s):  
Taylor Heffer ◽  
Breanne Wylie ◽  
Teena Willoughby
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Perceived Risk ◽  
Low Risk ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Educational Practices ◽  
Self Perceptions ◽  
Rule Breaking ◽  
Risk Takers ◽  
Risk Taker

Adolescence is a sensitive period for taking risks, yet research has not investigated whether adolescents who engage in risk-taking actually perceive themselves to be risk-takers. In the current study, students (Grade: 6-8, N = 437) reported on their frequency of risk-taking and perceptions of themselves as risk-takers, forming four groups of interest (aware risk-takers, unaware risk-takers, aware non-risk-takers, unaware non-risk-takers). We also investigated whether these groups were associated with engagement in certain types of risks. Overall, low-risk-takers had more accurate self-perceptions (i.e., greater awareness) compared with high risk-takers. Of concern, unaware high risk-takers engaged in more rule-breaking and adventurous risks compared with non-risk-takers, though they did not consider themselves to be risk-takers. It is possible that this group of adolescents may be less receptive to educational practices that target high risk-takers given that they do not consider themselves to be a risk-taker.

scholarly journals Sensitivity to sequential regularities in risky decision making

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Kóbor ◽  
Ádám Takács ◽  
Karolina Janacsek ◽  
Zsófia Kardos ◽  
Valéria Csépe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Sequence Learning ◽  
Average Risk ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Statistical Regularities ◽  
Risk Taker

AbstractProbabilistic sequence learning involves a set of robust mechanisms that enable the extraction of statistical patterns embedded in the environment. It contributes to different perceptual and cognitive processes as well as to effective behavior adaptation, which is a crucial aspect of decision making. Although previous research attempted to model reinforcement learning and reward sensitivity in different risky decision-making paradigms, the basic mechanism of the sensitivity to statistical regularities has not been anchored to external tasks. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the statistical learning mechanism underlying individual differences in risky decision making. To reach this goal, we tested whether implicit probabilistic sequence learning and risky decision making share common variance. To have a more complex characterization of individual differences in risky decision making, hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted on performance data obtained in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) in a large sample of healthy young adults. Implicit probabilistic sequence learning was measured by the Alternating Serial Reaction Time (ASRT) task. According to the results, a four-cluster structure was identified involving average risk-taking, slowly responding, risk-taker, and risk-averse groups of participants, respectively. While the entire sample showed significant learning on the ASRT task, we found greater sensitivity to statistical regularities in the risk-taker and risk-averse groups than in participants with average risk-taking. These findings revealed common mechanisms in risky decision making and implicit probabilistic sequence learning and an adaptive aspect of higher risk taking on the BART. Our results could help to clarify the neurocognitive complexity of decision making and its individual differences.

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