The Assessment of Physical Risk Taking: Construct Validation of a New Behavioral Measure
Risk taking is a complex heterogeneous construct that has proven difficult to assess, especially when using behavioral tasks. We present a new measure – the Assessment of Physical Risk Taking (APRT) – as a comprehensive assessment of the probability of success and failure, and magnitude of reward and punishment of different types of physically risky behaviors with a variety of outcome scores. Participants (N = 224) completed APRT in a laboratory setting, half of whom had a 1.5 s delay interposed between button presses. Main effects, two-way interactions among five within-subject factors, and interactions between the within-subject factors and Delay were estimated for four APRT outcome scores using Generalized Estimating Equations. Results indicated that Injury Magnitude and Injury Probability exerted much stronger effects than the other factors. APRT scores correlated with self-reported risk taking in thrilling activities specifically, but only for those who did not have a delay between APRT responses.