Threat to life and risk-taking behaviors: a review of empirical findings and explanatory models.

Hasida Ben-Zur, Moshe Zeidner

Journal: Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc 2009;13(2):109-28

PMID: 19193927

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Abstract

This article reviews the literature focusing on the relationship between perceived threat to life and risk-taking behaviors. The review of empirical data, garnered from field studies and controlled experiments, suggests that personal threat to life results in elevated risk-taking behavior. To account for these findings, this review proposes a number of theoretical explanations. These frameworks are grounded in divergent conceptual models: coping with stress, emotion regulation, replenishing of lost resources through self-enhancement, modifications of key parameters of cognitive processing of risky outcomes, and neurocognitive mechanisms. The review concludes with a number of methodological considerations, as well as directions for future work in this promising area of research.

Address: School of Social Work, University of Haifa, Israel. [email protected]

DOI: 10.1177/1088868308330104

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MeSH Terms: Adaptation, Psychological, Attitude to Death, Cognition, Crime Victims, Disasters, Empirical Research, Fear, Humans, Internal-External Control, Life Change Events, Military Personnel, Models, Psychological, Risk-Taking, Self Concept, Stress, Psychological, Students, Terrorism