The Relative State Model: Integrating Need-Based and Ability-Based Pathways to Risk-Taking. (May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mishra, Sandeep; Barclay, Pat; Sparks, Adam
• Is Part Of: Personality and social psychology review. Volume 21:Number 2(2017)
• Page Start: 176
• Page End: 198
• Publication Date: 2017-05
• Subjects: risk -- risk-sensitivity theory -- embodied capital -- signaling -- evolutionary psychology -- individual differences -- domain-specificity -- antisocial conduct; Personality -- Periodicals; Social psychology -- Periodicals; 155.05
• DOI: 10.1177/1088868316644094
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1088-8683

Abstract

Who takes risks, and why? Does risk-taking in one context predict risk-taking in other contexts? We seek to address these questions by considering two non-independent pathways to risk: need-based and ability-based. The need-based pathway suggests that risk-taking is a product of competitive disadvantage consistent with risk-sensitivity theory. The ability-based pathway suggests that people engage in risk-taking when they possess abilities or traits that increase the probability of successful risk-taking, the expected value of the risky behavior itself, and/or have signaling value. We provide a conceptual model of decision-making under risk—the relative state model —that integrates both pathways and explicates how situational and embodied factors influence the estimated costs and benefits of risk-taking in different contexts. This model may help to reconcile long-standing disagreements and issues regarding the etiology of risk-taking, such as the domain-generality versus domain-specificity of risk or differential engagement in antisocial and non-antisocial risk-taking.