Personality Profile of Risk-Takers

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.