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Threat to Life and Risk-Taking Behaviors: A Review of Empirical Findings and Explanatory ModelsUniversity of Haifa, Israel, zbz@netvision. net.il
University of Haifa, Israel 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.
Key Words: stress coping emotion regulation life threat disaster trauma risky behavior
This version was published on May
1, 2009 Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol. 13, No. 2,
109-128 (2009) |
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