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Threat to Life and Risk-Taking Behaviors: A Review of Empirical Findings and Explanatory Models

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: zbz{at}netvision.net.il.

	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.

First published on February 4, 2009, doi:10.1177/1088868308330104

Personality and Social Psychology Review 2009;13:109.

A more recent version of this article appeared on May 1, 2009


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