Risk preference shares the psychometric structure of major psychological traits

To what extent is there a general factor of risk preference, R—akin to g, the general factor of intelligence—that may complement domain-specific dimensions? And can risk preference beregarded a stable psychological trait?... [ view full abstract ]

To what extent is there a general factor of risk preference, R—akin to g, the general factor of intelligence—that may complement domain-specific dimensions? And can risk preference beregarded a stable psychological trait? These conceptual issues persist because few attemptshave been made to integrate multiple risk-taking measures, in particular measures from differ-ent and largely unrelated measurement traditions (self-reported propensity measures assessingstated preferences; incentivized behavioral measures eliciting revealed preferences; frequencymeasures assessing concrete risky activities). We provide a substantive empirical foundationfor addressing these issues with a comprehensive psychometric approach (1,507 healthy adultscompleting 39 risk-taking measures), and found that correlations between propensity and be-havioral measures were weak. Yet, a general factor of risk preference, R, emerged from statedpreferences, and generalized to frequency measures of concrete risky activities. Moreover, Rproved highly stable across time, indicative of a psychological trait. Our findings offer a firststep towards a general theory of risk preference and have implications for its assessment.