The present study investigated high risk behaviors in a population of college students through the use of a large, national quantitative data set and individual qualitative interviews. Since millions of students are enrolled in higher education, which often comes at a great financial cost and sacrifice to them and their families (Henretta, Wolf, Van Voorhis & Soldo, 2012), this is a particularly important population to study. Additionally, despite being a time of optimal health, adolescence is also a time of increased mortality, particularly as it relates to social morbidities (Resnick et al., 1997). While risk taking amongst college students manifests itself in many ways, the primary focus of this research will be on alcohol use, drug use and sexual behavior. Recent research in the field, including the composite measure of psychosocial maturity (Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham & Banich, 2009a), the social neuroscience perspective (Steinberg, 2008) and current trends in alcohol use, drug use and sexual behaviors amongst college students were examined. The American College Health Association National College Health Assessment II (ACHA-NCHA II) provided statistically significant evidence that students who drink more (frequency and quantity) have lower overall GPAs, experience more negative consequences as a result of their drinking and experience more impediments to academic success. Students who live on campus, are members of Greek fraternities and sororities and/or are varsity athletes engage in higher levels of binge drinking than their peers. Additionally, students who drink more (frequency and quantity) engage in other risky behaviors (unprotected sex, NMPD use, etc.) at higher rates than their peers. Qualitative interviews with high achieving students who engaged in various levels of risk taking resulted in the explication of six distinct themes: defining and conceptualizing risk taking, decision making, painting a picture of individual risk taking, academic achievement, peer perceptions and influence, and achieving both (what allows a high risk student to also be high achieving). In addition to the above analyses, the present study also examines implications for practitioners and directions for future research. / Educational Psychology

This study investigated whether lower achieving students, students whose cumulative academic progress was below the predetermined benchmark needed in order to be recommended for an honors course, showed gains in academic achievement after rejecting their teachers' advice and choosing placement in an academically challenging environment by considering levels of motivation, attitudinal factors toward learning, and other background information. Two groups were considered throughout this research, specifically, "Group Z" was defined as students who selected enrollment in an honors course over a less rigorous academic class despite their teachers' recommendations which were based on prior academic performances. "Group A" was defined as students who selected enrollment in courses which were felt by their teachers to appropriately suit their needs in terms of academic challenges as evidenced by prior achievement. A secondary purpose of this study examined characteristics that distinguish high achieving students from average and low achieving students by considering levels of self-efficacy, academic achievement, standardized statewide assessment scores, and propensity to reject teachers' advice. A mixed methods approach utilized achievement data from archived records on 343 middle school students and assessed attitudes toward learning through questionnaires. A Repeated Measures ANOVA revealed that "Group A" maintained significantly higher cumulative GPAs when compared to "Group Z". Repeated Measures ANOVAs were conducted in each of the four curricular areas and revealed that honors students significantly outperformed academic students and those that rejected their teachers' recommendations in all four curricular areas. In math, honors students outperformed academic students and academic students significantly outperformed students who rejected their teachers' recommendations. High achieving "Group Z" students reported higher levels of parental support and past academic accomplishments/increased self-efficacy, when compared to their high achieving "Group A" peers. A Discriminant Function Analysis confirmed that high achieving students are distinguishable from average and low achieving students due to their higher levels of past academic accomplishments/increased self-efficacy, a decreased propensity to reject their teachers' advice, and higher PSSA reading scores. / Educational Psychology

This dissertation examines the effect of various corporate governance mechanisms on firm risk taking. The first essay examines the effect on firm risk through the CEO ability channel, while the second essay examines the effect on firm risk through the institutional investor channel. This first essay investigates CEO risk management ability. Using CEO education as a proxy for ability I examine the relationship between CEO education and various types of risk: (1) market risk, (2) credit risk, and (3) operational risk. Propensity score methods are used as a way to deal with the endogenous matching problem which exists in the executive compensation literature. These methods are proposed as an alternative to the managerial fixed effects approaches such as ``spell fixed effects'' and the mover dummy variable method (MDV). While the managerial fixed effects methods would fail when the explanatory variables of interest are time-invariant, it is possible to capture this variation in managerial effects by using propensity score methods. I find that the effect on the various types of risks varies by the type of risk and by the type and quality of education. Firms with CEOs that have law degrees and actuarial credentials are associated with fewer operational risk events. While firms with CEOs that have MBA degrees are able to manage market risk better than their peers. Overall, the quality of CEO education matters, and in many cases it is associated with a simultaneous reduction in firm risk and increase in firm value. This second essay investigates the impact of institutional shareholder ownership on firm risk taking. I find a negative relationship between the aggregate institutional ownership percentage and firm risk taking. I also find that institutional ownership concentration induces risk taking. In addition, the effect on firm risk is stronger when institutional shareholders have majority control. The results provide support for both the prudent-man law and the large institutional shareholder hypotheses. Furthermore, the results are robust to quasi-experimental approaches including propensity score matching and doubly robust estimation. These findings provide additional evidence on the benefits and incentives of institutional shareholder monitoring. / Business Administration/Risk Management and Insurance

Gender and risk are both components of our everyday life, put in a context of occupational segregation, they become increasingly interesting. Does risk-assessment and ontological security affect occupational choices and does those aspects differ between the genders? These are some of the questions that this study aims to examine. The relevance of these questions is the possible contribution to occupational gender segregation and continued immanence for women in the labour market. Through semi-structured interviews, this study will target last year's law [in 2022] students whose future occupational choice is approaching. The interviews include both males and females, the males are primarily for comparisons between the genders and the females of the study are of main interest. The collected material was analysed with the theoretical framework of Anthony Giddens theory regarding risk and Simone de Beauvoir’s conceptualisation of immanence. The result of the thesis indicates that women assess risks and prioritise safety to a much greater extent than their male counterparts which directly influenced their occupational paths, values, and choices. Further conclusions include the notion of underlying immanence; visible in the female participants arguments and self-doubt which permeated their occupational goals and choices.

The overall research objective was to identify the effects of reward systems (rewards and a penalty) on risk-taking behavior and performance (quality and time) of construction workers from different cultures (American, Asian, and Latin American cultures). This research used the sociotechnical system as the underlying, guiding scientific framework. The research found that Americans and Latin Americans had higher risk-taking behavior than Asians (p<0.01). No difference in risk-taking behavior was found between Americans and Latin Americans (p<0.05). Although culture may influence individuals' risk-taking behavior, the results from this study showed that risk-taking behavior could be altered and suppressed by providing individuals with the proper safety training, education, and safety equipment. Customized safety training for people from different cultures would be useful because the culture elements that contribute to high risk-taking behavior could be addressed. The results also showed that the effects of reward systems on risk-taking behavior were not statistically significant (p>0.1). One possibility that no difference was found may be because the tasks used in this study did not contain enough possibility for participants to take more risk. The effects of reward systems on risk-taking behavior may have been reduced by the low possibility of risky behavior. It is suspected that if the tasks contained more opportunities for participants to take risk, differences in risk-taking behavior would have been significant. The researcher concluded that risk perception is situation-specific and has an influence on the individual's risk-taking behavior on that particular situation but cannot be used to predict risk-taking behavior. Also, general locus of control and general self-efficacy cannot be used to predict risk-taking behaviors. These findings are consistent with many studies that explore locus of control (Iversen & Rundmo, 2002; Rolison & Scherman 2002; Crisp & Barber, 1995), and many researchers that suggested self-efficacy is situation specific (Murdock et al., 2005; Martin et al., 1995; Perraud, 2000; Slanger & Rudestam, 1997). This study also found no relationship between risk-taking behavior and productivity, for both time and quality. / Ph. D.

This dissertation consists of two essays on the impact of hope on financial decision making. While hope is a commonly experienced positive emotion, research on the impact of hope on consumer decision making is relatively sparse. The first essay examines the impact of hope on gambling intentions. Findings from seven studies, including one consequential, demonstrate that in a gambling context, hope leads to suboptimal decisions when the focus of hope is on winning. We theorize and show empirically that this effect occurs because hope triggers experiential processing, which in turn increases gambling, interestingly without affecting rational expectations of winning. Evidence from a variety of gambling contexts suggest that hope leads to both intent and actual gambling behavior. This effect of hope on gambling does not hold for individuals low on trait experiential processing and is attenuated when individuals are prompted to not rely on their feelings. Thus, the authors contribute to the literature on hope by providing a detailed understanding of how hope impacts processing of information, which in turn leads to suboptimal decisions in a gambling context. More broadly, this work offers implications for policy makers and consumers to understand and to become aware of how everyday positive emotion can be detrimental to consumer welfare. The second essay examines the impact of hope on savings. Across five studies, this research displays that hope increases willingness to save. The effect of hope on savings intention is mediated by hope's focus on the future. When hope is no longer focused on the future but is instead focused on the past, this effect disappears. To rule out positive emotion in general as a driving effect, we examine pride, a positive emotion which is generally focused on the past and find that pride does not lead to savings intention unless the focus of pride is shifted to the future. We also examine an alternative potential explanation that a sense of closeness with one's future self is driving the effect of hope on savings intention but do not find support for this, rather it is a future time perspective that mediates the effect of hope on willingness to save. These findings and their implications for research on positive emotion, time perspective and financial decision making are discussed. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study consists of two essays on hope's impact on consumer decision making. Essay 1 examines a negative side of hope, namely how hope may motivate gambling intentions. Although hope is commonly thought of as a positive entity, could hope actually trap an individual, leading to suboptimal decisions? We find that hope of winning increases gambling intentions through experiential (or emotional) processing. When individuals are instructed to not rely on their feelings, this impact of hope on gambling intentions disappears. We also find that for individuals who tend not to utilize experiential processing, there is no impact of hope on gambling. Essay 2 looks at a positive consequence of hope: how hope motivates savings. We find that hope's focus on the future leads to motivation to save for one's future. When the focus of hope is shifted to the past, the impact of hope on saving disappears. We compare hope to another positive emotion, pride, as pride differs from hope by its typical focus on the past. We find that pride does not motivate savings unless its focus is shifted to the future. We rule out an alternative explanation for why hope may motivate savings by looking at sense of closeness with one's future self. We find that while a future time perspective mediates hope's impact on savings, sense of closeness with one's future self does not. The findings from these two essays add to the scarce literature on hope's impact on consumer decision making by providing two contrasting consequences of hope.

Existing literature has demonstrated an association between higher adolescent religiousness and lower risk taking via higher self-regulation. However, the present study uniquely sought to elucidate whether particular dimensions of self-regulation (i.e., emotion regulation, effortful control, and executive function) play differential roles in establishing this relation. It was hypothesized in longitudinal analyses over one year that higher religiousness would be associated with higher emotion regulation, which in turn was hypothesized to be associated with higher effortful control and executive function, and, subsequently, higher effortful control and higher executive function to be associated with higher risk taking. Participants included 157 adolescents at Time 1 (mean age = 14 years, 52% male) and 140 adolescents returned for Time 2 (mean age = 15 years, 53% male). Structural equation models, including confirmatory factor analysis and path models tested significant individual paths and mediation via bias corrected bootstrapping supported hypotheses across multiple alternative models, except for hypotheses regarding mediation analyses, which received limited empirical support. The findings highlight that higher religiousness is associated with higher emotion regulation and, in turn, higher emotion regulation is associated with higher executive function and effortful control which, subsequently, are associated with lower adolescent risk taking. In light of this, religiousness is understood as a contextual protective factor for adolescents and intervention strategies targeting emotion regulation, executive function, and effortful control may be associated with lower adolescent risk taking. / Ph. D.

The reported study measured the effects of alcohol on risk-taking 511 a penalty/incentive system. Subjects read scenarios involving industrial tasks and accidents from a video screen. Each scenario had a point value associated with it. Subjects had to decide whether they were willing to perform the task if there was a specified probability of having an accident. They would win points for successfully performing the task, but lose points for having an accident. Their goal was to score as many points as possible. The points won were used to buy tickets for one of two $100.00 drawings. Those with the most tickets had the highest probability of winning the drawing. This motivator was used to stimulate cautious decision-making about taking risks. Prior to participation in the task, subjects ingested a mixture of orange juice and 80-proof vodka to yield one of four BAC levels (0.00%, 0.05%, 0.07%, or 0.09%); however, alcohol was not found to affect risk-taking in this study. The concept of risk compensation is used to assist in the interpretation of the results. Prior to discussion of the methodology and results of the current study, the literature on the Theory of Risk Homeostasis and on the effect of alcohol on industrial tasks is given to show how this study fits into the spectrum of research. Lastly, recommendations are given for various considerations in conducting research on risk-taking and alcohol. / Master of Science / incomplete_metadata

People tend to maintain certain positive illusions about themselves and their futures that may be adaptive in buffering their self-esteem and feelings of efficacy from the effects of negative or threatening feedback. The illusion of unique invulnerability is the expectation that others will be the victims of misfortune and negative events more so than oneself. One possible implication of holding this belief is that, if a false sense of security is fostered, actual vulnerability to experiencing negative events that one has control over (for example, contracting lung cancer from smoking) might be increased if self-protective behaviors are decreased. The purpose of this study was to determine 1) what personality characteristics are related to this belief in unique invulnerability, 2) whether unique invulnerability is related to assumption of risk in behavior, 3) how accurately people assess the riskiness of their own behavior, and 4) how beliefs in unique invulnerability change over time and experience with risk. Subjects were 164 male and female Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets, ages 17-20, engaged in rappelling down a tall structure, an inherently risky activity. A measure of unique invulnerability and several personality measures were administered before rappelling, and risk-relevant behavior was observed during rappelling. Personal safety ratings were obtained and the invulnerability measure was readministered after rappelling. Results indicated that unique invulnerability was positively correlated with self-esteem (p<.004). For subjects’ first rappels, unique invulnerability was negatively related to number of bounds to descend a 40-foot tower (p<.01), such that as invulnerability increased, number of bounds decreased. Although assumption of risk was operationally defined as taking fewer bounds, further analyses indicated that number of bounds might be more a reflection of physical competence than of riskiness. This finding suggested that greater beliefs in invulnerability were related to competent rappelling performance, while lesser beliefs in invulnerability were related to ultra-conservative behavior. Self-reports of safety were positively related to number of bounds for first rappels off a 40-foot tower (p<.01), and were related to instructor ratings of jump competence and safety for first and second rappels off a 40-foot tower (ps<.05). This suggests that as a number of bounds became more conservative, and as instructor ratings improved, self-reports of safety increased. Finally, beliefs in unique invulnerability decreased after rappelling, both for subjects who rappelled (p<.001), and for control subjects who observed but did not rappel (p<.05). Conclusions are that self-esteem is an important component of the illusion of unique invulnerability, that invulnerability is related to competent performance while engaging in risky activities like rappelling, that invulnerability is subject to change over time and experience, and that subjects can fairly accurately assess the objective safety of their behavior. Implications for theory and research on unique invulnerability are discussed, as well as limitations and future directions. / Master of Science

Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death and disability in children. Many injuries to school-aged children occur during unsupervised peer activities, but peer influences on risky behavior in preadolescence remain under-investigated. We examined peer context effects on reported risk-taking, identified predictors of peer influence, and compared peer influence in high- and low-social-functioning groups. Forty-one boys aged 8-10 years listened to scenarios in which they encountered opportunities for risk-taking (e.g., swimming unsupervised, playing with matches) with their best friends, with "cool guys" (desired peers), with disliked peers, and alone. They rated the likelihood that they would engage in risky behavior in each condition for each scenario. Children also completed measures of friendship satisfaction, peer orientation, and socially desirable responding. Parents completed the CBCL and an injury history form. Children reported more risk-taking with positive peers than alone, and less with negative peers than alone. Four variables (peer orientation, friendship satisfaction, social problems, mother unmarried) accounted for 77% of the observed variance in peer influence on risk-taking. Children in the high social competence group showed larger peer influence, and indicated a preference for risk-taking with best friends over cool guys. Results are discussed in terms of improving injury prevention efforts by reconceptualizing "peer pressure" as a developmentally adaptive aspect of child functioning. / Master of Science