Recently, a man was jailed seven years for causing one of the biggest frauds in British history. The man lost 1.4 billion of a Swiss bank’s money, risking the entire future of the bank. To others he was known as a knowledgeable, sensible and responsible trader, but behind the façade he was losing control and taking huge financial risks on a daily basis.
Interestingly, research has shown that certain personality traits are associated with risk taking and we have explored this relationship further in our own study. For people like you and me, fraud might not belong to our everyday activities, but we might certainly take other, more legal, risks. In our study we investigated which personality traits that were displayed in people who did extreme sports such as mountain climbing, mountain biking and extreme skiing. This is what we found:
Unworried
One of the things we found was that people who are drawn to adventurous sports score low on Anxiety, which means that they tend to be calm and relaxed. These people scored low on tension, indicating that they do not easily get upset about things.
Influence
The adventurers tended to score high on Influence which means that they are likely to be assertive, competitive and that they like challenges. They scored high on Social Boldness which means that they tend to be bold, daring and adventurous. The results also revealed that they scored higher on Openness to Change which indicates that they like to think freely, apply new ideas and enjoy experimenting with different solutions to problems.
Losing control…
Finally, our results showed that people who like taking risks in sports score lower on Self Control than others, meaning that they tend to be carefree, spontaneous and nonconforming. The risk takers scored high on Liveliness, meaning that are enthusiastic and have an overall high energy. They also scored lower on Rule-Consciousness than others.
These results are similar to what research has shown before; risk takers are usually more socially bold and lively than others. Are you also a risk-taker behind the façade? Find out what sort of risk taker you are by signing up to PersonaBubble and taking our latest test.
