Status-driven risk taking and the major dimensions of personality

Demographic differences in rates of mortality, violence, and accidents are frequently attributed to underlying differences in a personality disposition of competitive risk seeking. Here we describe a new Status-Driven Risk Taking (SDRT) scale that assesses this construct, and we examine its relations with the major dimensions of personality. We found that self-reports of SDRT were substantially correlated with observer reports from close acquaintances, and that men averaged about two-thirds of a standard deviation higher than did women. Within the space of the HEXACO personality factors, SDRT represented, as hypothesized, a blend of low Honesty-Humility and low Emotionality; relations with the Five-Factor Model were weaker.