An Investigation On Whether Social Values Moderate The Relationship Between Risk Taking And Anxiety

The relationship between anxiety and risk taking has been found to have many moderators (e.g., ambiguity, domain). The current study investigated if social values (i.e., considering what is valued to one’s friends, family, and society) was also one of these moderators. During the current study, people were first exposed to a manipulation of social values (i.e., either risk taking or safety seeking is socially valued) before completing the Balloon Analogue Risk Task and a measure of anxiety. People took significantly more risks when risk taking was manipulated to be socially valued. However, no significant correlation between anxiety and risk taking was found overall or for each condition. Although it is unclear why no correlation between anxiety and risk taking was found, this study exemplified that it is possible to manipulate social values regarding risk taking. Moreover, these results offer more support for social values theory regarding risk taking (Stone & Allgaier, 2008), which suggests that people take the values of their friends, family, and society into account when making risky decisions.