Citation

Vredenburgh AN. Proc. Hum. Factors Ergon. Soc. Annu. Meet. 2014; 58(1): 544-548.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1541931214581113

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Human factors forensic consultants often need to evaluate the reasonableness of conduct in the course of their investigations. Many cases involve adolescents who, in general, have a reputation for being more likely to engage in risky behaviors. The present study evaluates and compares risk perception and risk-taking behaviors of adolescents and young adults. The Domain Specific Risk Taking Scale was used to obtain reported levels of risk-taking and perceived risk attitudes regarding four commonly encountered content domains: ethical, health/safety, social, and recreational; an additional subscale evaluating eating disordered behavior was created for this study. The results indicate that adolescents reported a higher likelihood of risk-taking behavior than young adults on the recreational subscale, but were no different than young adults for the health/safety, social and eating disorder subscales. Adolescents perceived unethical behavior as lower risk, and were more likely to participate in such behaviors. Adolescent risk perception for health/safety, recreational, social and eating disorders subscales were not found to be different than that reported by the young adults.

Language: en