Zuckerman’s Alternative Five Factor Model and Risk Taking Behavior

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between risk taking behavior/perception and five factors of personality (AFFM). To realize the main objective of the study DomainSpecific Risk-Taking Scale and Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire were administered on a group of 57 subjects ranging in age from 18 to 24 years. Obtained data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics and Pearsons correlations. Correlational analysis revealed Activity and Sociability to be positively correlated with all the five domains of risk taking behavior/perception i.e. Ethical, Financial, Health/Safety, Recreational and Social. Neuroticism-Anxiety has correlated negatively with Financial, Health/Safety, and Recreational domains of risk taking. Aggression-Hostility has correlated negatively with Health/Safety. Impulsive-Sensation Seeking has corresponded positively with domains of risk taking viz Financial, Health/Safety and Social.

Review of literature revealed that none of these theories take individual differences in personality into account. Regarding the individual differences, one early trait theory described by Zuckerman et al. (1964). The theory of Sensation Seeking which is based on assumptions that there are consistent individual differences in optimal levels of stimulation and arousal. Investigators explored the relationship between Sensation Seeking and different areas of risky behavior such as potentially risky experiments, sports, vocations, criminal activities, sexual behavior, smoking, heavy drinking, reckless driving, driving under the influence of alcohol, gambling, chronic substance dependence, vulnerability to drug use, age of onset and cooccurring psychiatric disorders (Zuckerman, 1979a;1994a;Kaestner et al. 1977;Montey & Birenbaum 1986;Sutker et al. 1978Sutker et al. , 1979. Eysenck (1976) asserted that both extraversion and psychoticism are related to risky behavior such as "promiscuity". Similarly, the relationship between personality factors of Five Factor Model and risk-taking in adolescents and adults are explored. Neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are strongly related with pathological gambling (Mecca, 2003); and neuroticism and conscientiousness are with sexual risk-taking behavior (Hoyle et al. 2000). Alternative Five Factor Model of personality has also been studied in relation to risky behavior suggesting that there is a significant relationship with Impulsive Sensation Seeking, Aggression-Hostility, and Sociability, but not to scales for Neuroticism-Anxiety and Activity . However, a few studies have been conducted on risky behavior in Indian perspective especially in the context of Alternative Five Factor Model of personality.
For the development of Alternative Five Factor Model (AFFM), Zuckerman (1989) studied the structure underlying 46 scales selected from eight inventories used as measures of temperament or involved in psychobiological studies of personality. The original Big-Five Factor Model was based on lexical analysis of self and other ratings using adjectives rather than a questionnaire. However, some traits which are important across species such as impulsive-sensation seeking and aggression-hostility are not represented in the lexicon analysis to become primary factors.
These traits have proven to have a high heritability and strong biological correlates (Zuckerman, 1979(Zuckerman, , 1994(Zuckerman, , 2006. Alternative Five Factor Model  explains personality structure in terms of five factors, namely, Neuroticism-Anxiety, Activity, Aggression-Hostility, Impulsive-Sensation Seeking, and Sociability. Neuroticism-Anxiety describes emotional upset and instability, tension, anxiety, lack of self-confidence, and sensitivity to criticism. Activity scale consists of two facets: Need for General Activity which describes a need for activity and tendency to experience impatience and restlessness when being inactive; and Need for Work Effort which describes the tendency to invest a lot of energy for hard work and other tasks. Aggression-Hostility describes the readiness to verbal aggression or rude and antisocial behavior. From Impulsive-Sensation Seeking Scale, two facet scores can be obtained i.e. Impulsivity and Sensation Seeking which describe a need for novelty, change, excitement, lack of planning and acting on impulse. The another factor is Sociability which consists of parties and friends, which describe liking for parties and having a lot of friends; and Isolation Intolerance which describes an intolerance of social isolation. So, the present study is mainly oriented to find out the personality correlates of risk-taking behavior in terms of Alternative Five Factor Model. METHODOLOGY Sample 57 participants were selected from the various departments of the Chaudhary Ranbir Singh University, Jind ranging in age from 20 to 26 years with the mean age of 23 years consisting of 35 males and 22 females.

Measures
Following measures were used for data collection.
(1) Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT) Scale (Weber et al. 2002) composed with five content domains, i.e., ethical, financial (can be further decomposed into gambling and investment), health/safety, social, and recreation. The scale includes total 30 items using 7-point rating scale ranging from 1 (Extremely Unlikely) to 7 (Extremely Likely). Regarding the psychometric properties of the scale, moderate test-retest reliability has found. Satisfactory factorial and convergent/discriminant validity have been investigated in respect to construct such as sensation seeking, dispositional risk taking, intolerance for ambiguity, and social desirability. Zuniga and Bouzas (2005) also provided the good construct validity of health/safety and recreational risk-taking subscales in relation to a sample of blood alcohol concentrations.
(2) Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire  consists of 5 content scales, plus an infrequency scale that allows eliminating subjects with careless responding. The ZKPQ includes total 99 dichotomous items (in sentence format and true-false response set) that assess the basic dimensions of personality that constitute the Alternative Five Factor Model (AFFM). The five scales can be described in terms of their contents: Neuroticism-Anxiety Scale (19items); Activity Scale (17 items); comprises two components, i.e. Need for General Activity and Need for Work Activity; Aggression-Hostility Scale (17 items); Impulsive -Sensation Seeking Scale (19 items); two facet scores can be obtained from this scale i.e. Impulsivity and Sensation Seeking; and Sociability Scale (17 items) contains two sub components, i.e. Parties and Friends, and Isolation Intolerance. The test retest reliabilities of the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire range from .72 to .84 in American and German samples (Schmitz, 2004). Satisfactory validity has been found, with multi-scale questionnaire for both convergent and discriminant validity within a multi-trait-multi-method matrix (Campbell & Fiske, 1959).

Procedure
The investigator contacted to all the students personally in their respective departments and established a rapport for making them acquired with purpose of the study. Then tests were administered strictly following the instructions specified in the respective test manuals.

RESULTS
Obtained data was analyzed by applying descriptive statistics, and Pearson's Product Method of Correlation. The distribution of scores of variables of personality and risk taking are analyzed along with their means, standard deviations, skewness and kurtoses presented in table 1. Table 1 shows that distributions of scores are almost normal.

DISCUSSION
The goal of this study was to find out the relationship between personality factors of Zuckerman's model (1993) and five domains of risk-taking behavior. To realize the research objective of the study, obtained data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics, and Pearson's correlations. Results revealed that there is substantial relationship between five personality factors and five domains of risk-taking behavior. Correlations matrix depicts that Activity and Sociability both are having significant positive relationship with all the five domains as well as composite score of risk-taking behavior. The present finding is confirmatory to earlier findings (Zuckerman & Kuhlman, 2000;McGhee et al., 2012). McGhee et al. (2012) have reported significant positive association between Extraversion and risk-taking choices on a sample of preadolescents. Impulsive-Sensation Seeking has been found having positive relationship with Financial, Health/Safety, Social and composite score of risk-taking behavior (Zuckerman, 1987;1994;Thornquist & Zuckerman, 1995).
Here the negative relationship of, Neuroticism-Anxiety with Financial, Health/Safety, Recreational and composite score of risk-taking behavior; and also negative of Aggression-Hostility with Health/Safety and composite score of risk-taking behavior are confirmatory to the earlier findings (Mecca, 2003;Muller, 2000). Though the present findings are convincing but can't be considered as generalized. Hence, for more generalization, large scale studies are required and suggested.