Risk Taking

This volume traces the development of risk theory's dominant conceptual frameworks by using leading theorists' own accounts of how they formed their perspectives. It examines from the vantage point of social sciences the fundamental bases and theoretical foundations of risk analysis. The phenomenon of risk is considered, accordingly, in its psychological, social, and cultural connotations. The complexity of issues, the tensions among interested parties, the uncertainties, and the human response to risk are explored, for the first time in a single volume, by leading theorists in the field.

How well do you know the risks in your life? Probably not as well as you think -- and that can make for dangerous living. In this provocative book, John F. Ross reveals how new types of risk decisions -- choices never confronted by our parents or grandparents -- have filled our lives with worry and confusion. Through vivid storytelling, intriguing forays into history, and compelling insights about modern science, Ross helps the reader combat fear, manage risk, and become a truly empowered citizen of the twenty-first century.

In the tradition of Irvin Yalom's Love's Executioner, Dr. Lynn Ponton's remarkable book takes readers inside the minds of 15 troubled adolescents to provide a compelling look at today's teenage experience. Included are Jill, a 13-year-old thrill-seeking runaway; Hannah, a privileged daughter of suburbia who suffers from anorexia; and Joe, a high school senior with a serious drinking problem. The case studies vary from the puzzling to the horrifying, but with her confident and engaging voice, Ponton brings out the unifying themes in all of them. She proposes that teenage "acting out" can be understood in terms of "risk-taking", and that by redirecting this natural impulse into healthy channels parents can minimize the dangers inherent in today's teen culture and help their children develop into mature individuals.

Challenging the traditional views of adolescence and offering a constructive new model for understanding teenage behavior, The Romance of Risk is an essential book for parents concerned about their children's well-being in this age of drug abuse, rampant violence, and AIDS.

Risks are an integral part of complex, high-stakes decisions, and decisionmakers are faced with the unavoidable tasks of assessing risks and forming risk preferences. This is true for all decision domains, including financial, environmental, and foreign policy domains, among others. How well decisionmakers deal with risk affects, to a considerable extent, the quality of their decisions. This book provides the most comprehensive analysis available of the elements that influence risk judgments and preferences.

The book has two dimensions: theoretical and comparative-historical. The study of risk-taking behavior has been dominated by the rational choice approach. Instead, the author adopts a socio-cognitive approach involving: a multivariate theory integrating contextual, cognitive, motivational, and personality factors that affect an individual decisionmaker's judgment and preferences; the social interaction and structural effects of the decisionmaking group and its organizational setting; and the role of cultural-societal values and norms that sanction or discourage risk-taking behavior.

The book's theoretical approach is applied and tested in five historical case studies of foreign military interventions. The richly detailed empirical data in the case studies make them, metaphorically speaking, an ideal laboratory for applying a process-tracing approach in studying judgment and decision processes at varying risk levels. The case studies analyzed are: U.S. interventions in Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989 (both low risk); Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968 (moderate risk); U.S. intervention in Vietnam in 1964-68 (high risk); and Israel's intervention in Lebanon in1982-83 (high risk).