The Impact of Personality Traits on Risk-Taking Behaviorsin Adolescents Mediated by Emotion Regulation

Investigating risk-taking behaviors from the perspective of their consequences for adolescents’ psychological development, life, health, social growth, and academic success holds a special place. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the impact of personality traits and risk-taking behaviors mediated by emotion regulation.

The present study is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-correlational in terms of research method using structural equation modeling. The statistical population of the study was all male, high school students in Urmia city in the academic year 2022-2023 (N = 11500), of whom 372 were selected using the Cochran (2010) method based on the number of observed variables (20) and allocation of a coefficient of 20 for each variable using a multi-stage cluster sampling method. To collect the data, the Cloninger and colleagues (1994) Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), the Garnefski et al. (2001) Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the Zadeh Mohammadi et al. (1397) Risk-Taking Behaviors Questionnaire were used.

The results showed that novelty-seeking and reward dependence have a direct positive and significant impact on negative emotion regulation and risk-taking behaviors. Novelty-seeking has a direct negative and significant impact on positive emotion regulation. Harm avoidance and persistence have a direct positive and significant impact on positive emotion regulation and a direct negative and significant impact on negative emotion regulation. Harm avoidance has a direct negative and significant impact on risk-taking behaviors. Positive emotion regulation has a direct negative and significant impact on risk-taking behaviors. Negative emotion regulation has a direct positive and significant impact on risk-taking behaviors. Novelty-seeking and reward dependence have an indirect positive and significant impact on risk-taking behaviors through positive and negative emotion regulation. Harm avoidance and persistence have an indirect negative and significant impact on risk-taking behaviors through positive and negative emotion regulation.

Therefore, it can be concluded that to reduce the tendency towards risk-taking behaviors in adolescents, the role of personality traits and emotion regulation strategies should be considered