Friday 24 July 10:30 - 11:00

Hall: 19 - Room 16 SPT

Division: Transversal Invited Keynote speaker

The presentation deals with risk-taking from a Social Psychology perspective, based both on fundamental psychology and on applied psychology. The goal is to better understand some of the effect of risk-taking for risk seekers, thanks to two empirical studies. Risk is most of the time described as something negative, dangerous, and with unknown outcomes. Risk-taking implies not knowing what the outcomes will be, but it is also associated with emotions, and they are often negative. Nevertheless, it is not always the case as we will show with a first study which is related to risk-taking in a circus, with circus artists achieving dangerous performances, while the second study is with motorcycles and cars in a rally. Risk-taking implies the tendency to engage in behaviors that have the potential to be harmful, to hurt you, to be dangerous, but, at the same time, there is the final option of obtaining a positive outcome. Indeed, if one engages in risky situations, it's because it is expected that the outcomes will be positive rather than negative, i.e., making the best possible show or winning the rally, but also escaping from emotional difficulties by activating 'controlled' risk-taking.