Testing Risk-Taking Behavior in Chinese Undergraduate Students

The DOSPERT, developed by Weber, Blais and Betz, can be used to measure risk behaviors in a variety of domains. We investigated the use of this scale in China. The participants were 1144 undergraduate students. After we removed some items that were not homogeneous, a principal component analysis extracted six components that accounted for 44.48% of the variance, a value similar to that obtained in the analysis conducted by Weber et al. Chinese undergraduates scored higher on the investment subscale compared with the results of Weber’s study. The analysis of individual differences indicated that there was a significant gender difference in the ethical, investment and health/safety subscales, where males scored significantly higher than females. The type of home location was also significant on the ethical and health/safety subscales, where undergraduates from the countryside scored lower than undergraduates from cities and towns on the ethical subscale, and undergraduates from towns scored higher than those from other two areas on the health/safety subscale. Male undergraduates from towns scored higher than male undergraduates from other areas on the gambling subscale.