Trait Boldness Predicts Increased Risk-Taking in a Gambling Task

We examined how the constructs of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition from the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM) predicted decision-making behavior in a mixed-gambles task where participants were asked to make repeated choices to accept or reject a 50/50 gamble with ranging gains and losses, with most gambles having a positive expected value. The TriPM includes a novel dimension that is of potential relevance to decision-making: boldness. Measures of boldness focus on social efficacy, dominance, self-assurance, and emotional resilience. In Study 1 we found that participants higher in boldness showed greater sensitivity to the expected value of a 50/50 gamble, with a higher probability of accepting gambles overall. Participants high in boldness also showed a steeper relationship between the expected value of gambles and response times, deliberating more when the value was low, but responding quicker when value was high. Those higher in disinhibition were less likely to accept gambles with a high expected value while also being more likely to accept gambles with a low expected value. Both meanness and disinhibition predicted quicker response times, but an additive model indicated this was due to disinhibition and its shared variance with meanness. A replication of this study confirmed our findings