Taking Chances in Romantic Relationships.
A 64 item Internet questionnaire was completed by 381 undergraduates at a large southeastern university to assess taking chances in romantic relationships. Almost three fourths (72% self identified as being a "person willing to take chances in my love relationship." Engaging in unprotected sex, involvement in a "friends with benefits" relationship, breaking up with a partner to explore alternatives and having sex before being ready were the most frequent risk taking behaviors. Both love and alcohol were identified as contexts for increasing one's likelihood of taking chances in romantic relationships 60% and 66% respectively. Being male, a senior, a "player," and Black were associated with higher frequencies of risk taking. Learning theory was used to explain the findings. Implications and limitations of the study are identified. Introduction and Research Questions On the ball again I'm riding for a fall again I'm gonna give my all again Taking a chance on love Taking a chance on love These words from the classic love song Taking a Chance on Love by Vernon Duke, John Latouche Ted Fetter emphasize the connection between taking risks and romance. Couples in love, do indeed, take chances they move in together after knowing each other for a short time, they change schools to be together, and they forgo condom usage thinking "this time won't end in a pregnancy." Taking chances has been studied under the rubric of "risk taking behavior" Previous research has focused on emotional risk taking (Carter and Carter, 2010) online risk taking (Baugartner et al. 2010) and sexual risk taking behavior (Cooper, 2010) Researchers have also identified personality (Turchik et al. 2010) and gender associations (Okonkwo, 2010) of those most likely to engage in risk taking behavior. The current study focused on five research questions: 1. To what degree do college students express a willingness to take chances in their romantic relationships? 2. To what degree does being in love and being under the influence affect chance taking behavior? 3. How does defining oneself as a risk taker predict taking chances in romantic relationships? 4. What variables are associated with taking chances in romantic relationships? 5. To what degree do individuals who have misgivings about taking chances in relationships but go ahead anyway? In order to answer the first risk takers) and second (love/alcohol as risk contexts) research questions, we examined the responses to the following survey statements (with 5 point Likert scale response categories ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree) 1. I view myself as a risk taker. 2. I am a person who is willing to take chances in my love relationship. 3. When I am in love, I am vulnerable to taking chances. 4. When I have been drinking alcohol, I am more vulnerable to taking chances. In order to answer the third (self definition of risk taker related to taking chances) and fourth (variable associated with risk taking) research questions, we analyzed 3 logistic regression models for each of the 8 variables of chance taking activities as dependent variables (see Results section for descriptions of variables) The first model included independent variables of the responses to "I view myself as a risk taker" and "I am a person who is willing to take chances in my love relationship." The second model added the variables of responses to "When I am in love, I am vulnerable to taking chances" and "When I have been drinking alcohol, I am more vulnerable to taking chances." The third model included the following variables: sex, race, drinking habits, relationship status, class in college, age, religiosity, religious preference, total number of serious relationships, and political views. In order to answer the fifth (misgivings) research question, we filtered the dataset to include only "yes" responses to each of the 8 chance taking activities identified earlier.