Risky Shifts and Gambling: What's At Stake?
the CDQ has led to a waning interest in and criticism of the-topic of group influences on risk taking. It is our position that the understanding of the social psychology of risk taking including group influence on risk taking is valuable and should not be abandoned, and that new, more adequate paradigms in the laboratory and in the field can further understanding in that regard. Although a full discussion of the concept of risk is impossible here, it is possible to describe briefly what the authors consider the conceptual criteria for risk taking to be. First, there must be subjective recognition on the part of the risk taker that something is or will be at stake. This necessarily includes awareness on the part of the individual that he is or will be engaging in risk taking behavior. Second, the individual must take action which by its nature makes the stake irreversible and which in its normal course will lead to outcomes.