Lest the would-be reader think that this book bears directly on the personality dynamics of daredevil professions, addicted gamblers, or big-time speculators, it does not. Considerably less glamorous, but perhaps with greater meaning, it is essentially a monograph consisting of an intensive experimental study which is published in detail for the first time. The comprehensive nature of this book is revealed not only by the number of variables considered, but by a fresh approach to the subject in which the reader is reminded that such apparently diverse areas as motivation, thinking, problem solving, etc, are, in fact, quite arbitrarily separated and that the concept of risk taking can be of value in integrating them.
In utilizing a moderator variable approach, the authors bring about the prospect of consistency to an area which has been plagued by scattered and conflicting findings. The promise of such an