Sensation seeking and negative affectivity as predictors of risky behaviors: a distinction between occasional versus frequent risk-taking.

The tendency for occasional risk-taking was compared with the tendency for frequent risk-taking within a population of 201 young people. Positive affectivity, negative affectivity, sensation seeking, and risk-taking were measured for the domains of substance use, behavior on the road, sexual relations, and deviant behavior. The tendencies for occasional versus frequent risk-taking generalize across three of the four domains. Multivariate analysis show that demographics variables and personality traits do not predict the tendency for occasional risk-taking as well as they predict the tendency for frequent risk-taking. Furthermore, sensation seeking is the only trait linked to the tendency for occasional risk-taking in the domains of substance use and deviant behavior. The tendency for frequent risk-taking, notably in the domain of substance use, is predicted by age, sensation seeking, and negative affectivity. The other three domains are only predicted by sensation seeking. The results support the idea that the tendency for occasional risk-taking is distinct from the tendency for frequent risk-taking and that the two tendencies are not controlled by the same determinisms.