Psychological Reports: Sociocultural Issues in Psychology

2014, 115, 3, 932-947. Psychological Reports 2014

EVENINGNESS IS ASSOCIATED WITH HIGHER RISK-TAKING,

INDEPENDENT OF SEX AND PERSONALITY1
DAVIDE PONZI, M. CLAIRE WILSON, AND DARIO MAESTRIPIERI
Institute for Mind and Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Summary.This study tested the hypotheses that eveningness is associated
with higher risk-taking propensities across dierent domains of risk and that this
association is not the result of sex dierences or confounding covariation with particular personality traits. Study participants were 172 men and women between 20
and 40 years of age. Surveys assessed chronotype, domain-specific risk-taking and
risk-perception, and Big Five personality dimensions. Eveningness was associated
with greater general risk-taking in the specific domains of financial, ethical, and
recreational decision making. Although risk-taking was associated with both risk
perception and some personality dimensions, eveningness predicted risk-taking independent of these factors. Higher risk-taking propensities among evening types
may be causally or functionally linked to their propensities for sensation- and novelty-seeking, impulsivity, and sexual promiscuity.

The source of inter-individual variation in risk-taking is a topic of

great interest to psychologists, economists, evolutionary biologists, and
other behavioral scientists (e.g., Figner & Weber, 2011). Whether or not individual dierences in the propensities to take risks are stable over time
and consistent across contexts, or they are temporally variable and domain-specific, however, has been debated for quite some time (e.g., Kowert
& Hermann, 1997; Weber, Blais, & Betz, 2002; Hanoch, Johnson, & Wilke,
2006; Figner & Weber, 2011). Historically, psychologists viewed risk-taking as a stable personality trait (e.g., Eysenck & Eysenck, 1977; Dahlback,
1990). Personality traits such as impulsivity and sensation seeking have
been associated with risk preferences in the context of drug abuse, smoking, unsafe sex, and extreme sports (Zuckerman & Kuhlman, 2000). Moreover, emphasis has been placed on consistency in risk-taking propensities across dierent contexts such as antisocial behaviors, gambling, and
sex (e.g., Mishra & Lalumiere, 2009; Mishra, Lalumiere, & Williams, 2010).
However, there is now a growing body of research documenting high intra-individual variability in risk preferences across dierent domains (e.g.,
MacCrimmon & Wehrung 1988; Weber, et al., 2002). People's risk preferences are also very sensitive to the framing of the context; e.g., if the outcome of a situation results in a loss or a gain, which makes people's prefer-

Address correspondence to Dario Maestripieri, Institute for Mind and Biology, The University of Chicago, 940 E. 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 or e-mail (dario@uchicago.edu).
1

DOI 10.2466/19.12.PR0.115c28z5

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EVENINGNESS AND RISK-TAKING

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ence for risk inconsistent (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) and leads to a view
of risk-taking more similar to a state than a trait construct.
Personality traits have been postulated to play an important role in
predicting both stability of risk preferences across domains and individual
dierences in domain specificity (e.g., Levenson, 1990; Zuckerman & Kuhlman, 2000; Lauriola & Levin, 2001; Nicholson, Soane, Fenton-O'Creevy,
& Willman, 2005). A study measuring Big Five personality traits showed
that extraversion and openness to experience were associated with overall greater risk propensity across six domains, but both traits failed to predict risk consistently in each domain (Nicholson, et al., 2005). In another
study, consistency of risk-aversion across three domains of everyday life
was found to be positively associated with agreeableness and conscientiousness but negatively with neuroticism (Soane & Chmiel, 2005). Personality dierences are also expected to influence the perception of risk
and the assessment of the costs and benefits (or rewards) associated with
risky decisions. For example, personality traits associated with emotionality play an important role in risk perception, while conscientiousness is
more important for the evaluation of the potential benefits (Weller & Tikir,
2011). Likewise, individual dierences in the perception of framing eects
during risky choices are mediated by individual dierences in personality
traits (Lauriola & Levin, 2001).
The influence of stable behavioral characteristics other than personality traits on general and domain-specific risk-taking remains, with a few
exceptions, largely uninvestigated. One type of stable behavioral characteristic that has recently been investigated in relation to risk taking is chronotype. Chronotype refers to inter-individual variation in sleep time preference such that some individuals prefer to wake up early in the morning
and go to sleep early in the evening while others prefer the opposite pattern (e.g., Adan, Archer, Hidalgo, Di Milia, Natale, & Randler, 2012). Sleep
preferences are generally distributed on a continuum in a population, with
unequivocal morning and evening types at the two extremes of the distribution; approximately 70% of the population is between these extremes,
exhibiting a weak sleep pattern bias or no bias at all (Adan, et al., 2012).
Although age and environmental factors (e.g., geographic and seasonal
variation, work schedule, etc.) can contribute significantly to variation in
sleep patterns (Roenneberg, Kuehnle, Pramstaller, Ricken, Havel, Guth, et
al., 2004; Leonhard & Randler, 2009; Natale, Adan, & Fabbri, 2009), interindividual variation in chronotype is generally stable over time and moderately heritable (h2 = .45; Hur & Lykken, 1998; Klei, Reitz, Miller, Wood,
Maendel, Gross, et al., 2005; Hur, 2007). Moreover, there are sex dierences
in chronotype, as men are more likely to be evening types than women
(Roenneberg, et al., 2004; Randler, 2007), although this dierence is relatively small and detected only with large samples (Randler, 2007).

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Interest in the possible association between chronotype and risk-taking has been stimulated by observed dierences between morning and
evening types in various psychological and behavioral traits; specifically,
evening types have been reported to score higher than morning types in
extraversion (e.g., Matthews, 1988; Daz-Morales, 2007; Randler, Ebenhh,
Fischer, Hchel, Schro, Stoll, et al., 2012), novelty seeking (Caci, Robert,
& Boyer, 2004; Killgore, 2007), sensation seeking (Tonetti, Adan, Caci, De
Pascalis, Fabbri, & Natale, 2010), sexual promiscuity (Randler, et al., 2012),
and addictive behaviors such as alcohol or drug abuse (Prat & Adan,
2011). Consistent with expectations, two previous studies of chronotype
and general risk-taking have reported that evening types have higher propensities for risk-taking than morning types (Killgore, 2007; Maestripieri,
2014), while another study found a similar dierence in the specific domain of financial risk-taking but no dierences in other domains (Wang &
Chartrand, in press). These three studies, however, have some important
limitations.
Killgore (2007) examined dierent measures of risk-taking in a sample of 54 young adults (29 male, 25 female) that was subdivided by a median split into evening-type and morning-type groups based on self-reported sleep patterns and preferences. The evening-type group scored
higher than the morning-type group on the Brief Sensation-Seeking Scale
and in Total Risk-Taking Propensity (a cumulative Index obtained by
combining all the items in the Evaluation of Risks Scale), but there were
no dierences in performance on the behavioral Balloon Analogue Risk
Task (Killgore, 2007). Sex dierences in risk-taking and their possible confounding interaction with chronotype were not considered in this study.
Moreover, it was not clear how men and women were distributed into the
evening-type and morning-type groups. This is problematic because men
generally score higher than women in all measures of risk-taking (e.g., Byrnes, Miller, & Shafer, 1999; Figner & Weber, 2011). If men were over-represented in the evening-type group and under-represented in the morningtype group, then dierences in risk-taking in relation to sleep pattern may
have been confounded by sex.
Maestripieri (2014) reported that in a population of MBA students,
men scored higher than women in self-reported risk-taking, but eveningtype women scored as high as men and significantly higher than morningtype women. In this study, risk-taking was measured with a single selfreported item in which participants were asked to state, on a scale from
1 to 10, how willing or prepared they were to take risks in general, while
chronotype was assessed with a single-item self-identification as evening
type, morning type, or neither. In this study, there were no dierences in
risk-taking between evening- and morning-type men, but the number of

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morning-type men in the sample was small (n = 21). Two additional limitations of this study were the particular nature of the sample (all MBA students with an unusual distribution of chronotypes) and the fact that the
analysis of risk-taking in relation to chronotype did not control for personality variables.
Wang and Chartrand (in press) investigated the relationship between
chronotype and risk preferences in six domains of life using the DomainSpecific Risk Taking Scale (DOSPERT; Weber, et al., 2002). They found that,
after controlling for age and sex, morningness was significantly correlated only with the financial domain of risky decision making, indicating that morning types are less likely to take financial risks. The negative
relationship between morningness and financial risk-taking was mediated by higher self-control in morning types, a finding that has been independently confirmed by another study (Milfont & Schwarzenthal, 2014).
However, one limitation of Wang and Chartrand's study is that they did
not control for the influence of personality, which may have confounded
their results (Tsaousis, 2010). Moreover, they did not control for individual
dierences in risk perception and did not report if risk perception in different domains was associated with chronotype.
In this study, the hypothesis that eveningness is associated with higher
risk-taking propensities was tested using an approach that addressed the
limitations of these previous studies. Chronotype was assessed with a
well-established scale, the reduced Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (rMEQ; Adan & Almirall, 1991), and included not only people who
were classified as evening or morning types, but also people who did not
fit into either group. Second, similar to Wang and Chartrand (in press),
the DOSPERT scale was used (Weber, et al., 2002), which allows for an assessment of both risk-taking and risk-perception across five dierent domains (ethical, financial, health-safety, recreational, and social). Third, the
Big Five Inventory (John, Donahue, & Kentle, 1991; Costa & McCrae, 1992)
was used to assess personality traits and the authors controlled for this
variable when examining the relationship between chronotype and risk
preferences.
METHOD
Participants
Study participants were 86 women and 86 men between 20 and 40
years of age (M = 28.8 yr., SD = 0.4). They were recruited through the Qualtrics Panels online survey system on the basis of specific selection criteria.
Additional criteria were possession of a high school diploma or a higher
degree, and being native English speakers. The online questionnaires were
designed so that the respondents could not skip any questions. Qualtrics

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D. PONZI, ET AL.

selects potential study participants from traditional, actively managed

market research panels; to ensure validity, the respondents' IP addresses
are verified, and their answers to the surveys are checked using digital fingerprint technology. Each sample from the panel base is proportioned to
the general population and then randomized before the survey is administered. Finally, Qualtrics does not disclose the nature of the study to the
potential participants at the time they are recruited. Participants (n = 110)
self-identified as Euro-American, 31 as Asian, 9 as Hispanic, 2 as Pacific Islanders, 10 as Native American, and 7 as of unidentified ethnicity; 3 failed
to report their ethnicity. Of the 172 participants, 88 were unmarried, 71
currently married, 5 divorced, 4 separated, and 1 widowed. This study
and the use of human subjects were approved by the Social Sciences Institutional Review Board of the University of Chicago.
Questionnaires
Morningness-eveningness.The reduced version of Horne and stberg's Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (rMEQ; Adan & Almirall, 1991) is a validated 5-item questionnaire for chronotype assessment.
The items identify the participants' preferences in relation to sleeping and
waking time, the time of day when they experience maximal eciency,
their tiredness within half an hour of awakening, and their self-perceived
chronotype. Scores for the rMEQ range from 4 to 25. Scores below 12 identify participants as evening types and scores above 17 as morning types.
The psychometric properties of the rMEQ have recently been reviewed by
Di Milia, Adan, Natale, and Randler (2013), who concluded that this scale
has high reliability and produces results that are highly correlated with
those of the original MEQ and other commonly used scales.
Risk-taking.The Domain-Specific Risk-Taking Scale (DOSPERT;
Weber, et al., 2002) is a 30-item self-report questionnaire measuring participants' likelihood of engaging in risky behaviors/activities in 5 dierent
domains: ethical, financial, health/safety, recreational, and social. Each
item is rated on a 7-point Likert scale (1: Extremely Unlikely; 7: Extremely
Likely). A second section also provides information on how risky the participants perceive each behavior/activity to be (1: Not at all risky; 7: Extremely risky). In the present study, domain-specific risk-taking and riskperception were obtained by averaging the total score of risk-taking and
risk-perception items in each domain.
Personality.Personality was assessed using the Big Five Inventory
(BFI; John, et al., 1991), a 44-item questionnaire measuring personality
traits along five dimensions: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience.

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Statistical Analyses
Exploratory analyses were conducted using chi-squared tests and Pearson's correlations. The influence of chronotype on risk-taking was investigated using hierarchical multiple regression analyses. These analyses involved three steps. In the first step, sex, age, and perceived risk for each
specific domain of risk were entered. In the second step, the Big Five personality was entered, and in the third step the continuous rMEQ score was
entered (see Mecacci & Rocchetti, 1998). In the model testing the eect of
chronotype on general risk-taking, general risk-taking and general risk perception were calculated as the average risk-taking and perception scores
across all the 30 DOSPERT items. All statistical analyses were performed
using SPSS 22. All tests are two-tailed and probabilities < .05 were considered statistically significant.
RESULTS
Exploratory Analyses
Morning and evening types accounted for 13% and 17% of the sample, respectively, while 70% of the sample did not fit either pattern. There
were no significant sex dierences in chronotype (2 = 2.47, df = 2, p > .05;
Fig. 1) and no significant correlation between age and the total rMEQ
score (r = .03, p > .05). Finally, there was no significant association between
ethnicity and chronotype (2 = 5.39, df = 6, p > .05).
Table 1 presents the distribution of chronotype within each sex and
the mean ( SE) scores of risk-taking and risk-perception in the five risk
domains of the DOSPERT scale for male and female participants. Table 2
presents zero-order correlations between age, sex, chronotype, risk-taking,
and risk-perception scores in each of the five DOSPERT domains and in relation to the Big Five personality dimensions. There were no significant sex
dierences in any of the five domains of risk-taking (Wilks's lambda = 0.96,
F4, 167 = 1.34, p > .05) or risk-perception (Wilks's lambda = 0.98, F4, 167 = 0.55,
p > .05). There was no significant correlation between age and risk-taking
or risk-perception scores (Table 2), but there was a negative correlation between age and risk-taking in the ethical domain (r = .18, p < .05). Ethnicity
was not associated with risk-taking (Wilks's lambda = 0.81, F24, 555.89 = 1.39,
p > .05) or risk-perception (Wilks's lambda = 0.83, F24, 555.89 = 1.21, p > .05). The
risk-taking scores in the five domains were all positively correlated. However, risk-taking in the social domain showed low-to-medium size correlations with the other risk domains. Similar results were found for risk
perception. There were large eect size correlations between the ethical, financial, and recreational risk domains both for risk perception (R2 ranging
from .31 to .44) and for risk preference (R2 ranging from .33 to .47), while
the correlations between risk-taking and risk perception were all negative.

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TABLE 1
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF STUDY VARIABLES (M SE)
Chronotype
Early Morning

DOSPERT Scale

Neither

Night Owl

All

M (n = 15)

F (n = 8)

M (n = 57)

F (n = 62)

M (n = 14)

F (n = 16)

M (N = 86)

F (N = 86)

SE

SE

SE

SE

SE

SE

SE

SE

Risk-taking
2.61

0.27

1.95

.19

2.45

.18

2.30

.15

2.72

.43

3.59

.56

2.53

0.14

2.50

0.16

Financial

2.96

0.33

2.70

.39

3.02

.18

2.54

.14

3.32

.40

3.73

.54

3.06

0.14

2.78

0.15

Health/Safety

3.88

0.31

2.45

.33

3.26

.18

3.02

.17

3.72

.35

3.94

.46

3.45

0.14

3.14

0.16

Recreational

3.40

0.39

3.18

.52

3.36

.20

3.17

.17

4.11

.28

4.07

.50

3.49

0.16

1.34

0.16

Social

5.38

0.21

4.83

.30

4.72

.14

4.80

.12

4.89

.33

4.91

.40

4.86

0.11

4.82

0.11

Risk-perception
Ethical

4.78

0.27

4.70

.46

5.11

.15

5.13

.14

4.41

.37

5.46

.28

4.94

0.13

5.16

0.12

Financial

4.97

0.38

4.97

.47

5.04

.15

5.38

.14

4.72

.34

5.60

.25

4.98

0.13

5.38

0.12

Health/Safety

4.91

0.33

5.02

.47

5.03

.16

5.10

.14

4.39

.32

5.32

.25

4.91

0.13

5.13

0.12

Recreational

4.66

0.36

4.50

.57

4.65

.17

4.69

.13

4.36

.27

5.17

.28

4.61

0.13

4.76

0.12

Social

3.24

0.38

3.35

.31

3.36

.17

3.14

.13

2.95

.31

4.21

.34

3.27

0.14

3.36

0.12

Note.M = Males; F = Females.

D. PONZI, ET AL.

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TABLE 2
ZERO-ORDER CORRELATIONS AMONG THE STUDY VARIABLES
1

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

1. Age

Variable

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

2. Sex

.10

.10

.05

.67

.60

.64

.03

.09

.01

.65

.56

.35 .12

4. Ethical

.05

.16*

.01

.47

.16* .33 .16*

5. Financial

.05

.09

.01

.22 .38 .27 .24

6. Health/Safety

.00

.06

.12

7. Recreational

.04

.03

.19* .32 .24 .19*

.00

.06

.12

.00

.17* .28 .16*

.09

.08

3. rMEQ

.37

.28

.69

.58

.60

.37

.25

.64

.58

.36

.33 .01

.22*

.07

.53 .39 .19*

.19* .35

.27

DOSPERT Risk-taking
.52

.22

.19*

.12

.47 .35 .19*

.00

.02

.13

9. Ethical

.18* .09

.09

.14

.09

.26 .20

.05

.10

.20

.02

.15*

.34

.10

.16* .10

11. Health/Safety

.09

.05

.09

.14

.40

.22**

.03

.16*

12. Recreational

.13

.01

.08

.42

.24

.01

.14

.01

.08

.02

.36

14. Extraversion

.06

.05

.09

.07

15. Agreeableness

.08

.09

.04

.17*

.20 .00

.04

.20

Big Five Inventory

16. Conscientiousness
17. Neuroticism

.20 .05

18. Openness to
experience

.02

.23
.36

.34 .27 .08

.51 .01

10. Financial

13. Social

.16* .28

.50 .27 .01

DOSPERT Risk-perception
.14

.01

.28 .16* .12

.03

.04

.15*

.35

.25

EVENINGNESS AND RISK-TAKING

8. Social

.46 .51

.03
.15*

.20

.26

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Note.rMEQ = overall score; Male = 0. *p < .05. p < .01. p < .001.

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D. PONZI, ET AL.
TABLE 3
HIERARCHICAL MULTIPLE REGRESSION ON THE ETHICAL, FINANCIAL, AND HEALTH/SAFETY
DOMAIN OF RISK
Variable

Ethical

Financial/Gambling

Health/Safety

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

Sex

0.01

0.07

0.05

0.01

0.02

0.00

0.07

0.04

0.05

Age

.15* 0.11

0.09

0.03

0.01

0.00

0.10

0.08

0.07

Perceived risk

.45 .26

.27

.51

.47

.47

.46

.44

.43

Big Five Inventory

Extraversion

0.09

0.07

Agreeableness

.26

.25

Conscientiousness

.34

.36

Neuroticism
Openness to
experience

.17*
0.12
.20

0.12

0.11

0.10

0.07

0.08

0.13

rMEQ

.22

.15*

.20

0.11

0.08

.22

.20*

0.09
.14*

.19
0.07
.21

0.05

0.05

0.12

0.12

.19

0.09

.49

.65

.69

.51

.60

.63

.49

.58

.58

R2adj

.22

.40

.45

.25

.34

.37

.22

.30

.31

.19

.05

.10

.03

.09

0.008

R2

Note.Regression coecients are presented as s. *p < .05. p < .01. p < .001.

Chronotype was not correlated with any personality traits, while weak
correlations were found between personality traits and risk preference
and perception.
Regression Analyses: Chronotype, Risk, and Personality
The results of hierarchical multiple regressions are shown in Table 3
and Table 4. Chronotype was negatively associated with overall risk-taking (R2adj = .33, R2 = .03, = 0.81, p < .01) and explained 3% of the overall variance in risk preference. All the personality measures were associated with overall risk preference, while there were no significant eects of
sex and age. The association between eveningness and greater risk-taking
propensities across the five risk domains was independent of the eects
of personality, sex, or age. In terms of domain-specific risk preferences,
chronotype was negatively associated with risk-taking in the domains of
ethical (R2adj = .45, R2 = .05, = .22, p < .001), financial (R2adj = .37, R2 = .03,
= 0.19, p < .01), and recreational risk (R2adj = .35, R2 = .03, = 0.81, p < .01),
but failed to explain a significant portion of variance in the health/safety
and social domains. The significant relationship between eveningness and
greater risk-taking in these three domains was above and beyond the effects of personality and of risk perception, which was negatively associated with risk-taking in all of the five risk domains. Conscientiousness

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TABLE 4
HIERARCHICAL MULTIPLE REGRESSION ON THE RECREATIONAL AND SOCIAL DOMAIN OF RISK
Variable

Recreational

Social

General

Step 1

Step 2 Step 3 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

Sex

0.04

0.00

0.02

0.01

0.05

0.05

0.05

0.01

0.00

Age

0.13

0.12

0.11

0.00

0.01

0.00

0.13 0.09

0.08

.30

.30

Perceived risk

.34

.32

.31

.19*

.27 .20

.21

Big Five Inventory

Extraversion
Agreeableness

.33

.31

0.10

0.11

.22

.21

.21

.20

0.09

0.09

.27

.26

.16*

0.17

0.16

.28

.30

0.07

0.07

.15* 0.14

Conscientiousness

0.14

Neuroticism

0.12

Openness to
experience

.14*

rMEQ

0.11
.15*

.43

.18

.42

.19

0.05

.20
.18

.37

.59

.62

.19

.49

.49

.09

.34

.37

R2adj

.12

.32

.35

.02

.20

.20

.08

.31

.33

.21

.03**

.20

.00

.24

.03

R2

Note.Regression coecients are presented as s. *p < .05. p < .01. p < .001.

was the personality trait that most consistently predicted risk preferences
since it was negatively correlated with risk-taking in all but the social domain.
DISCUSSION
Both intra- and inter-individual variability were observed in self-reported risk preferences, and such variability seems to be independent of
age, sex, or ethnicity. Some study participants scored high on risk-taking in
some domains but low in others, while others were consistent in their risk
preferences across dierent domains. Although the study did not address
the sources of intra-individual variation in risk-taking, it has been suggested that variation in sensation seeking may explain why some people
are risk seekers in one domain, such as sports, but not in others (Zuckerman & Kuhlman, 2000). In terms of inter-individual variability in risk-taking, this study provides evidence that it can be accounted for by individual dierences in perception of risk and stable individual traits such as
personality (Johnson, Wilke, & Weber, 2004; Soane & Chmiel, 2005) and
chronotype (see also Wang & Chartrand, in press). Studies of personality
and risk preferences have been consistent in showing that people low in
neuroticism and high in agreeableness and conscientiousness tend to be
risk averse (e.g., Soane & Chmiel, 2005). Among the current study' par-

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ticipants, overall risk-taking was negatively associated with risk perception, negatively associated with conscientiousness, and positively associated with extraversion and openness to experience (for similar findings,
see Nicholson, et al., 2005; Soane & Chmiel, 2005). Moreover, it is clear that
stable behavioral characteristics other than personality, such as chronotype, can account for a significant portion of inter-individual variation in
risk-taking.
The results supported the hypothesis that eveningness is associated
with a greater propensity for general risk-taking (see also Killgore, 2007;
Maestripieri, 2014). Study participants who scored higher in eveningness,
and regardless of their age, sex, ethnicity, or personality traits, had higher
overall risk-taking scores on the DOSPERT scale. Unlike previous studies
of chronotype and general risk-taking, the findings were obtained with a
non-student sample with a typical chronotype distribution and after controlling for the eects of confounding variables. Thus, the findings make a
novel and significant contribution to research on chronotype and general
risk-taking.
When dierent risk domains were analyzed separately, evening types
reported higher risk-taking than other individuals in the ethical, financial,
and recreational domains. Although the mechanisms underlying the association between eveningness and risk-taking in these domains remain
to be elucidated, it is likely that psychological processes such as sensation seeking, novelty seeking, impulsiveness, self-control, or disinhibition
and their biological substrates are involved (Caci, et al., 2004; Caci, Mattei, Bayale, Nadalet, Dossios, Robert, et al., 2005; Tonetti, et al., 2010; Muro,
Goma-i-Freixanet, & Adan, 2012; Milfont & Schwarzenthal, 2014; Wang &
Chartrand, in press). These processes are known to be strongly associated
with financial risk-taking and gambling (Wong & Carducci, 1991; Won
& Grant, 2001), risk-taking in sexual behavior (Donohew, Zimmerman,
Cupp, Novak, Colon, & Abell, 2000), and risk-taking in extreme sports
(Wagner & Houlihan, 1994; Monasterio, 2013). The associations between
eveningness, risk-taking, novelty seeking, sensation seeking, and impulsivity in ethical, financial, and recreational domains make functional sense
from an evolutionary perspective, as all these traits seem to be part of a
cluster of traits, which also includes sexual promiscuity and Dark Triad
personality (Randler, et al., 2012; Jonason, Jones, & Lyons, 2013), that reflects fast life history strategies (Figueredo, Vasquez, Brumbach, Sefcek,
Kirsner, & Jacobs, 2005; Ponzi, Henry, Kubicki, Nickels, Wilson, & Maestripieri, in press). Fast life history strategies are adaptations to stressful
or unpredictable environments, in which risk of adult mortality is high;
they involve rapid growth and sexual maturation, frequent reproduction
with multiple partners, and exploitative social styles with low investment

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in long-term social relationships or child-rearing (Figueredo, et al., 2005).

The hypothesis that eveningness evolved as a fast life history adaptation
has already received some support (e.g., Randler, et al., 2012; Ponzi, et al.,
in press), and could be further supported by future studies showing that
the psychological and behavioral characteristics of evening types are designed to improve survival and reproduction in particular ecological and
social environments.
In the present study, chronotype was not associated with significant
variation in risk-taking in the health/safety and social domains. The reason for this negative result is not immediately clear. Social risk items seem
to equate risk with nonconformity (e.g., Admitting that your tastes are
dierent than those of a friend or Speaking your mind about an unpopular issue in a meeting at work), while most items in the other risk domains imply danger for one's safety/health (e.g., Going down a ski run,
i.e., beyond your ability) or breaking laws or moral codes (e.g., Passing o some else's work as your own). The weak correlation between
risk preferences in the social domain and in the other four domains suggests that risk-taking in the social domain may be regulated by dierent
biological and psychological mechanisms (e.g., Zuckerman & Kuhlman,
2000). The lack of a significant association between eveningness and risktaking in the health/safety domain replicates Wang and Chartrand's findings (in press). Similar to Wang and Chartrand's study, a positive association was found between eveningness and risk-taking in the financial
domain. However, while Wang and Chartrand did not control for the effects of personality traits, in the current study the domain-specific associations between chronotype and risk-taking were independent of personality. Therefore, this study makes a novel and significant contribution to
research on chronotype and domain-specific risk-taking.
However, there were some methodological limitations, including the
relatively narrow age range (20-40 years) of the participants and the small
sample size, which reduced the number of individuals at the two extremes
of the chronotype distribution. These limitations may have contributed
to the failure to replicate the previously reported sex dierences in chronotype (e.g., Randler, 2007) and the previously reported association between chronotype and personality (see Tsaousis, 2010, for a meta-analysis). No sex dierences in risk-taking were observed, which is at odds
with other studies that used the same scale to measure risk (Weber, et al.,
2002; Nicholson, et al., 2005; Stenstrom, Saad, Nepomuceno, & Mendenhall, 2011; Keynan & Bereby-Meyer, 2012; Wang & Chartrand, in press).
In these previous studies, men reported significantly more overall and
domain-specific risk-taking than women. However, all but Keynan and
Bereby-Meyer's (2012) study had larger sample sizes, and this may be part

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of the reason for the discrepancy. Hopefully, the study will stimulate further research on the association between chronotype and risk-taking, and
such research will further elucidate both the mechanisms underlying this
association and their functional significance.
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