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EXAMINING PERSONALITY AND COLLEGE STUDENT RISK-TAKING: AN EXPLORATION USING THE MMPI-2 PSY-5 SCALES

Miller, Stephanie Nicole
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1254236681

Abstract Details

2009, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Psychological Sciences.
Cigarette smoking, binge drinking, and sexual promiscuity are common among college students, despite great social, occupational, legal, and health threats. Much is known about college student risk-taking with regard to demographic, historical, and social/contextual predictors. For example, it has been established that Caucasian male college students are much more likely than their female, minority counterparts to engage in tobacco use and problematic drinking. The literature is less clear and consistent on the relationship between personality and risk-taking, particularly for traits such as extraversion and neuroticism, where the strength and directionality of their relationships with risk-taking differ across studies. The current study addressed these inconsistencies using an alternative five-factor model of personality, the Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY-5; Harkness & McNulty, 1994), as measured by the MMPI-2 PSY-5 Scales (Harkness, McNulty, Ben-Porath, 1995). The goals were to provide a greater understanding of college student risk-taking while furthering the construct validity of the PSY-5 Scales. The scales were tested against other types of predictors (e.g., gender) using regression analyses. Canonical correlation analyses were conducted in an attempt to explore the underlying, higher-order structure of personality and risk-taking. The final sample included 330 undergraduate students enrolled in a mid-sized university. Results were largely supportive of the construct validity of the PSY-5 Scales, in that the DISC scale had the strongest relationships with college student risk-taking across the three types of risk, with smaller contributions from the INTR and PSYC scales. The DISC scale also demonstrated good incremental validity, making unique contributions to risk-taking above and beyond well-established predictors, such as gender and ethnicity. The study also provided some support for a generalized risk-taking personality type, as opposed to a multi-dimensional model in which different types of risk-taking are explained by different personality traits. Implications, limitations, and future directions are also discussed.
John R. Graham, PhD (Committee Chair)
Yossef S. Ben-Porath, PhD (Committee Co-Chair)
Dan Neal, PhD (Committee Member)
John Updegraff, PhD (Committee Member)
Donald Bubenzer, PhD (Committee Member)
Eric Jefferis, PhD (Other)
126 p.
Psychology
MMPI-2 PSY-5 scales; College Student Risk-taking; Personality; Sexual Risk-taking; Binge Drinking; Cigarette Smoking

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Miller, S. N. (2009). EXAMINING PERSONALITY AND COLLEGE STUDENT RISK-TAKING: AN EXPLORATION USING THE MMPI-2 PSY-5 SCALES [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1254236681

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Miller, Stephanie. EXAMINING PERSONALITY AND COLLEGE STUDENT RISK-TAKING: AN EXPLORATION USING THE MMPI-2 PSY-5 SCALES. 2009. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1254236681.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Miller, Stephanie. "EXAMINING PERSONALITY AND COLLEGE STUDENT RISK-TAKING: AN EXPLORATION USING THE MMPI-2 PSY-5 SCALES." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1254236681

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2009, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.