Figure 1.
Graphical depictions of the calculations.
(A) Participants made estimations about the actual size of each particular balloon and how big it could become before popping. These estimations provide a measure of both real-world perception and the subjective point of risk (i.e., popping for balloons) for each participant. (B) We calculated the slope changes based upon the estimations reported by each participant. The actual balloons varied in size (either 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 inches wide), and we plotted these actual sizes against the estimated sizes reported by the participant. Note that actual sizes should show a linear increase of 1 if the participant reported actual sizes with perfect accuracy, whereas additional size estimates should show a linear decrease of -1 if the participant reported additional sizes with perfect accuracy.
Table 1.
Descriptive statistics for key measures.
Table 2.
Correlations between self-report surveys for subjective invulnerability, optimism bias, and sensation seeking.
Table 3.
Correlations between measures of risk-taking and responses from the balloon estimation task.