Whether a person believes the outcomes of his decisions are dependent upon skill or chance presumably influences the riskiness of his choices. 32 college students made a series of decisions while playing Jeopardy, a game which was perceived as requiring skill, and another series of decisions while playing a card game, the outcomes of which were believed to depend on chance. As expected, decisions made under a skill orientation were marked by (a) a higher mean level of risk and (b) a less variable pattern of risk than decisions made under a chance orientation. However, attempts to identify the process that mediated the relationship between skill-chance orientation and risk taking were unsuccessful.
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