Modeling the relationships among emotional intelligence, sensation-seeking and risk-taking attitudes of university students in Hong Kong

This study investigated the risk-taking attitudes of 305 Chinese university students in Hong Kong by the prediction of sensation-seeking. To further understand the prediction of sensation-seeking, emotional intelligence (EI) was applied. First, the 30-item DOPSERT scale was used to examine the risk-taking attitude of students in different domains (ethical, financial, health/safety, social, and recreational). Then, a 12-item sensation-seeking subscale taken from the UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale was applied to examine the participants’ levels of sensation-seeking. In this study, sensation-seeking was divided into the categories of exciting activities seeking and novel activities seeking (NAS). Finally, the 16-item Wong and Law’s Emotional Intelligence Scale was applied to examine participants’ use of self-emotion appraisal, others’ emotion appraisal, use of emotion, and regulation of emotion. The results of this study showed that for this group of Chinese university students, the use of emotion and regulat...