Human behaviour: Assessing attitudes to risk over the lifetime

Exploring financial personality dimensions

clock • 4 min read

Financial personality dimensions highlight differences in clients' financial personalities providing insight into what characteristics may drive a client's attitude to risk, writes Louis Williams

The theory of planned behaviour developed by Icek Ajzen in 1991 has contributed significantly to understanding the drivers of human behaviour. It highlights the impact of our attitudes on our behavioural intentions and consequential actions, with research showing how our attitudes can translate into behaviours including our plans to purchase shares and decisions to take financial risks. However, our "attitude to risk", cannot be directly observed and measured like our heart rate or reaction time. Therefore, to accurately measure a client's attitude to risk, a valid set of items that h...

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