Possibilities and Utilisation of Objective Personality Tests of the Vienna Tests System for Detection of Individual Risk-Tendency

The theoretical part of this thesis addresses key concepts related to the individual tendency to take risks - it introduces how this trait is embedded in the concept of personality, establishes essential theoretical issues related to risk and risk-tendency, as well as related important terms, research and authors in the field in question. The key issues, too, are methods of risk behaviour detection with emphasis on current trends in psychodiagnostics, thus in the following part the fields of computerized psychodiagnostics and of objective personality tests are discussed. The paper's empirical section is focused on the utilization of Vienna Test System (VTS) in this area. Objective personality tests used for detection of risk-tendency were analysed and validised using the SPARO method and data gained during interviews. Empirically produced results suggest that the validity of the methods used is equivocal. One of the main conclusions of this thesis, therefore, is that VTS methods' potential to determine risk behaviour seems to be rather limited and its further research should be conducted in the future. Keywords: risk, risk-tendency, personality, objective personality tests, computerized testing, Vienna Test Syste