Since patterns of risk behaviour appear to be established early in life, a focus on adolescent risk behaviours seem highly warranted with respect to potential for health promotion. Psychological research on explanation and prediction of risk behaviour has become a field of great interest for both practitioners and researchers. A number of theoretical approaches have been used in the successful prediction of various types of health behaviours from a number of different areas. As to the conceptualisation of the dependent variable to be predicted, the majority of previous studies have focused on specific behaviours such as drunk driving, seat belt use and driving violations. Although representing important contributions to the understanding of factors involved in generating behaviours, these findings are to some extent limited to narrow and specific behavioural tendencies.
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