From the perspective of emotional experience, this study sequentially investigates people’s preferences for financial choice modes, the accompanied emotional experiences, and the effects of personality traits. First, through a large-scale online survey, it is found that people generally prefer active choice rather than passive choice under various financial risky decision-making conditions. Moreover, high-sensation-seeking males prefer active choice more than high-sensation-seeking females, while no gender difference was found between low-sensation-seeking males and females. Second, using a Balloon-Analogue Risk Task in behavioral experiments, the study finds that active choices brings greater emotional experiences, including greater sense of control and accomplishment, more happiness, and less pain. Finally, the sensation-seeking scale is combined with the BART experiment to find that high-sensation-seeking males are willing to take more risk than high-sensation-seeking females, while low-sensation-seeking males and females show no difference in their risk preferences.