Are you a risk taker?

[RTBI2 0]

Hi All

I'm a postgraduate student at Bangor University looking to develop a questionnaire to measure risk taking behaviours in high risk sport environments.

If you participate in high-risk sports, for example, rock climbing, snowboarding, bouldering, sailing, skateboarding, base jumping, kayaking, trials biking etc, and you have 10 minutes to spare, and fancy winning up to £100, please click on the link below for more details:

http://www.bangor.ac.uk/~pepa28/

PLEASE NOTE: To be in with a chance of winning please email me!!!

Thank you

Comille Bandura

[skydiverkeith 1]

Quote

Hi All

I'm a postgraduate student at Bangor University looking to develop a questionnaire to measure risk taking behaviours in high risk sport environments.

If you participate in high-risk sports, for example, rock climbing, snowboarding, bouldering, sailing, skateboarding, base jumping, kayaking, trials biking etc, and you have 10 minutes to spare, and fancy winning up to £100, please click on the link below for more details:

http://www.bangor.ac.uk/~pepa28/

PLEASE NOTE: To be in with a chance of winning please email me!!!

Thank you

Comille Bandura

Why would you post this in a skydiving forum and not list skydiving as one of the examples?

Blue skies,
Keith Medlock

[RTBI2 0]

Hi sorry keith, i thought 'Et cetera' would suffice as I am hoping to cover an extensive range of high-risk sports.
My apologies.

[Throttlebender 0]

Why would there be a need to?

Life expands or contracts in proportion to one's courage. ~Anais Nin

[skydiverkeith 1]

Quote

Why would there be a need to?

Because its a skydiving forum. It just seemed odd (also posted under two topics) and I was curious whether or not there was a specific, deliberate reasoning for this.

Blue skies,
Keith Medlock

[JohnRich 4]

Oh boy, yet another researcher probing the lab rats. These guys are regular as clockwork. Time for the lab rats to rise up and revolt once again.

WARNING! If you continue to read beyond this point, you are doing so voluntarily and of your own free will. If you wish not to view the poll questions, then stop now and proceed no further! I do not wish to breach your right (and the school's ethics procedures) by forcing you to view material you don't wish to see.

(The above warning was provided in response to private e-mail correspondence from the poll-taker. Yes, really.)

The poll questions:

1. What is your gender?
Male
Female

2. What Is Your Age?
Years

3. Please list your top three sports/activities.
One
Two
Three

4. Please state the number of years you have been participating in each sport/activity
One
Two
Three

5. Please state the degree of participation in your chosen sports/activities (Listed above).
One Level
Two Level
Three Level

6. Please state the number and severity of injuries whilst participating in your chosen sports/activities
Total number of injuries
Acute Injury (significant trauma, required hospitalisation)
Chronic Injury (stress fracture, tendonitis, runners knee)
Common Injury (sprains, fractures, cuts, bruising)

7. Please rate the following questions in relation to the sport/activities you participate in most frequently.
Never Rarely Sometimes Often Always
1. I do dangerous manoeuvres
2. I check my equipment is in good condition
3. I go out of my way to encounter dangerous situations
4. I believe in the motto “Safety First”
5. I come close to severe injury or worse
6. I participate with minimal safety equipment
7. Other people in my sport think I take too many risks
8. I take time to check conditions (e.g. weather, environment)
9. I make rash decisions
10. I check any gear/equipment that I borrow
11. I deliberately put myself in danger
12. Before participating, I tell someone where I am going
13. If it doesn’t feel right I walk away
14. I conduct myself an appropriate manner that ensures the safety of myself and others
15. It’s like gambling, you can’t win unless you try it
16. I am aware of the nearest help and first aid
17. I actively seek dangerous situations
18. I take time to check carefully for potential hazards
19. I enjoy taking risks
20. Some people in my sport could describe my attitude as unsafe

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

Acute Injury (significant trauma, required hospitalisation)
Chronic Injury (stress fracture, tendonitis, runners knee)
Common Injury (sprains, fractures, cuts, bruising)

I don't think that you should lump fractures and sprains together. In fact, fractures should be up there with "acute injury" requiring hospitalization. Do you guys in the UK, with your nationalized health system, have to mend your own broken bones?

Quote

1. I do dangerous manoeuvres
3. I go out of my way to encounter dangerous situations
5. I come close to severe injury or worse
11. I deliberately put myself in danger
17. I actively seek dangerous situations
19. I enjoy taking risks

Every time we jump out of a plane we do all those things. That doesn't mean that we are "risk takers". It simply means that it's an enjoyable sport which gives a great deal of satisfaction. Such questions will skew your survey to conclude that all skydivers are "risk takers", in a negative sense.

Quote

14. I conduct myself an appropriate manner that ensures the safety of myself and others

You can do everything right in skydiving, and still die. There is nothing that "ensures" complete safety.

[RTBI2 0]

Hi JohnRich

Indeed you are right, because you participate in a 'high risk sport' does not necessarily mean you a risk-taker (as that is what is often assumed) and thats exactly what the questionnaire is hopefully trying to measure, once validated.

thanks

[pchapman 278]

I'm fascinated by the issues of risk too, and back in unrelated university studies, I'd also look up writings related to risk -- Zuckermann, Lyng, Laurendeau (skydiver!), Trimpopp, etc. (just going by memory on the names)

But the quick 10 minute questionnaires, they're just too simple to get at the kind of detail needed these days to really expand on what is known about risk taking.

I'm sure it'll be fun to review the results, and one can get some good statistics practice analyzing the results. But this isn't Psych 101, or even an undergrad thesis with a strict deadline. At the postgrad level, isn't there something more in depth that can be done??

And having the name Bandura... is that a good sign or just hard to live up to... what does it do for one's self-efficacy? [Psych in-joke there.]

Regarding what John Rich pointed out, a big factor in what risks people take is the reward they see in the behaviour. And then there are issues of real vs. perceived risks, locus of control, controllability of risk, and so on.

(For other readers of the thread, remember that questions like "I do dangerous maneuvers" isn't a Yes/No question, but one of those where the reply is about the level to which it is true.)

[RTBI2 0]

Thanks for your comments. Basically this is the first study hoping to examine risk taking BEHAVIOURS in high risk sports environments. Most published papers on the topic of often looked at sensation seeking, emotion regulation, percieved risk, agency etc which are more MOTIVES for engaging or in some cases disengaging.
In relation to the lack of depth in the study, as its the first, we are infact testing a 2factor hypothesis concluded in a French paper examining teenage snowboarders behaviours. If these factors prove true. Then we can hopefully go into more depth.

I hope you can appreciate that i cannot reveal too much about the study on here. So i am more than happy to answer questions/discuss via email (pepa28@bangor.ac.uk)

I very much appreciate all your comments.

Many thanks

[erdnarob 1]

I am interested a lot by such studies. In the 1970's, I got an issue of PSYCHOLOGY TODAY magazine with a long article on high risk sports. They were particularly mentioning Skydiving. Reading this article, I found out (as far as I remember) that skydivers (and risk takers) are more independent, more intelligent, less religious people than the average. They were mentioning that people who are the most afraid of the death choose most of the time a job which they consider will protect them from it like: physicians (doctors), priests, cult ministers or religion related jobs. This would be a reason why you don't see too many of those doing skydiving. For sure there is exceptions like doctor Pete jumping at Skydive New England Maine.

Another explanation is that there is something in the brain where there is an excess or lack of some substances needed to a person to fell alive. Risk takers need to get adrenaline in greater quantity than other to feel well.

Personally, skydiving is for me a very technical sport where you have to pay respect to the equipment and techniques if you want to become an old skydiver. I am also a pilot which is different but quite challenging too.

But after so many years, I think maybe a lot of skydivers are people who have been "hurt" mentally when they were young. At the time, people or family didn't understand them because they were different than other kids and people didn't trust them for the same reasons, just to give some possible reasons. This makes high risk takers wanting unconsciously to prove they are as good as other....!! Could be my case ?!!

We can see also people taking more risks when adverse things occurred in their individual life like a divorce, a love pain or else...this individual has the tendency to take more risks like driving faster or doing high risk sports. Many times I have seen people quit skydiving when they had found their sweetheart and several years later coming back to the sport. When asked what makes them come back, very often the reason was because of a separation or divorce with their mates.
Human soul is unreachable but studies like that can give us some hint on why things go the way they do. Deep motivation for high risks sports is a touchy subject and people have to know and accept themselves (introspection) like they are to speak at ease about it.
You can contact me personally for the questionnaire. I will do my best.

Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

[flyingmontana 1]

You say "PLEASE NOTE: To be in with a chance of winning please email me!!!"
So we are supposed to email you separately to tell you we want a chance of winning money? How would you confirm that we actually filled out the survey? (I did fill it out--and thought many of the questions were extremely badly phrased, not to mention the difficulty of counting up the total number of BRUISES I've gotten while skydiving!!) I didn't see any feature at the end of the survey that allowed me to enroll for a chance to win money.
Not that I really care about the money--I'm interested in the research--but this seems rather misleading or badly designed.

[RTBI2 0]

Hi,

Thanks, as expressed this is the first study of its kind and without doubt expected flaws etc, as with most research in its infancy, this is a learning curve. With regards to the questions, we tried to make them applicable to as many high- risk sports as possible, which has been difficult (interviews, cutting down from a total of 634 questions etc)
When we designed the questionnaire, there had been an option for respondants to enter thier email address on completion. However thanks to my IT department this feature was not included. When i noticed the error , they could not edit it. Hoping to rectify their mistake i asked respondants to email me (on the details provided on the information sheet). I realise that this is not ideal, but i did try and deal with the issue the best i could considering that the mistake was no fault of my own. I hope that people would be honest enough, to fill out the questionnaire then email me. It is by no means my intention to mislead anyone.
I hope that explains your concerns.
Many thanks

[JohnRich 4]

I added a warning back in my message #6. I hope that satisfies you.

Quote

this is the first study of its kind...

Oh I doubt that. We see a never-ending string of such polls here, by people who don't understand us, and treat us like a bunch of lab monkeys.

If you want to understand why we skydive, come out and make one. And know that the reasons change between the first jump, and a continuance in the sport.

[RTBI2 0]

Thanks for your comments. The study is looking at behaviours whilst engaging and not reasons i.e motives for engaging. In addition to try and understand most of these sports, i did participate in amongst many, a skydive in order to understand the sports better.

I hope i haven't offended anyone by asking you to take part in my study and do not view respondants as 'lab monkeys', but rather a key asset in understanding my research question further and hopefully contributing to future research in the psychology of risk taking in high risk sports environments.

[Bolas 5]

Every person alive is a risk taker as there is a risk associated in doing/not doing everything.

Knowing the risks and accepting them prior is the issue, not the actual taking of them.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[skyflower_bloom 0]

Quote

1. I do dangerous manoeuvres
3. I go out of my way to encounter dangerous situations
5. I come close to severe injury or worse
11. I deliberately put myself in danger
17. I actively seek dangerous situations
19. I enjoy taking risks

Every time we jump out of a plane we do all those things. That doesn't mean that we are "risk takers". It simply means that it's an enjoyable sport which gives a great deal of satisfaction. Such questions will skew your survey to conclude that all skydivers are "risk takers", in a negative sense.

Quote

14. I conduct myself an appropriate manner that ensures the safety of myself and others

You can do everything right in skydiving, and still die. There is nothing that "ensures" complete safety.

[billvon 2,876]

>Every time we jump out of a plane we do all those things. That
>doesn't mean that we are "risk takers".

Well, it sorta does. If you deliberately put yourself in danger, you're a risk taker. We just consider the reward to be worth the risk.

>Such questions will skew your survey to conclude that all skydivers are "risk
>takers", in a negative sense.

I don't think that phrase alone has a negative connotation. Risk is part of life, and most people take significant risks of some sort.

[RTBI2 0]

>Every time we jump out of a plane we do all those things.
That doesn't mean that we are "risk takers".

>>Well, it sorta does. If you deliberately put yourself in danger, you're a risk taker. We just consider the reward to be worth the risk.

That is exactly what we are hoping to examine 'additional risk taking' (or not) whilst participating in a high risk sport (you have already taken a risk by jumping fair anough but are you willing to take further risks e.g unfamiliar manouvers etc during that jump?)

[skyflower_bloom 0]

Quote

>Every time we jump out of a plane we do all those things.
That doesn't mean that we are "risk takers".

>>Well, it sorta does. If you deliberately put yourself in danger, you're a risk taker. We just consider the reward to be worth the risk.

That is exactly what we are hoping to examine 'additional risk taking' (or not) whilst participating in a high risk sport (you have already taken a risk by jumping fair enough but are you willing to take further risks e.g unfamiliar manouvers etc during that jump?)

Ok, glad to hear I answered the survey in the spirit it was intended (additional risks within what is already is a sport involving some risk) Thanks for clarifying!

Love to hear what your jump was like, if that is not too off topic, or if it influenced the direction of your research at all..

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Gandhi