re 'Crushing experience' awaits Ghislaine Maxwell at troubled jail
What a catastrophic downfall! I've often wondered why people take such risks. This may help explain it...
Extreme risk-taking athletes share personality characteristics with psychopathic offenders - study
stuff.co.nz
Cecile Meier - May 17 2018
Over the last 30 years, Erik Monasterio has broken six ribs and a collarbone, fractured his back, had severe altitude sickness twice and was once lost in the jungle without food for seven days.
"But I am not very reckless," he says.
The Otago University senior lecturer's mountaineering passion combined with his work at Christchurch's Hillmorton Hospital as a forensic psychiatrist motivated his research into what extreme athletes have in common with psychopathic offenders.
He presented the latest findings from his ongoing study of 251 extreme athletes such as base jumpers and mountaineers from all over the world at the Royal Australia New Zealand College of Psychiatry this week.
Monasterio found base jumpers and mountaineers shared similar personality characteristics to criminal psychopaths, which explained their reckless behaviour.
But there were important character differences between the two groups, with elite sportspeople scoring higher on self-directedness and cooperativeness than psychopathic offenders.?
Extreme athletes involved in the study provided information on sports accidents and completed a personality test called Temperament and Character Inventory, which measures traits such as novelty seeking, harm avoidance, self-directedness, cooperativeness and the ability to act beyond self-interest.
These findings were compared with those of psychopathic offenders and with the general population.
Both athletes and psychopathic offenders showed resilience to trauma, a low propensity to anxiety and scored higher on novelty seeking and lower on harm avoidance and reward dependence than the general population.
But athletes channelled their need for novelty and stimulation into high-risk sports while psychopathic offenders, who were often immature and sought immediate rewards, engaged in antisocial criminal behaviour, Monasterio said.
A group of base jumpers in the study had the lowest score ever found in harm avoidance. The average score in the general population was 12 and they scored between 0 and 2. Monasterio scored at 4.
This was combined with over-confidence but also with high skills and levels of expertise in their sport.
"Our society has become risk-averse but in evolutionary terms low harm avoidance leads to exploration and discoveries."
Monasterio said the study brought new insights into resilience, and could help develop resources for people to deal with trauma.
It also indicated that young children with adventurous tendencies should spend time outdoors exploring, to channel their energy positively instead of turning to antisocial behaviours.
Monasterio said his passion led him to unstable ice cliffs, avalanche-prone mountains and climbing summits in dangerous weather conditions.
His most extreme experience was when he was lost in the jungle for seven days without food in Columbia on a 200 km solo expedition. He lost 15kg and contracted infectious diseases.
"It's probably the worst nightmare you can imagine physically and mentally. It was exhausting and scary but it was also among the most enriching experiences I've ever had."
He said extreme athletes often did not have a "natural internal alarm" system telling them to be scared in risky situations. It was useful for people to be aware of their tendencies so they could work on mitigating the problematic ones, he said. |
