Objective
To explore the agentic emotion regulation function that prolonged engagement high-risk sports (ocean rowing and mountaineering) may serve.
Design
In two studies, a cross-sectional design was employed. In Study 1, ocean rowers were compared to age-matched controls. In Study 2, mountaineers were compared to two control groups, one of which was controlled for the amount of time spent away from home.
Methods
In Study 1, 20 rowers completed measures of alexithymia and interpersonal control before rowing across the Atlantic Ocean. They were also interviewed about the emotional and agentic changes that had occurred as a consequence of completing the ocean row. In Study 2, 24 mountaineers and the two control groups (n = 27 and n = 26) completed measures of alexithymia and interpersonal agency.
Results
In both studies, high-risk sportspeople had greater difficulty in describing their emotions. The lowest interpersonal agency was in loving partner relationships.
Conclusions
Participants of prolonged engagement high-risk sports have difficulty with their emotions and have particular difficulty feeling emotionally agentic in close relationships. They participate in the high-risk activity with the specific aim of being an agent of their emotions.
A sport is typically considered “high-risk” if the consequence of something going awry is life threatening. As such, although there are likely many more injuries in a sport such as soccer than in bungee jumping or skydiving, it is the latter that are normally classified as high-risk. All high-risk sports are typically classified as a single category (e.g., mountaineering, skydiving, hang gliding, paragliding, automobile racing, white-water kayaking, motocross riding, downhill skiing, BASE jumping, bungee jumping; see also Zuckerman, 2007), despite there being considerable diversity between many of these activities. For example, although both are considered high-risk sports, bungee jumping and mountaineering have little in common. The bungee jumper can participate with minimal preparation in a rather passive fashion with no previous experience. The activity lasts approximately one minute and involves a large percentage of thrill. In contrast, expeditionary mountaineers need to spend much time carefully planning and organizing an expedition. This can last several weeks or months and the activity involves a large percentage of toil and hardship, as illustrated in the following quote:
What I was doing up here [climbing Mount Everest] had almost nothing in common with bungee jumping or skydiving or riding a motorcycle at 120 miles per hour. The ratio of misery to pleasure was greater by an order of magnitude than any other mountain I’d been on; I quickly came to understand that climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain and … subjecting ourselves to week after week of toil, tedium, and suffering (Krakauer, 1997, p. 136).
Given the contrasting characteristics of different high-risk sports, it seems likely that researchers may have over-simplified a complex question by classifying high-risk sports as a single category of activities. As Leon, McNally, and Ben-Porath (1989) stated, “individuals who seek out highly organized challenges that include a significant element of risk may be quite different from the daredevil, sensation-seeking adventurer whose gratification comes primarily from the danger itself” (p. 163). There are relatively few empirical psychological studies that are devoted to the category of “highly organized challenges” (Breivik, 1996, Butcher and Ryan, 1974, Delle Fave et al., 2003 and Leon et al., 1989) and, to the best of our knowledge, none have specifically investigated the emotion regulation function that such challenges may serve. We aim to bridge this gap here. In the present study we chose to investigate two prolonged engagement high-risk activities for which the motives appear to lie beyond simple thrill seeking: Ocean rowing and mountaineering. Ocean rowing requires people to row across an Ocean (e.g., the Atlantic Ocean) aided only by oars and Ocean currents. To cross the Atlantic Ocean in a rowing boat typically takes 5–12 weeks. The dangers include: not being detected by large ocean-going vessels; wildlife (e.g., sharks); man overboard; and various ailments (e.g., deep septic blisters; dehydration). Mountaineering most often involves an attempt to attain a high point in a remote area of mountainous terrain, which can require days, weeks, or months of walking and climbing, typically with no external aid. The dangers include falling (off a mountain face, into a crevasse), avalanches, rock fall, hypothermia, and frostbite, all of which can result in serious injury or death.
