Risk anticipation
Risk anticipation is composed of a cognitive and an emotional aspect. In the cognitive aspect we detect and recognize potential risks (including the presentiment of a latent risk becoming an immediate one), accept a low level of risk, or have the will to ski carefully.
On the emotional side, our feeling of risk associated with the foreboding of its possible occurrence induces a reduction in those feelings. We perceive that ‘something’ could interfere with our goals, especially in new situations in which we need time for deliberation because we experience a sense of risk without knowing exactly what it is or because the temptation to go ahead needs to be contained. The cognitive aspect of risk anticipation would improve with our experience, while the emotional aspect would improve with maturation.
Level of expertise and risk perception
Risk perception is not constant since it varies according to what type of skiers we are and the context we are involved in. It tends to increase when we are aware that our ability is limited but decreases when we are convinced that we are expert skiers.
When improving our technique, we are prone to ski faster, on more difficult slopes, and with a tendency to exceed previous limits which implies risk-taking behavior but knowledge about avalanches, for example, does not equate with technical level. There are expert skiers who are not competent in managing terrain with potential avalanche slides. When skiing off-piste, the daring skier who thinks he is an expert tends to underestimate the risks and overestimate his ability to deal with them. Often, they perceive the risks but ignore them based on false beliefs such as, for example, if there are observable tracks it means the slope is safe or that skiing in a group promotes safety.
When we descend an off-piste, we do not take risks for the sake of it but for the benefit, pleasure, or the reward of the descent. In these occasions, we are generally carried away by the excitement of the run and the desire to repeat it, and as we haven’t get caught in an avalanche before, we may increase our delusional belief that it will not happen to us.
If we are inexperienced skiers, we cannot properly perceive the risk on the first off-piste runs we make. We could overestimate them, then we can quite possibly reach the end safely; but if we underestimate them, the risk of staying under an avalanche could increase considerably. With experience, our perception and risk assessment improve.
Conclusions on risk perception
- Perception is seen as an interface between our internal and external world.
- Perception, through our senses, enables our first contact with the environment.
- Attention is the first step in our perceptual process.
- Emotions influence our risk perception.
- In general, we tend to avoid risky behavior but accept a certain level of risk, or calculated risk, as an inherent aspect of the activity.
- Lack of risk perception is a preliminary factor to risky behavior.
- Risks that are not part of the known environment are perceived as more dangerous.
- We tend to react to changes in the environment in a compensatory manner, that is, our behavior becomes riskier when our perception of the environment is safer.
- There is no such thing as zero-risk in skiing.
Self-justifying pretexts used in the occurrence of skiing accidents
The skier who causes an accident due to risky behavior is prone to elaborate excuses to evade responsibility. In reality, accidents are not really ‘accidents’ since it is someone who causes them. If we disregard the rules of conduct on the ski slopes, it could be described as selfish because we do not think of others. This lack of empathy can be seen in the difficulty to control our impulses.
A serious irresponsibility is to attribute one’s own responsibilities to weather events or terrain conditions. Snow, visibility, or traffic are the most common justifications. Other excuses are the ‘inevitability’ of the event, ‘fate’, or the ‘uncontrollable’ event. With this, the irresponsible skier tries to interpret what happened by looking at it from a more favorable perspective and thus to de-dramatize the consequences of his actions in order to avoid his responsibility.
The compensated risk is a psychological mechanism by which we justify ourselves by believing that, by feeling safe, we can slide faster. For the egocentric skier, greater speed can be used to illusorily increase self-esteem. This individualistic perception of the reckless skier, who illusorily perceives himself as an ‘expert’, makes him believe that the risk increases because it is others who must control their trajectories, i.e. those he wrongly calls ‘beginners’.
The overconfidence comes from his own belief that he never falls because he has been skiing for years. He convinces himself that he possesses an apparent ability that prevents him from causing accidents. The delusional belief that the same thing would not happen to him is based on the fact that he skis well and that others are the misguided ones. In reality, he should not ‘believe’ but ‘think’, since a predisposition to believe and a lack of critical analysis can be dangerous when skiing.
The principle of geographic-emotional proximity holds that the emotional influence of an adverse event is inversely proportional to the geographic distance between the accident and a person, i.e., the farther away it occurs, the less emotional intensity this person will experience.
If the accident happens at another ski resort, the reckless skier’s reflection will be that it is completely unrelated to him since they are ‘other skiers’. If it happened to known skiers at the same ski resort, then they will consider that they made ‘mistakes’ and blame lack of skill but they are still ‘other skiers’. If accidents happen to close friends or family members then he will begin to become aware that risky behavior exists, until after a certain time after, which he will most likely return to his old belief, in the form of self-deception, that he skis too well to cause an accident.
General conclusions on risk behavior
- Conduct can be said to be the manifestation of behavior given by the adaptive reactions of our personality to environmental stimuli.
- Behavior is externalized but emerges from something internal.
- The actions that form it are located in two dimensions: the internal (thoughts, beliefs) and the external (observable behavior, emotions, reactions); therefore, behavior includes both observable actions and internal processes.
- The needs that generate behaviors come from our own interests, emotions, motives, and tendencies, which generate the impulses and orientation to channel our behavior or to modify it.
- We have the propensity to perceive habitual behavior as normal and any modification of it as abnormal.
- It can be assumed that our behavior on skis is based on four mechanisms: thought, movement, sensation, and emotion. The involvement of each of these in a particular behavior varies. When one or more of these mechanisms are weakened, our skiing degrades.
