According to psychology professor Marvin Zuckerman, intense sensation seeking is the set of varied and complex sensations and experiences together with the predisposition to take risks for the sole reason of living the experience.
It refers to a behavioral disposition that is externalized by the desire to experience risky and frightening activities that provide unusual sensations of speed and defiance of gravity. The skier seeking these intense sensations may exhibit disinhibition, susceptibility to boredom, and aversion to routine in monotonous environments.
Going beyond the limit, experiencing euphoria, and feeling alive are aspects of their personality, and engage in risky sports because they seek to escape from ‘normal’ activities and want to feel alive. Zuckerman identified four factors that make up intense sensation seeking: excitement and adventure, the tendency to act impulsively, the search for new experiences, and vulnerability to boredom.
Extreme skiing, which involves physical risks, is a classic example of intense sensation seeking and is part of risk-taking behavior in the mountains. What distinguishes the skier who engages in this activity would not so much be the pursuit of this type of sensation as testing his sense of self-efficacy, i.e., the exhilaration of feeling in control of the difficulties. For him, threat and risk are perceived as pleasurable insofar as he has the sensation of controlling the events. He shows a propensity to omit cautious behaviors by deliberately engaging in risk-taking activities in order to maximize stimulus arousal.
Intense sensation seeking includes the tendency to take risks as a way to experience physiological arousal. These type of skiers are predisposed to engage in risky activities because they offer physiological and affective rewards. Some studies suggest that this behavior expresses a means of affective self-regulation that would benefit the reduction of negative affect. The combination of this state along with a social avoidance strategy is a predictor of involvement in risky activities.
The strong sensation seeker is prone to restlessness so he needs stimulation in the activity he is engaged in. He possesses a particular attraction to risky activities. Being confident in his own ability, he exhibits a resilient motivation to take calculated risks. A risky behavior is interpreted when, in an unfavorable sense, he may incur in harming to himself. The uncertainty of gratification and the possibility of failure make an activity risky, which is seductive to many.
The reasons that lead the risky skier to face the elements of an unknown or uncontrollable environment are related to his correspondence with life, to his personal needs to challenge himself and feel in control. There is a certain feeling of omnipotence in challenging one’s own capabilities based on the underestimation of circumstances. Behind these personality traits may hide, in some, a certain level of depression that would lead to risk seeking originated in the death drive, i.e., an unconscious desire for self-destruction.
Several studies have reported that certain people, in situations of reduced stimulation, show a tendency to adopt behaviors that increase sensory stimulation. Dynamic ecstasy refers to the experience of the body in dizzying motion such as weightlessness produced by abrupt descent, jumping, sudden sliding, speed, and linear or rotational acceleration.
For some, these extreme sensory experiences are the only means to get in touch with their own body, i.e. to feel the body under conditions of hyperactivity and risk. The secretion of adrenaline is one reason why the extreme skier would be inclined to ‘limitless’ activities. The emotions that are triggered activate survival mechanisms in the face of the stress experienced, which is experienced as pleasure.
For many skiers, practicing extreme activities in the mountains is related to seeking an antidote to fear, a way of finding safety in the insecurity of dangerous circumstances. They seek to transform their fears into challenges in order to manage their own insecurity. It would be a kind of addiction to feeling fear in order to be able to control it. The purposes of the search for these sensations would be to experience intense emotions, to challenge nature, or to develop one’s own identity. In reality, it is more related to new sensory experiences than to frivolous social experiences in risk-free contexts.
In today’s society there is an obsession with eliminating risk. There is an insistence on maintaining physical and mental safety in all kinds of places and activities that, in reality, create a frustrating environment because excitement and stimulation are eliminated. It is often heard, in some people, complaining about their lives’ lack of excitement, so when choosing to learn to ski, the fear of the unknown and the uncertainty it provokes can produce pleasure in engaging in a new activity. The fear generated becomes an existential experience, and this need for intense sensations, or pleasurable fear, is a subject of study in psychology.
Performing risky activities makes the extreme skier momentarily eliminate his worries under an adrenaline rush that makes him feel alive and free. Before descending a demanding slope, he feels the increase of the pulsations, of the respiratory rhythm, and the secretion of a hormonal surge. When he reaches the end, the endorphins produced by the achievement continue to act for a short time, then he returns to seek the same feeling of euphoria on another descent.
As mentioned above, risk behavior is related to the search for strong sensations since both tend to evaluate the situation as less threatening. The risky skier may overestimate his own capabilities and underestimate the risks. On the other hand, there is the risk-averse skier, that is, when faced with a choice between two options, he generally prefers the less rewarding but safer alternative. However, engaging in high-risk activities does not necessarily mean overestimating one’s abilities or exhibiting irresponsible behavior.
The skier in search of intense sensations may experience fear when challenging his own mental and physical capacity, but this behavior could be interpreted as challenging one’s limits and not necessarily being a daredevil. Overcoming a risk allows one to be better prepared to face one’s fears, real or imagined, and some see it as the permanent search for a sense of skiing. Of course, everyone has a different feeling in the face of challenges. For some, descending a black run is to have surpassed one’s own level of recklessness, but for others it is nothing more than a simple warm-up.
There is a complex association between parenting and intense sensation seeking in terms of perceived or remembered parenting style and personality characteristics. Parental behavior may have a direct effect on impulsive sensation seeking. One of the essential functions of parents is the guardianship of an appropriate level of stimulation to their children. The search for strong sensations may depend on the level of stimulation and the child’s reaction to it.
According to Zuckerman, fearful and overprotective parents would discourage exploration, causing the child to fear new situations in which the outcome is not predictable. Other parents would encourage the child’s natural tendency to explore, to be curious, avoiding instilling fear more than necessary. There may be associated factors between the parent-child relationship and intense sensation seeking. A strict and cold parenting mode could generate an individual with a need for strong sensations.
Conclusions
- The main motivation of the extreme skier to descend challenging and threatening terrain is the intense experience he feels.
- Family factors may influence intense sensation-seeking behavior.
- Risk-taking behaviors may originate from the pursuit of intense sensation and thrill rewards.
- The probability of danger and confirmation of success in risky situations enhance the importance of perceived ability.
- Due to delusional optimism, some skiers think that they are invulnerable and that misfortunes happen to others and not to them.
- Factors that make up the extreme skier’s motivation would be to experience nature off the marked trails, to challenge himself, to counteract the restrictions of his daily life in society, or the search for strong sensations and emotions.
