Preprint

Gratuitous Risk: perceived danger and recklessness judgements about outdoor sports participants

This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review [What does this mean?].

Author(s) / Creator(s)

Ebert, Philip A.
Durbach, Ian

Abstract / Description

We investigate perceived danger and recklessness judgements (N=2060) about risk-taking in different outdoor sports ranging from mundane activities (such as golf and running) to more adventurous or so-called extreme sports activities (mountaineering, ski-touring, surfing). We investigate the relationship between danger and recklessness and the extent to which fatality frequency, as well as other contextual factors such as gender, dependants, experience, professionalism, and motivations of the sports participant affect these judgements across different sporting activities. Our main findings are that, after controlling for fatality frequency, the type of sport pursued has a significant effect on danger and recklessness judgements, and despite a 100-fold increase in fatality frequency we found no significant effect on both danger and recklessness judgements. Moreover, pursuing an extreme sport for charitable purposes significantly reduces perceived recklessness, while having dependants increases it. While we found no evidence of gender bias in such judgements, we found some evidence of a more complex gender effect that involves differences in inter- and intra-gender judgments. Finally, we investigated survey respondents' attitude about additional life insurance cover under variations of the type of sport activity and a 100-fold increase in fatality frequency. Results support prior findings that fatality frequency is much less relevant than the type of activity pursued.

Keyword(s)

risk perception risk communication concepts of risk outdoor sports

Persistent Identifier

Date of first publication

2020-11

Publisher

PsychArchives

Citation

Ebert, P. A., & Durbach, I. (2020). Gratuitous Risk: perceived danger and recklessness judgements about outdoor sports participants. PsychArchives. https://doi.org/10.23668/PSYCHARCHIVES.4368
  • Author(s) / Creator(s)
    Ebert, Philip A.
  • Author(s) / Creator(s)
    Durbach, Ian
  • PsychArchives acquisition timestamp
    2020-11-23T14:30:27Z
  • Made available on
    2020-11-23T14:30:27Z
  • Date of first publication
    2020-11
  • Submission date
    2020-10
  • Abstract / Description
    We investigate perceived danger and recklessness judgements (N=2060) about risk-taking in different outdoor sports ranging from mundane activities (such as golf and running) to more adventurous or so-called extreme sports activities (mountaineering, ski-touring, surfing). We investigate the relationship between danger and recklessness and the extent to which fatality frequency, as well as other contextual factors such as gender, dependants, experience, professionalism, and motivations of the sports participant affect these judgements across different sporting activities. Our main findings are that, after controlling for fatality frequency, the type of sport pursued has a significant effect on danger and recklessness judgements, and despite a 100-fold increase in fatality frequency we found no significant effect on both danger and recklessness judgements. Moreover, pursuing an extreme sport for charitable purposes significantly reduces perceived recklessness, while having dependants increases it. While we found no evidence of gender bias in such judgements, we found some evidence of a more complex gender effect that involves differences in inter- and intra-gender judgments. Finally, we investigated survey respondents' attitude about additional life insurance cover under variations of the type of sport activity and a 100-fold increase in fatality frequency. Results support prior findings that fatality frequency is much less relevant than the type of activity pursued.
    en_GB
  • Publication status
    other
    en
  • Review status
    notReviewed
    en
  • Sponsorship
    Support for this research was provided by the Royal Scoiety of Edinburgh (62345_Ebert_2019) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/T002638/1)
    en
  • Citation
    Ebert, P. A., & Durbach, I. (2020). Gratuitous Risk: perceived danger and recklessness judgements about outdoor sports participants. PsychArchives. https://doi.org/10.23668/PSYCHARCHIVES.4368
    en
  • Persistent Identifier
    https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12034/3951
  • Persistent Identifier
    https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.4368
  • Language of content
    eng
  • Publisher
    PsychArchives
    en
  • Keyword(s)
    risk perception
    en
  • Keyword(s)
    risk communication
    en
  • Keyword(s)
    concepts of risk
    en
  • Keyword(s)
    outdoor sports
    en
  • Dewey Decimal Classification number(s)
    150
  • Title
    Gratuitous Risk: perceived danger and recklessness judgements about outdoor sports participants
    en_GB
  • DRO type
    preprint
    en