What do you think of this study ?

[AntlerPeak]

Don't blame me I did not write this story I only found it. By climbers they are not discussing hikers in general but it begs the question, how long will it be before they make that stretch. What to you think of this guy's assumptions? I will give him this, it is grist for the mill.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/232321_climberpsychology13.html

 

[Chip]

"Physiologically, this means such seekers either have an unusual number of neural receptors that process dopamine, which induces the feeling of pleasure, or they simply have highly reactive ones. The research isn't definitive. But researchers know this much: Such people are driven to repeat whatever unusually intense stimulation they receive.

"My theory is that they have more reactive dopamine receptors," Zuckerman said."

Personally, I prefer the "Because it's there" theory.
I abandoned a nearly completed Psych major and switched to business when it became apparent that a great deal of the research being conducted amounted to nothing more than additional grants and tenure for the schools and researchers involved. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not what reacted with my dopamine recepters, don't cha know.

 

[ExploreTheEast]

Actually, I kind of agree with all of this, based on my own personal experience. I was a troublesome little bastard when I was younger, did a lot of stupid $hit just for the thrill of it. If I didn't channel all of that energy into something positive like all of the stuff I'm currently into, I might be a junkie convict today. Sounds like a great idea for a T-shirt:

Hiking or Crack?

 

[tonycc]

Actually, I kind of agree with all of this, based on my own personal experience. I was a troublesome little bastard when I was younger, did a lot of stupid $hit just for the thrill of it. If I didn't channel all of that energy into something positive like all of the stuff I'm currently into, I might be a junkie convict today. Sounds like a great idea for a T-shirt:

Hiking or Crack?

Or one of my favorite quotes:

"One method of getting loved ones to look more fondly on your climbing is to tell them that since you've started climbing you hardly do drugs anymore." — David Harris.

Tony

 

[giggy]

probably some truth to it - lets face it - there is risk everytime you step on the trail - no matter hiker/climber, whatever - its the challenge, the thrill, maybe danger -

I had a discussion with a coworker about climbing and she thinks it is a silly stupid risk - same person commutes in 2 hours a day traveling at high speeds to/from work in boston - in a way - I see more risk in that than climbing. hell - in this world today, risk is everywhere - at least in the mountains - we have some control.

 

[SAR-EMT40]

I tend to agree with what the article says. Also the book "Deep Survival" talks a good amount about "risky behavior" and what drives it and why it can be useful and also how it can get us into trouble.


Keith

 

[WhiteMTHike]

No doubt some climbers and hikers are high risk takers. However, trying to equate that to criminal behavior sounds a little irresponsible to me. I'd like to know what this guy does for a hobby. I'll bet it's something sedentary.

Personally, I thought the best part of the web page was the advertisement to the right.

 

[Artex]

No doubt some climbers and hikers are high risk takers. However, trying to equate that to criminal behavior sounds a little irresponsible to me.

That irked me about the article as well, but then I reread it and noticed the author wrote:

The news that avid climbers share a psychological trait to some criminals and addicts (but maybe better upbringing or socialization), that they tend to get bored easily and always crave new experiences, doesn't come as a complete surprise to Mount Rainier National Park lead climbing ranger Mike Gauthier.

But I agree... Despite that disclaimer of sorts, I still don't think it paints a pleasant picture by constantly comparing climbers/thrill seekers to criminals, who tend to be sociopathic.

 

[spaddock]

I'm not a rock climber, but I would think that sport is much more risky than hiking...

When I've hiked I've never had to screw in one of those bivy's that you attach to the side of a rock. I take my hat off to anybody who's slept soundly in one of those.

-Shayne

 

[SAR-EMT40]

who tend to be sociopathic.

Perfect description, and that is the difference. A sociopath is someone without a conscience. The article is talking about what drives us. There is a difference between what drives us and what our intellect allows us to do.

I know I could make an easy living by selling drugs or stealing. I chose not to do it even though it would reward me because of a higher brain decision on my part. The law (forced socialization) has little to do with it as it does with most people, I think. I choose not to do it because I prefer that people didn't do it to me and I can empathize with others, sociopaths can't. All criminals are not sociopaths. Some make the higher brain decision to take the risk and steal or sell crack. Just like some hikers decide that, "Yes, I do want to climb that waterfall in cowboy boots." For them they feel the reward (feeling good) is worth the risk. That wasn't a sociopathic decision, just not a really smart one. For me, anything that I think might result in Bilateral femur fractures, is something I want to avoid. No matter how good I would feel if I managed to pull it off. He (before the fall) thought it was worth the risk Whether his brain rewired after the accident, to not allow him to make the same choice again, I don't know.

My point is that there is always a reward/risk contest going on in peoples brain. (Makes me feel good)/(Might get me killed). I believe the point of the article was that the "Makes me feel good" part is more heavily driven in the Hikers/Climbers/Criminals/Cops group then the none risk takers. Sounds like a valid hypothesis to me.

Keith

 

[DougPaul]

I'm not a rock climber, but I would think that sport is much more risky than hiking...

When I've hiked I've never had to screw in one of those bivy's that you attach to the side of a rock. I take my hat off to anybody who's slept soundly in one of those.

This is a fairly common viewpoint--people view something they don't do as being more dangerous than something that they do and the participants as being risk seekers. Remember too, that many non-hikers view hiking as dangerous.

I'd be willing to bet more hikers and climbers die in car accidents and by other "ordinary" causes than die hiking or climbing. Hiking and climbing accidents make the news, car accidents do not.

Doug

 

[spaddock]

This is a fairly common viewpoint--people view something they don't do as being more dangerous than something that they do and the participants as being risk seekers. Remember too, that many non-hikers view hiking as dangerous.

I never said hiking isn't dangerous, of course it is. Especially given some of my other leisure activities such as beach volleyball, basketball, or hockey. Chances are I'm not going to die in of those sports, where as with hiking I could slip down a descent and crack my head open, freeze to death from exposure, or just plain get lost. My mom probably thinks when I hike I'm a thrill seeker sure, but I'd bet if I told her I was going rock climbing she'd think that even more so.

In my viewpoint, rock climbing is more dangerous, at least for me. I'm not sure I have the nerve to sleep out in a bivy attached to a rock. Every creak would keep me awake. Not sure how I'd react to some of the heights either, in a climbing gym I'm fine, in the outdoors I'm not sure.

That being said, I am very interested in getting into ice climbing. Would love to take a few lessons next winter.

Maybe the scariest part of it would be all the cash I'd need to buy all that new gear.


-Shayne

 

[jfb]

"Such people are driven to repeat whatever unusually intense stimulation they receive".


I don't quite agree with this statement. There have been a few episodes in my climbing career that came with unusually intense stimulation that I've decided I never want to repeat. But that only drove me to train harder until I could repeat the climbs with only the usual amount of intense stimulation.

 

[Neil]

I don't think the article pertains in any way to hiking which I consider to be a very safe, low key activity. I'm sure that climbing may be quite safe but can be potentially very dangerous depending on who's doing it and how. Scrambling big mountains may be the most potentially hazardous of all because you don't carry protection and going off route can put you in a very delicate position very quickly. Depicting climbers as genetically programmed thrill junkies is kind of interesting but I'd be willing to bet that most people climb for the unique views and the challenges of problem solving more than for the adrenalin rush.

 

[Pete_Hickey]

This is a fairly common viewpoint--people view something they don't do as being more dangerous than something that they do and the participants as being risk seekers.

Climbing IS more dangerous. (no time now to dig up stats), but insurance companies, who don't run things on preception, but clean probability. Climbing is one of their high-risk pasttimes.

 

[king tut]

"get busy living or get busy dying"- my favorite quote from shawshank redemption. People climb for many different reasons, but when you exercise vigorously, you definitely get the dopamine flowing, which is basically a natural high from exercising. Same as running long distances, doing other sports, drinking alcohol or whatever else. I agreed w/ most of the story, but the link to criminals was a little bit of a stretch. People steal and do other crimes mostly for economic reasons or mental reasons, not generally to get a high. People do climbing/hiking to get a feeling that they cannot achieve elsewhere in everyday life. it's basically risk vs reward. we're all going to die some day, but it is a mix of how much life you can get in before that day comes, and also the inherent danger of making that day come sooner.

 

[TCD]

Actually, there is a lot of perception involved.

Climbing safety varies greatly with the type of "climbing" being engaged in (top rope vs lead vs solo, rock vs ice vs alpine, seige vs capsule vs light&fast, etc.). For example, light&fast alpine climbing has a really high death rate. Top rope rock climbing is safe for children; safer than most playground equipment.

Also, "safety" varies greatly with the type of loss or negative outcome being measured (injury vs death, for example).

We do a lot more searches for hikers and hunters than we do for climbers. Also, most (not all) of the "climbing" deaths and rescues in the Adirondacks have been non-climbers who decided to engage in climbing activities without the requisite training or equipment. So was that climbing, or "dangerous hiking?"

The reason I try to differentiate this is that a lot of perception, and basically "fluff" information, is being used in some areas to justify limitations or bans on "climbing," or the imposition of high "rescue insurance fees," even when almost all the resues in a given area have been "non-climbers." It's easy to make the uninitiated believe that climbing is dangerous. As someone pointed out, car accident deaths don't make the national news.

 

[SAR-EMT40]

I agree with Pete. Some things like climbing, especially ice climbing is one of those things, like being an infantryman or an astronaut. You can do everything 100% correctly and you can definitely still die. A prime example was a skilled group that had tied up for the night on one (sorry I don't remember which one) of the big walls and heard during the night a very large rumble. They woke the next morning to find that part of the wall had given way. They were tied in correctly, had backups, and were experienced climbers. Had they been attached to that part of the wall, it would have meant nothing. Look at all the climber, really good ones, which are now dead. It is a high risk sport. You can mitigate some of the risk but you cannot reduce it to what would be considered a reasonable (societal view) level in many cases. I assume that we are using as a guideline the number of dead per number of people participating.

I have to say Neil that I think the adrenaline rush is actually a very big part of it. I know the EMT stuff I do I like having the knowledge but the adrenaline rush is definitely part of. It fills a large part of what I was missing after I got out of the Army. They even have a name for it, trauma junkies. I think a lot of the Firefighters, EMT’s, ER nurses and Docs and Cops are like this and I imagine that many crooks, drug dealers and climbers are as well.

"There is nothing so exilarating as being shot at... and missed."
Winston Churchil

Keith

 

[DougPaul]

Climbing IS more dangerous. (no time now to dig up stats), but insurance companies, who don't run things on preception, but clean probability. Climbing is one of their high-risk pasttimes.

Insurance companies rate common activities by probability, uncommon ones have to be grouped and may not have adequate statistics for specific activities. Their stats are also weighted by the number of people engaging in an activity and the amount of time they engage in the activity.

For a single person engaging in an activity, one needs a different statistic. (In theory, each statistic can be derived from the other if full information is available.) Counting death certificates (which is appropriate for an insurance company), for instance, will not tell you your risk of engaging in an activity.

Climbing is also an activity where one has a significant degree of control over the risk. Some people are "accidents waiting to happen", some are far safer.

According to one of the stats below, driving a car is somewhat more dangerous than climbing.

Doug
========================

Some stats:

From backcountry-mortality (posted periodically to rec.backcountry):
======================================
Ways to die involving the backcountry. Nurturing Mother Nature? Hardly.

Most frequent: car accident going to or from a backcountry trip. Alcohol related (frequently).

======================================
Involuntary Risks: ................ Risk of death/person-year
-------------------------------------------------------------
Struck by automobile (USA) ....... 1 in 20,000
Struck by automobile (UK) ......... 1 in 16,600
Lightning (UK) .............................. 1 in 10 million
Influenza ...................................... 1 in 5000

Voluntary Risks: ................. Deaths/person-year (odds)
-------------------------------------------------------------
Smoking, 20 cigs/day ................ 1 in 200
Motorcycling ............................... 1 in 50
Automobile driving ..................... 1 in 5,900
Rock climbing ............................. 1 in 7,150
Skiing ........................................... 1 in 1,430,000
Canoeing ..................................... 1 in 100,000
Pregnancy (UK) ........................... 1 in 4,350
So, overall rock-climbing is less likely to kill you than being pregnant! And apparently one is more likely to die of influenza than from rock-climbing. It also appears to be the case that in the UK driving an automobile is more risky than rock-climbing overall.

The source for this information is Dinman B.D. The Reality and Acceptance of Risk. JAMA 244:1226. 1980.
=======================================
(doesn't include hiking or climbing, but interesting, none the less)

ESTIMATE OF FATAL RISK BY ACTIVITY
Activity ............ # Fatalities per 1,000,000 exposure hours
-------- .............. -----------------------------------------
Skydiving ......................................... 128.71
General Aviation ................................ 15.58
On-road Motorcycling ......................... 8.80
Scuba Diving ...................................... 1.98
Living (all causes of death) ................ 1.53
Swimming ............................................ 1.07
Snowmobiling ........................................ .88
Passenger cars ..................................... .47
Water skiing ........................................... .28
Bicycling ................................................. .26
Flying (scheduled domestic airlines) .. .15
Hunting .................................................. .08
Cosmic Radiation from transcontinental flights .035
Home Living (active) .............................. .027
Traveling in a School Bus ..................... .022
Passenger Car Post-collision fire ......... .017
Home Living, active & passive (sleeping) .014
Residential Fire ....................................... .003
Data compiled by Failure Analysis Associates, Inc., published in Design News, 10-4-93

 

[DougPaul]

I agree with Pete. Some things like climbing, especially ice climbing is one of those things, like being an infantryman or an astronaut. You can do everything 100% correctly and you can definitely still die.

Also applies to driving a car.

eg "I was minding my own business and the other car crossed the center line (or jumped the median) and picked me off."

Doug