Beyond sensation seeking: affect regulation as a framework for predicting risk-taking behaviors in high-risk sport

Sensation seeking has been widely studied when investigating individual differences in the propensity for taking risks. However, risk taking can serve many different goals beyond the simple management of physiological arousal. The present study is an investigation of affect self-regulation as a pred...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of sport & exercise psychology 2010-10, Vol.32 (5), p.731-738
Main Authors: Castanier, Carole, Le Scanff, Christine, Woodman, Tim
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Affect - physiology
Arousal - physiology
Athletes
Awareness - physiology
Behavior
Cognitive science
Exploratory Behavior - physiology
France
Humans
Internal-External Control
Male
Physiological psychology
Predictive Value of Tests
Psychology
Regression analysis
Risk-Taking
Self Concept
Sensation - physiology
Sports - physiology
Sports - psychology
Sports - statistics & numerical data
Studies
Citations: Items that cite this one
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Summary:Sensation seeking has been widely studied when investigating individual differences in the propensity for taking risks. However, risk taking can serve many different goals beyond the simple management of physiological arousal. The present study is an investigation of affect self-regulation as a predictor of risk-taking behaviors in high-risk sport. Risk-taking behaviors, negative affectivity, escape self-awareness strategy, and sensation seeking data were obtained from 265 high-risk sportsmen. Moderated hierarchical regression analysis revealed significant main and interaction effects of negative affectivity and escape self-awareness strategy in predicting risk-taking behaviors: high-risk sportsmen's negative affectivity leads them to adopt risk-taking behaviors only if they also use escape self-awareness strategy. Furthermore, the affective model remained significant when controlling for sensation seeking. The present study contributes to an in-depth understanding of risk taking in high-risk sport.
ISSN:0895-2779
1543-2904
DOI:10.1123/jsep.32.5.731