risk- taking personality types

[Guest guest]

Hi again,

I suppose I'm getting progressively off-topic, but the sub-text to the

listserv is avoiding death, so I guess it's worth diving in every once in a

while to examine other ways that we do this symbolically (or how some

realistic actions, like CR, can take on the characteristics of the

symbolic)...

>There seems to be a certain personality

>type that : car races, sky dives, climbs

>the most dangerous mountains, etc etc.

>they don't feel " alive " unless they're

>doing something dangerous.

It also makes people feel important and affirmed. One of these studies was

on death reminders and reckless driving among young males in Israel.

Evidently driving recklessly is 'cool' and therefore validates the driver in

that social system, so by giving a mortality salience induction, followed by

a distraction from the direct consideration of death, the need for the

ego-boost of reckless driving was increased among the subject (as opposed to

the controls or those who were asked to think about severe dental pain).

What I'd point out is that reckless driving can be distal defense (distant

from the threat of death, rather than proximal ie: a symbolic defense rather

than a defense against an immediate threat), and in that function is doesn't

differ all that much from how we invest ourselves in our jobs,

relationships, defense of a nation, religious belief, or even our diets. It

just so happens that CR is both a proximal and distal defense, or at least

it has the potential to be a distal defense (and I think the 'flames' that

the other list is famous for are a prime example of how heavily some are

invested in their particular stance, which is in some respect

death-denying). Pair up distal defenses that can be potentially

life-limiting (in their symbolic nature) with the other effects of death

reminders (derogation of difference, increased stereotypic thinking, &

avoidance of self-reflection) and you can have a nasty cocktail...

Best,

---------------------

Taubman Ben-Ari, Orit. " The Effect of Reminders of Death on Reckless

Driving: A Terror Management Perspective. " _Current Directions in

Psychological Science_ 9.6 (2000): 196-199.

Arndt, and Jeff Greenberg. " The Effects of Self-Esteem Boost and

Mortality Salience on Responses to Boost-Relevant and Irrelevant Worldview

Threats. " _Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin_ 25.11 (1999):

1331-1342.

Goldenberg, L., Tom Pyszczynski, Jeff Greenberg and Sheldon .

" Fleeing the Body: A Terror Management Perspective on the Problem of Human

Corporeality. " _Personality and Social Psychology Review_ 4.3 (2000):

200-218.

________________________

Gifford

Department of English

3-5 Humanities Centre

University of Alberta

www.ualberta.ca/~gifford