The Type T Personality

[Texas Pete]

OK. I toned down the subject a little.


When people, out of the blue, ask me the question, "Why climb", or "Why do you climb", I ask them why other people like to bowl or play golf. Its my preference. Or is it?

Below are quotes from a Psychology Today article. You can read the article in full at http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles ... 00027.html


"Yet research has also revealed the darker side of risk taking. High-risk takers are easily bored and may suffer low job satisfaction. Their craving for stimulation can make them more likely to abuse drugs, gamble, commit crimes, and be promiscuous. As psychologist Salvadore Maddi, Ph.D., of the University of California-Davis warns, high-risk takers may "have a hard time deriving meaning and purpose from everyday life."

"Indeed, this peculiar form of dissatisfaction could help explain the explosion of high-risk sports in America and other postindustrial Western nations. In unstable cultures, such as those at war or suffering poverty, people rarely seek out additional thrills. But in a rich and safety-obsessed country like America, land of guardrails, seat belts, and personal-injury lawsuits, everyday life may have become too safe, predictable, and boring for those programmed for risk-taking."


"Some scientists, like UC-Davis's Maddi and Wisconsin's Farley, concentrate on risk taking primarily as a cognitive or behavioral phenomenon. Maddi sees risk taking as an element of a larger personality dimension he calls "hardiness," which measures individuals' sense of control over their environment and their willingness to seek out challenges. Farley regards risk-taking more as a whole personality type. Where other researchers speak of Type A and B personalities, Farley adds Type T, for thrill seeking. He breaks Type-T behavior into four categories: T-mental and T-physical, to distinguish between intellectual and physical risk taking; and T-negative and T-positive, to distinguish between productive and destructive risk taking."

"No surprise, then, that some researchers place the risk taking personality in the "abnormal" category and regard high-risk takers almost as an evolutionarily obsolete subspecies. Maddi suggests that well-adjusted people are "good at turning everyday experience into something interesting. My guess is that the safecracker or the mountain climber can't do that as well. They have to do something exciting to get a sense of vitality. It's the only way they have of getting away from the sense that life sucks." Larsen is even blunter: "I think risk takers are a little sociopathic."

[Crankmas]

Sounds like someone had to publish or perish, it that why Johnnie can't read?

[Rizzo]

... Larsen is even blunter: "I think risk takers are a little sociopathic."

Darn! I've just been "outed."

R

[TradMike]

We would not have gotton very far without T-types. Nobody made much for themselves by sitting home being content with themselves. We wouldn't have skyscrapers, bridges, tunnels, coal, etc.

[maine]

I would agree with that to some extent. Minus the sociopathic although some climbers/extreme sports junkies do take it too far and probably cross into being sociopathic.

I don't think that its derrogatory. Though the author probably meant it as such. I view what he calls the "normal" population BORING!

[Toad]

Well, life becomes an adventure after 60 - or so say's the makers of Depends undergarments. So, I guess to some people, fighting incontinence is their Everest. Let's just sit around and wait.

[Saxman]

What's wrong with admitting that some of us like our lives to be a little more exciting than others? I wouldn't want to live without music either but that isn't "weird" to most.

[ynot]

If you printed that crap it wouldn't be fit to wipe your ass with.

[meetVA]

So you climb in order to not become a sociopathic monster gouging out the eyes of society!

Rock ON! for the betterment of humanity.

[kentuckysarah]

I guess that T type personality gets passed on through genes. I have some great grandfathers on both sides of my family that were really important during the Revolutionary War, and one played an important part in settling Ky. These type of people, myself included, just like a little bit of an adventure and are not content leading an everyday normal life.