[Detection of High-risk Personalities in Risky Sports]

Argument: Detecting high-risk personalities involved in hazardous sports is essential to develop prevention; studies on automobile driving or risky professional activities highlight excessive risk-taking personality variables.

Methodological Aspects: The most pertinent variables were tested so as to determine those most relevant to imprudent sportspeople: anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, 1983), sensation-seeking (Sensation-Seeking Scale V, 1978), alexithymia (Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20, 1994), and self-regulation (Risk and Excitement Inventory, 1997).

Results: Following an exploratory incremental ascendant discrimination analysis and various step-to-step incremental regression analyses, only two variables out of the seven tested stand out. The "difficulty to identify feelings" alexithymic variable [lambda de Wilks=0,23, p<0,001 & R2 change=0,57; F(2,85)=125,61, p<0,001] and the "self-conscience escape" self-regulation variable [lambda de Wilks=0,18, p<0,05 & R2 change=0,52; F(2,85)=101,81, p<0,001] appear to best discriminate and explain sportspeople's imprudence. Neither anxiety nor "danger and adventure seeking", among others, are significant. These results show how taking emotional data into account is essential to understand careless sport activities better. In keeping with drug addiction data, alexithymic subjects that cannot understand their feelings impulsively seek regulating stimulations. Indeed, our data confirm that "escapists" who forget their "self-conscience" in alcohol, drugs or parties, also practice strong sensation sports (43% of snowboarders).

Conclusion: It would appear that, in all instances, they seek positive sensations in a compulsive and uncontrolled manner, to forget about their negative affects. That would explain their carelessness.