Perceived Safety While Engaging in Risk Sports

Raue, Martina; Streicher, Bernhard ; Lermer, Eva and Frey, Dieter (March 2019): Perceived Safety While Engaging in Risk Sports. In: Raue, Martina; Streicher, Bernhard and Lermer, Eva (eds.) : Perceived Safety: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Risk Engineering (RISK), Cham: Springer. pp. 139-150

Abstract

Risk sports such as mountaineering, climbing, or backcountry skiing have become quite popular and more easily accessible for the general population. Easy access and added protection may increase perceived safety and result in underestimations of harm. In this chapter, we discuss the interplay of cognition, emotions and bodily states when judging risks while being physically active. We introduce three field and one laboratory study, in which we investigated the influence of physical activity on risk perception. In the field studies, less experienced participants made lower risk judgments under physical activity than before the activity. In the laboratory study, general health-related risks were judged as lower under physical activity. Thus, our findings indicate that physical activity does affect risk judgements. We discuss practical implications on how to support especially less experienced people in making good judgments when engaging in risky activities.

• Item Type: Book Section
• Form of publication: Publisher's Version
• Faculties: Psychology and Education Science
• Subjects: 100 Philosophy and Psychology > 150 Psychology
• ISBN: 978-3-030-11454-1; 978-3-030-11456-5
• ISSN: 2195-433X
• Place of Publication: Cham
• Language: English