What Is So Special about Wingsuit BASE Jumpers? A Comparative Study of Their Psychological Characteristics

Pierre Bouchat; Francesco Feletti; Erik Monasterio; Eric Brymer

doi:10.3390/ijerph19053061

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What Is So Special about Wingsuit BASE Jumpers? A Comparative Study of Their Psychological Characteristics

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What Is So Special about Wingsuit BASE Jumpers? A Comparative Study of Their Psychological Characteristics

Pierre Bouchat, Francesco Feletti, Erik Monasterio and Eric Brymer

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol.19(5), 3061

01/03/2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19053061

PMID: 35270753

Appears in Recent Faculty of Health Publications

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Environmental Sciences

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For the general public, BASE jumping is considered the ultimate extreme activity. Among BASE jumpers, those using wingsuits are generally perceived as the most experienced but also as the most risk-taking. Starting from this observation, we wanted to know whether wingsuit users differed in their psychological characteristics from other BASE jumpers. More specifically, we hypothesized that wingsuit users would be characterized by higher levels of mental toughness and by lower levels of harm avoidance. We also expected them to use more mental training techniques than the other jumpers. To this end, we conducted a vast survey on a sample of 183 BASE jumpers. Contrary to our hypotheses, the results did not reveal any significant difference in psychological characteristics between wingsuit users and other BASE jumpers. This absence of significant differences is discussed and recommendations for the use of mixed or multi-methods in the study of extreme sports are proposed.

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Title: What Is So Special about Wingsuit BASE Jumpers? A Comparative Study of Their Psychological Characteristics
Creators: Pierre Bouchat - Psychologie Ergonomique et Sociale pour l'Expérience utilisateurs
Francesco Feletti - S Maria Croci Hosp, Dept Diagnost Imaging, Ausl Romagna, I-48121 Ravenna, Italy
Erik Monasterio - Univ Otago, Christchurch Sch Med, Dept Psychol Med, Dunedin 8011, New Zealand
Eric Brymer - Southern Cross Univ, Fac Hlth, Gold Coast Campus, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia
Publication Details: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol.19(5), 3061
Publisher: MDPI
Number of pages: 9
Identifiers: 991013020027302368
Copyright: Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Academic Unit: Human Sciences; Faculty of Health
Language: English
Resource Type: Journal article

What Is So Special about Wingsuit BASE Jumpers? A Comparative Study of Their Psychological Characteristics

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