Comments on a Times editorial?

I thought Doug Mercer's op/ed piece was okay, but I think the author missed or glossed over one of the biggest factors that leads young people to accept high risk in mountain sports: the desire for peer recognition.

Certainly risk-taking can be socially motivated, and this is by no means unique to mountain sports or even humans. But I don't think it's always as simple as showing off for the benefit of others. Engaging in an activity that is potentially dangerous can be as much (or more so) about proving something to yourself; the motivation is simply: 'yes, I can do this.'

There is a taste of the immortal in 'making it' when it matters. For some this can be a reminder that there is some magic left in a bag of flesh and bones, that is capable of more than a default, spoonfed mortality.

I think this is the aspect of adventure sports that is missed by most (incl. this article). The notion of senseless risk easily mystifies someone whose conception of life is above all the avoidance of death. It is too easy to regard risk-taking as suicide, when you ignore the fact life itself kills you. What kind of life do you want to die of? You answer that question every day, whether or not you accept or realize it.

One of the reasons people mellow out as they get older and have families is that they find other means of affirmation.

I prefer the word purpose over affirmation. I see it as priorities changing as one finds other things to make themselves feel alive, and different reasons to live. (That and less free time for ill-conceived adventures...)

Furthermore if risk is being sought, the bar for challenging oneself is continually raised. In this situation there are three trajectories: 1) keep raising the bar, hoping that your skill increases faster than the risk does, 2) find an equilibrium at the cost of being challenged, or 3) walk away because you can't accept 1 or 2 (I stopped whitewater kayaking because something made me realize that I wasn't having fun on anything that wasn't trying to kill me).

Certainly risk-taking can be socially motivated, and this is by no means unique to mountain sports or even humans.  But I don't think it's always as simple as showing off for the benefit of others.  Engaging in an activity that is potentially dangerous can be as much (or more so) about proving something to yourself; the motivation is simply: 'yes, I can do this.'

I don't know if it is possible to measure how often risky behavior is purely personal and how often it is social.  If anybody knows of a book or study on the subject, I'd be interested to hear about it.  Cases that are driven purely by internal motivations must, it seems to me, be tremendously under-reported.  If you tell anybody else about a risky behavior, then it has become a social act, and claims to purely internal motivation are suspect.

You are right that risk-taking is not limited to mountain sports or even humans.  You might find interesting The Handicap Principle, a 1997 book by Amotz and Avishag Zahavi.  In this book, the authors explore the importance of "signals" in evolution.  Signals are traits or behaviors that, from a strict Darwinian point of view, don't make sense.  An example is the gazelle which, when it sees a predator, does not run away but instead jumps straight up in the air, making itself fully visible.  By doing this, the gazelle sends a signal that it is so strong and fit that the predator would be better off seeking other prey.  To be reliable, the signal must be costly--it must require the signaler to invest more in the signal than it would gain by conveying phony information (i.e. it must be truly dangerous for an insufficiently fit individual).

Signals are found throughout nature and are common in human behavior.  For people, behavior that is risky or otherwise costly to the individual (e.g. altruism) can be used to demonstrate fitness and thereby gain prestige.  We see this all the time in high risk sports and how they are publicized.  It's what Doug Mercer was getting at when he wrote about the marketing of risky behaviors.  The prestige gained by athletes shown in movies, advertisements and other publications is obvious and attractive to many viewers. 

good article and even better discussion. I certainly fall in the category of Mercer as I age and with children. I am less inclined to agree that outdoor pursuit is primarily motivated by the social reward. That seems like a pretty shallow view that we all act for recognition. Maybe for some. To me one of the great reasons to get into the mountains is the solitude (and of course fun) and the reflection that there is more to the world than the social community of people (why else are we driven outdoors and away), but rather that we are dwarfed in the mountains and humbled by its beauty and our smallness. It will be interesting to reflect upon this discussion over time as my kids age and become good skiers themselves. Having just purchased my oldest sons first twin tip skis I am sure contributing to his desire to “go big”, it is certainly a harder sell to say “go safe”. An interesting juxtaposition in the safety-litigation crazed culture we are in.

... I am less inclined to agree that outdoor pursuit is primarily motivated by the social reward. That seems like a pretty shallow view that we all act for recognition. Maybe for some. To me one of the great reasons to get into the mountains is the solitude (and of course fun) and the reflection that there is more to the world than the social community of people (why else are we driven outdoors and away), but rather that we are dwarfed in the mountains and humbled by its beauty and our smallness...

No argument here. I agree that most of the time we enjoy the outdoors for the reasons you describe. I was referring only to high-risk activities, activities that we know are risky when we undertake them. I believe that social factors play a strong role in the motivations for those kinds of actions.