Multiple motives for participating in adventure sports
Highlights
► We found multiple motives for participation in adventure sport. ► These were: risk taking, goal achievement, social motivation, escape from boredom. ► Also, testing personal abilities, overcoming fear, connecting with natural environment. ► And, unselfconsciousness, pleasurable kinaesthetic bodily sensations. ► Participation motivation in adventure sport goes beyond simple excitement-seeking.
Section snippets
A brief explanation of reversal theory
Reversal theory (Apter, 1992, Apter, 2001) is a general theoretical model of motivation, emotion and personality. Conceptualized within the reversal theory approach are four pairs of mental or metamotivational states. Metamotivational states are frames of mind concerned with the way a person interprets his or her motives at a certain time. There are four pairs of opposing metamotivational states and each state has its own characteristics. A person in the telic state tends to be primarily
Participants
Data was collected from expert adventure sport participants (N = 5). Each participant was experienced at recreational and professional levels in their activity of expertise. Three participants had also competed at an elite level in their adventure activities. The participants included: a female riversurfer; a female downhill mountain bike racer; a male whitewater kayaker; a male mountaineer and a male hang glider pilot. Participants ranged in age from 19 to 52 years (mean age = 36 years).
Study design and procedures
The
Results
This section reports and discusses participation motivation data from interviews with expert adventure sport participants. The participants participated in different adventure activities and their interview data were analysed and interpreted on an individual case study basis. The full gamut of participant motives are reported, which were sometimes exclusive to one individual or sport and sometimes shared. The experts and their interview statements are presented in the following order:
Discussion
The purpose of the present study was to explore possible multiple motives for participation in adventure sports. The qualitative results represented a range of participation motives that varied inter- and intra-personally. In order to better conceptualise and understand how this diverse range of motives underpins adventure sports participation, a reversal theory analysis of the data was conducted. The advantage of reversal theory (Apter, 1982, 2001) is that it can accommodate multiple motives
Acknowledgement
This research study was partly funded by The Duffus Lubecki Award for Applied Sciences at the University of Otago which was awarded to the second author.
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