Podcasts · Psychology in Everyday Life: The Psych Files
Why People Step Out of the Plane — and Go Back Up the Next Day
· 11 min
Episode Why People Step Out of the Plane — and Go Back Up the Next Day
Why would anyone step out of an airplane — and why, after a fatal accident, would they go back up the very next day? In this episode I talk through that question using a recent New York Times feature on a brutal weekend in extreme sports, paired with my own interview with Dr. Kenneth Carter of Emory University, author of Buzz. It turns out "adrenaline junkie" mostly gets it wrong. The trait at the center of this is sensation seeking, and high sensation seekers actually process risk differently — running on less of the stress hormone cortisol and more dopamine — so the moment that floods most of us with panic gives them clarity instead. I break down Marvin Zuckerman's four components of the trait, explain why it's tied to openness but surprisingly not to extraversion, share my own (low) score on Carter's scale, and land on the practical point Carter made to me: the danger usually isn't the activity itself, it's doing it impulsively — so look before you leap, especially if you're leaping off a bridge.
Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.