Stolen from a Broadsheet. EeK
Interesting theory, anyone recognise the traits? Are you a “Sensation Seeker”? The responder to the question is Prof Tanya Byron.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Byron
Question clearly written by someone who has never ridden;)
Q My 50-year-old brother-in-law has just had a crash on his motorbike for the umpteenth time. He had an extended stay in hospital to recover, including a bout in intensive care, during which we all thought he wasn’t going to make it. In the ten years since I’ve known him, he’s come off his motorbike several times with various degrees of injury. Goodness knows what his insurance premiums must be like at this stage.
All of us in the extended family — siblings, parents and his children — implore him to sell his motorbikes (he has three of them) and use a car like the rest of us. But it falls on deaf ears. He says he loves motorbikes, end of story. Mind your own business.
Are we right to want to stop him? If we are, how do we do it? I wonder if there could be a deeper reason he refuses to give them up. Here’s a snapshot of his personal life: single parent divorced ages ago, but now has a serious girlfriend; patchy career; not much money; no retirement savings; parties hard — not just beer, but the occasional joint too. He has two children, one at university, the other just out of school.
He’s the least successful member of the family and has been outshone career-wise and money-wise by his two sisters, one of whom is my wife. Could he be trying to prove himself in some perverse way?
I hope you can help, we’re all very worried that next time could be the last time.
Richard
A It is entirely normal to worry about the health and wellbeing of those we love, especially if they seem to be putting themselves in danger. Given your brother-in-law’s history of motorcycle accidents, it is totally understandable that you want him to stop this high-risk behaviour. However, your letter points to issues that may underpin it and it would be helpful to consider these before any further conversations with him take place.
You seem to be wondering whether your brother-in-law is compensating for feelings of inadequacy. If this is part of the issue, then having all those around him who are more “successful” telling him to stop his motorbiking may feel extremely threatening.
However, it may be that his behaviour is more adequately understood as sensation-seeking, which is linked to a personality trait first researched in 1969 by Professor Marvin Zuckerman. Sensation seekers require high amounts of stimulation to feel optimally aroused. They seek out thrilling and risky experiences, are impulsive, get bored easily and enjoy being disinhibited (so are more likely to use drugs and alcohol).
Behaviours might include a need for speed, financial risk taking (eg, gambling), extreme sports, high-risk sexual behaviour often with multiple partners, criminal activity and a difficultly to stick with one activity or relationship. All this is done not solely for the risk (although that can be the outcome) but for the sake of new experiences, the “thrill”. Research highlights that this trait is more common in males and is often found shared among family members. This suggests a strong genetic component, hypothesised to be 60 per cent inherited. The behaviour increases with age from childhood.
Divorced men (compared with those who are married or single) tend to be more likely to display the trait, and high-sensation seekers have also been found to be more likely to show high-risk driving behaviour, to ignore traffic rules and to have more accidents. They also prefer arousing and loud, hard rock music.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that mediates pleasure and reward in the brain. It is released during “pleasurable” situations (food, sex, drugs) and stimulates one to seek out the pleasurable activity or occupation. Neurological research using brain scanning has suggested that the brains of sensation seekers respond differently to intense and arousing stimuli. They show higher levels of the dopamine D4 receptors involved in reward-seeking, and therefore need more input in order to feel aroused.
Zuckerman designed a personality test called the Sensation-Seeking Scale, which assesses individual differences in terms of sensory stimulation preferences. A version can be found here: bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/sensation/
As an adult, your brother-in-law has the right to make his own decisions about how he leads his life. However, such decisions can be challenged if they are perceived by others to be a risk to him or to others. Indeed, apart from the obvious risk to him, it appears that your brother-in-law could also be endangering the lives of others given his frequent accident record, an important issue for him to consider.
Your families’ concerns bring to mind how telling an adolescent to not do something can make them even more determined to do it. A demand to stop is generally ineffective without a considered discussion spent looking at risks and enabling the individual to make their own informed decision.
Your brother-in-law can only address his behaviour when he understands what drives it and is able to find alternative behaviours that enable him to feel excited and rewarded.
It might be helpful for him to consult a psychologist who can help him think through his personality type (see bps.org.uk). However, unless this is discussed with him in a manner that makes him feel empowered to make his own decisions, I suspect he will retreat like a stroppy teenager and continue with his high-risk behaviours despite the pleas from those who love him.
