High‐Risk Sports

In this chapter, the authors use the term "high-risk sports" to delineate sports where one has to reckon with the possibility of severe injury or death as a consequence of something going awry. Sensation seeking theory began as a theory of the optimal level of cortical arousal. There exists a large body of evidence that suggests sensation seeking does not discriminate between participants of high-risk sports. According to self-regulation theory, when faced with a discrepancy between one's self and one's ideal self, one typically experiences negative affect. The dangerous environments of high-risk sports have the potential to induce anxiety and fear. Equally, the stressful nature of the competitive sport environment is stressful and also induces anxiety.