High Risk Sport

High-risk sports are evidently growing in popularity globally. Our work challenges previous perceptions that high-risk sportspeople are a homogenous risk-taking population. Through the development of new measurement tools, we have explored the relative psychological profiles of people who engage in high-risk sports.

More recently, we have begun to explore the specific psychological growth opportunities that high-risk sports might provide.

Example publications

Woodman, T., MacGregor, A., & Hardy, L. (2020). Risk can be good for self-esteem: Beyond self-determination theory. Journal of Risk Research, 23(4), 411-423. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2019.1588913

Barlow, M. D., Woodman, T., Chapman, C., Milton, M., Dodds, T., & Allen, B. (2015). Who takes risks in high-risk sport? The role of alexithymia. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 37(1), 83-96. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.2014-0130

Barlow, M. D., Woodman, T., & Hardy, L. J. (2013). Great expectations: Different high-risk activities satisfy different motives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(3), 458-475. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033542

Woodman, T., Hardy, L. J., Barlow, M., & Le Scanff, C. (2010). Motives for participation in prolonged engagement high-risk sports: an agentic emotion regulation perspective. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 11(5), 345-352. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2010.04.002