Adventure Thrills are Addictive

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Author(s)
Buckley, RC
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2015
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People can become addicted to behaviors as well as substances (Marks, 1990; Brown, 1997; Elster, 2000; Ranieri, 2011; Berczik et al., 2012; McNamara and McCabe, 2012; Lichtenstein et al., 2014). Behavioral addictions may have social as well as endocrine components, and may include antisocial activities such as crime and gambling, relatively neutral activities such as videogames and internet use, and positive addictions such as sport and exercise (Lichtenstein et al., 2014). Here I argue that participants in many forms of adventure recreation also experience particularly powerful behavioral addictions. This leads them to ...
View more >People can become addicted to behaviors as well as substances (Marks, 1990; Brown, 1997; Elster, 2000; Ranieri, 2011; Berczik et al., 2012; McNamara and McCabe, 2012; Lichtenstein et al., 2014). Behavioral addictions may have social as well as endocrine components, and may include antisocial activities such as crime and gambling, relatively neutral activities such as videogames and internet use, and positive addictions such as sport and exercise (Lichtenstein et al., 2014). Here I argue that participants in many forms of adventure recreation also experience particularly powerful behavioral addictions. This leads them to devote continually increasing proportions of time and resources to carrying out their preferred activities at higher and higher levels of skill, with higher and higher physical risk.
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View more >People can become addicted to behaviors as well as substances (Marks, 1990; Brown, 1997; Elster, 2000; Ranieri, 2011; Berczik et al., 2012; McNamara and McCabe, 2012; Lichtenstein et al., 2014). Behavioral addictions may have social as well as endocrine components, and may include antisocial activities such as crime and gambling, relatively neutral activities such as videogames and internet use, and positive addictions such as sport and exercise (Lichtenstein et al., 2014). Here I argue that participants in many forms of adventure recreation also experience particularly powerful behavioral addictions. This leads them to devote continually increasing proportions of time and resources to carrying out their preferred activities at higher and higher levels of skill, with higher and higher physical risk.
View less >
Journal Title
Frontiers in Psychology
Volume
6
Copyright Statement
© 2015 Buckley. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Subject
Tourist behaviour and visitor experience
Cognitive and computational psychology