CLIMBING PURPOSE #1: ACHIEVEMENT OR FLOW
Climbers’ Personalities.
There is a long list of anthropometric and psychological studies
regarding risk-taking and personality (Feher, Meyers, & Skelly, 1998). Researchers using personality traits have attempted to explain serious climbing behaviors by focusing on the extent to which climbers seek stress, thrills, or sensation (Zuckerman, 1979) and climbers’ willingness to (i) assume risks, (ii) experience fear and anxiety, and (iii) appraise accurately various kinds of risks (Feher et. al., 1998). A wide range of traits and sub-scales have been measured in climbers (e.g., aggressiveness, impulsiveness, imagination, forthrightness, self-sufficiency, toughmindedness, shrewdness, low ergic tension, intelligence, and reserve—Breivik, 1996), only to conclude that risk is not really a true goal or motivation for climbers. Traits have provided little explanation of underlying causes of climbing behaviors. Instead, risk appears to be a condition that climbers use to achieve their goals (Delle Fave, Bassi, & Massimini, 2003).
Climbers Are Strongly Goal-Directed
Other researchers have argued from a more behavioral point of view. Serious climbers have strong, deep-seated needs for arousal, autonomy, selfdetermination, and individualism (Ewert, 1994, 1989, 1987; Mitchell, 1983, 1988; Lyng, 1990; Fredrick & Ryan, 1995). Although the strengths of people’s needs are varied individually (McClelland & Burham, 1995; McClelland, Atkinson, & Lowell, 1953), powerful aspirations can lead people to achieve consequential and serious extrinsic goals (e.g., difficult summits and routes).
Climbers Want To Be “In the Zone”
—Intrinsic Motivations Humanistic psychologists have argued that goals do not have to be extrinsic (such as power or achievement) in order to be important and motivating (Maslow, 1987). Goals can be both intrinsically motivating as well as extrinsically motivating. People can enjoy their behaviors for themselves, irrespective of extrinsic rewards (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975; Deci & Ryan, 1985). “Flow,” an optimal subjective experience, occurs when action and consciousness merge, where the degree of challenge and the skills that a person takes to a challenge are perfectly matched. Flow is found in a narrowing of attention on clearly defined goals, in an intense concentration (being “lost” in an activity), in a loss of a personal and individualized self, in a transcendent state of mind, with a loss of a sense of time, and with a strong sense of well-being. On either side of a flow experience (mismatches between skills and challenge) are boredom or anxiety (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997; 1990; Mitchell, 1988). In a flow state, personal growth and more complex behaviors increase (Massimini &Delle Fave, 2000).
Mediation of Goals by Skill and Experience
The reasons why serious climbers climb could be mediated by time, skill, and experience (Lyng, 1990). Ewert’s (1994) findings indicate that: (i) novice climbers are oriented to physical aspects of climbing and the image of climbing; (ii) intermediate climbers to decision making and exhilaration in climbing; and (iii) experienced climbers to exhilaration, self-expression, and self-testing in climbing. The findings are consistent with intrinsic-motivation theories, and they hint at a progression of climbing purposes among serious climbers.
CLIMBING PURPOSE #2: DEFINING CHARACTER
Traditional economics and decision theory are powerful and pervasive explanative frameworks in today’s modern world. They make the assumption that people create “good” when they serve themselves, primarily by maximizing their own pleasures and utilities. Pleasure-seeking behaviors make people happy. Unfortunately, these theories cannot explain much about climbing behaviors. Pain, suffering, hunger, exhaustion, and even dismemberment and death— outcomes found all too often in mountaineering—are dubious non-consumptive “goods.”
Defining or Finding Character
Some sociologists argue that people work hard to provide others with impressions that are consonant with their “face” (Goffman, 1959; see Appendice I.) People conduct themselves with an eye towards making some kind of claim about who they are and what is going on so that they appear normal and sane to others, even in the most mundane situations (Chriss, 1993, 1995). Extraordinary circumstances are means of developing character.
To fully define the self and establish worth, a person must perform voluntary actions that are not available in everyday life. The difference between holding down a job and pulling a job off is that while the former can be considered “killed moments,” the latter is more consequential and problematic. When an act holds real risks and the completion of it cannot be normally assured, then the act can be said to be “fateful” (Goffman, 1967b). Indeed, brushing with the possibility of the most serious of consequences can strengthen the self and probe the meaning of existence (Simmel, 1959). Virtue is made from necessity, and self-respecting men or women cannot be afraid to put themselves on the line. Some encounters in life need to be confrontations. Maybe there is little left in everyday life for fatefulness, and maybe people look to become alive by fateful actions (Goffman, 1967b).
There are two kinds of skills and capabilities associated with fateful activities. The (i) primary skills are the technical skills of an activity (stored in memories and experiences), often created by training in inconsequential circumstances (toproping, gym climbing, sport climbing?) and other forms of practice. However, the (ii) secondary set of capabilities is more important, because the secondary set enables the primary, technical set to be exercised unencumbered. When consciousness of the risks of fateful action invades the mind of the individual, his or her decency can weaken, and naked self-interest can flood the consciousness and block the ability to perform the primary, technical activities. When an individual maintains full control of himself when the chips are down, it indicates moral strength and integrity (Goffman, 1967b). The secondary set of capabilities is comprised of four elements. (1) Raw courage is needed, because courage precedes the danger. (2) Will and determination (“gameness”) are also needed.
An actor must put total effort into a fateful action no matter what the demands are (e.g., fatigue,pain, set-backs). (3) Integrity is also needed, for actors under stress must resist the temptation to depart from moral standards even when an activity cannot be fully witnessed. Proper form must be maintained even when the forms are full of substance and not trivial. (4) Composure is also needed. Composure includes: (a) the ability to execute physical tasks that rely especially upon the control of small muscles to produce smooth, concerted, and managed movements; (b) emotional self-control to mobilize memory and knowledge of the primary, technical skills under pressure; (c) the ability to contemplate an abrupt change in fate without falling apart; and (d) dignity of bodily decorum in the face of all costs, difficulties, and imperative urges (Goffman, 1967b). Discomposure can disqualify a person for duties and threaten his or her status in a jointly created world (Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Hochschild, 1983), especially among beginners (Donnelly & Young; 1988).
