Personality, aggression, sensation seeking, and hormonal responses to challenge in Russian alpinists and special operation forces

Autor(en)
Yulia Apalkova, Marina Butovskaya, Todd Shackelford, Bernhard Fink
Abstrakt

Male risk-taking behavior is associated with personality traits and correlates with hormone titers, notably for testosterone (T) and cortisol (C). Yet, these influences may be stronger in some individuals due to context or profession in which risk-taking occurs. We examine this possibility by investigating relationships of personality, aggression, and sensation seeking with T and C together with anthropometric measures in high risk-taking men: Russian alpinists (n = 55) and members of the Russian Special Forces (n = 33). They provided saliva samples before and after viewing a ~5 min video of aggressive male encounters and completed surveys after this task. After viewing the video, T increased in alpinists but decreased in Special Forces, and C increased in Special Forces. Alpinists scored higher than Special Forces in neuroticism and openness whereas Special Forces scored higher than alpinists in extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Verbal aggression, anger, hostility, experience seeking, disinhibition, and boredom susceptibility were higher in alpinists than in Special Forces. Our findings suggest behavioral differences in high risk-taking men, influenced by profession-related individual differences in sensation seeking and hormonal response to challenges.

Organisation(en)
Department für Evolutionäre Anthropologie
Externe Organisation(en)
Russian Academy of Sciences, Oakland University, Biosocial Science Information, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Journal
Personality and Individual Differences
Band
169
Anzahl der Seiten
9
ISSN
0191-8869
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110238
Publikationsdatum
02-2021
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
106018 Humanbiologie, 501004 Differentielle Psychologie
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Allgemeine Psychologie
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/ad75c64f-300f-47e6-9681-a359d374e4d1