Taking Risks to Feel Excitement: Detailed Personality Profile and Genetic Associations

This study mapped the personality and genetics of risky excitement-seekers focusing on skydiving behavior. We compared 298 skydivers to 298 demographically matched controls across the NEO Personality Inventory-3 domains, facets and 240 items. The most significant item-level effects were aggregated into a poly-item score of skydiving-associated personality markers (SPM; Study 1), where higher scores describe individuals who enjoy risky situations but have no self-control issues. The SPM score was associated with greater physical activity, higher rate of traumatic injuries and better mental health in a sample of 3,558 adults (Study 2). From genetic perspective, we associated skydiving behavior with 19 candidate variants that have previously been linked to excitement-seeking (Study 1). Polymorphisms in the SERT gene were the strongest predictors of skydiving, but the FDR-adjusted p-values were non-significant. In Study 2, we predicted SPM and E5: Excitement-seeking from risk-taking polygenic scores (PGS), using publicly available summary data from genome-wide association studies. While E5: Excitement-seeking was most strongly predicted by general risk tolerance and risky behaviors’ PGSs, SPM was most strongly associated with the adventurousness PGS. Phenotypic and PGS associations suggest that skydiving is a specific — perhaps more functional — form of excitement-seeking, which may nevertheless lead to physical injuries.