Beyond the Thrill: How Skydiving Motivations Evolve with Experience

There is conflicting evidence regarding the personality profiles and motivations of skydivers and extreme sports participants more broadly. While the dominant view portrays skydivers as ‘adrenaline junkies’ and thrill-seekers, emerging qualitative research suggests motivations may include community, skill development, and transcendental experiences. The discrepancy between these perspectives may be explained by differences in experience levels, but the empirical data are scarce. We thus asked 305 skydivers of varying experience about their sensation seeking levels and motives for skydiving—both with a pre-defined scale and open questions. We found that the skydivers had overall higher sensation seeking levels compared to norm samples, and that sensation seeking levels were comparable across experience levels. However, the motives of “thrill-seeking”, “trascendence” and “overcoming fear”—rated as most important for less experienced skydivers—decreased significantly in relevance over experience levels. In contrast, “community” and “improving skills” increased in importance across experience levels and were most important to highly experienced skydivers. These patterns were also reflected in the qualitative findings, where most skydivers reported that they initially began skydiving for the thrill or as a personal challenge, but now did it for the community, skill development or experienced mindfulness. The results challenge the prevailing thrill-seeker stereotype, indicating that thrill and fear motives diminish as experience grows. Overall, these findings clarify how motivations may evolve over time and highlight the importance of considering experience when researching skydivers and participants in extreme or high-risk sports.