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Albert Einstein and Evel Knievel were
both looking for the same high.

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By Michael Alvear

July 22, 1999 |"What was he thinking?"

It's a question echoing through responses to the Kennedy tragedy, as people weigh the risk he took in flying at night. But the question is better asked of someone else, according to scientists who study the psychology of risk-taking -- someone like Michael Ballacchino.

Ballacchino lay down on his Honda Magna V-45 750 motorcycle at 130 mph, hanging on like laundry on a gusty day. "It was a real rush," he deadpanned. He stopped at 130 mph because "the motorcycle started screaming." And, well, it's not like he has a death wish.

Or does he? According to classic psychoanalytic theory, Ballacchino wants his disk re-formatted and is simply trying to figure out whether he wants it done on a Mac or a PC. The concept of Thanatos, the instinct toward death and self-destruction, is a famous Freudian concept; the psychoanalyst believed that Eros, the life instinct, must be opposed and balanced by the death instinct. To Freud, the healthy person looks for ways to reduce stress and tension. Imagine what he would have thought of today's adventure-seekers.

In psychoanalytic circles, Ballacchino's 90-foot jump from a cliff jutting over Georgia's Lake Altoona classifies him as dysfunctional. His father would get the same label, for giving him helpful tips. But psychologist Frank Farley, a University of Wisconsin psychologist and past president of the American Psychological Association, disagrees. He would likely consider Ballacchino a classic example of what he calls "Type T" personality (as in thrill-seeker).

Farley has built a personality model for people whose idea of a good time is probably your idea of a heart attack. His research showed that thrill-seekers crave novelty, excitement and adventure on a constant basis. They live for the surge of vitality that comes from letting go of life's handrails. Some Type T's express this in an intellectual way -- and some, like Ballacchino, do it by jumping off the roof of their house, confident that the mattress below will break their fall.

According to Farley, the same inner force that propelled Evel Knievel to want to jump the Grand Canyon propelled the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to jump-start the Montgomery bus boycott. For Type T's, the quest for adventure can span many arenas; it isn't just the physical rush, but also the intellectual and sometimes moral highs that risk-takers crave. Farley categorized Albert Einstein as a "Type T Mental" because ideas, not stunts, were his stimulating jolt of choice. Why jump out of an airplane when you can jump out of the space-time continuum?

Next page | For all our risk-taking, we live in a wuss culture