‘It tickles in my tummy’ is one of the most frequent answers when children are asked to describe what they experience when engaging in risky play. Why do children take risks in spite of the fact that this can be a harmful and even fatal activity? This article aims to explore this issue. Semi-structured interviews of 23 pre-school children aged four and five years were analyzed on the basis of the concepts of paratelic and telic states in Reversal Theory, the paratelic state being an excitement-seeking mode, and the telic state being an anxiety-avoiding mode. The phenomenological structure of children’s risky play was found to be characterized by children expressing the ambiguous nature of quick reversals between the paratelic and telic states, producing both pleasant and unpleasant emotions. This ‘walk on the dangerous edge’ seemed to be one of the primary goals of engaging in risky play. As long as the paratelic state dominated the situation, children embraced the potential fear by arousal-increasing strategies and maintained play. If the telic state dominated the situation, children described arousal-avoidance strategies and ultimately withdrew from play.
Apter, M.J. ( 1991a) ‘The nature, function and value of play’ , in M.J. Apter and J.H. Kerr (eds) Adult Play, pp. 163-76. Amsterdam /Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger .
8.
Apter, M.J. ( 1991b) ‘A structural-phenomenology of play’ , in M.J. Apter and J.H. Kerr (eds) Adult Play, pp. 13-29. Amsterdam / Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger .
9.
Apter, M.J. ( 1992) The Dangerous Edge: The Psychology of Excitement . New York: The Free Press/ Macmillan .
10.
Apter, M.J. ( 2001a) Motivational Styles in Everyday Life - A Guide to Reversal Theory. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
11.
Apter, M.J. ( 2001b) ‘Reversal theory as a set of propositions’ , in M.J. Apter (ed.) Motivational Styles in Everyday Life - A Guide to Reversal Theory, pp. 37-51. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
12.
Apter, M.J. ( 2003) ‘On a certain blindness in modern psychology’ . The Psychologist16(9): 474-5.
Apter, M.J. ( 2007b) Reversal Theory: The Dynamics of Motivation, Emotion, and Personality, 2nd edn. Oxford : Oneworld.
15.
Apter, M.J., Kerr, J.H. and Cowles, M.P. ( 1988) Progress in Reversal Theory. Amsterdam / Oxford: North-Holland .
16.
Ball, D.J. ( 2002) Playgrounds - Risks, Benefits and Choices. London: Health and Safety Executive, Middlesex University .
17.
Bekoff, M. and Byers, J.A. ( 1981) ‘A critical reanalysis of the ontogeny and phylogeny of mammalian social and locomotor play: an ethological hornet’s nest’ , in K. Immelmann, G. Barlow, W., L. Petrinovich and M. Main (eds) Behavioral Development: The Bielefeld Interdisciplinary Project, pp. 296-337. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
18.
Berg, B.L. ( 2007) Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences , 6th edn. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Buss, A.H. ( 1997a) ‘Evolutionary perspectives on personality traits’ , in R. Hogan, J. Johnson and S. Briggs (eds) Handbook of Personality Psychology, pp. 346-66. San Diego, CA : Academic Press.
21.
Buss, D.M. ( 1997b) ‘Evolutionary foundations of personality’ , in R. Hogan, J. Johnson and S. Briggs (eds) Handbook of Personality Psychology, pp. 317-44. San Diego, CA : Academic Press.
22.
Buss, D.M. ( 2004) Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind, 2nd edn. Boston, MA: Pearson.
23.
Chirivella, E.C. and Martinez, L.M. ( 1994) ‘The sensation of risk and motivational tendencies in sports: an empirical study’. Personality and Individual Differences16(5): 777-86.
24.
Coffey, A. and Atkinson, P. ( 1996) Making Sense of Qualitative Data Complementary Research Strategies. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
25.
Cogan, N. and Brown, R.I.F. ( 1999) ‘Metamotivational dominance, states and injuries in risk and safe sports’. Personality and Individual Differences27: 503-18.
26.
Cook, S., Peterson, L. and DiLillo, D. ( 1999) ‘Fear and exhilaration in response to risk: an extension of a model of injury risk in a real-world context’. Behavior Therapy30: 5-15.
27.
Cook, S.C. ( 1993) ‘The perception of physical risk by children and the fear/exhilaration response’. Unpublished thesis (MA), University of Missouri-Columbia.
28.
Costa, P.T. and McCrae, R.R. ( 1992) ‘Four ways five factors are basic’ . Personality and Individual Differences13(6): 653-65.
29.
Eysenck, H.J. and Eysenck, M.W. ( 1985) Personality and Individual Differences: A Natural Science Approach. New York: Plenum .
30.
Ford, M.G. ( 2003) ‘Metamotivation in children: a reversal theory perspective: an exploratory study in the primary school’. Unpublished thesis (D.Ed.), Leeds Metropolitan University.
31.
Gerkovich, M.M. ( 2001) ‘Risk-taking’, in M.J. Apter (ed.) Motivational Styles in Everyday Life a Guide to Reversal Theory, pp. 215-28. Washington, DC : American Psychological Association.
32.
Giorgi, A.P. and Giorgi, B.M. ( 2003) ‘The Descriptive Phenomenological Psychological Method’, in P.M. Camic, J.E. Rhodes and L. Yardley (eds) Qualitative Research in Psychology: Expanding Perspectives in Methodology and Design, pp. 243-73. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
33.
Grbich, C. ( 2007) Qualitative Data Analysis: An Introduction. London: SAGE.
34.
Greig, A., Taylor, J. and MacKay, T. ( 2007) Doing Research with Children, 2edn. London: SAGE.
35.
Kerr, J.H. ( 1986) ‘Play: the reversal theory perspective’ , in R. van der Kooij and J. Hallendoorn (eds) Play Therapy - Play Research , pp. 67-76. Berwyn: Lisse and Swets.
36.
Kerr, J.H. ( 1991) ‘A structural phenomenology of play in context’ , in M.J. Apter and J.H. Kerr (eds) Adult Play, pp. 31-42. Amsterdam /Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger .
37.
Little, H. ( 2006) ‘Children’s risk-taking behaviour: implications for early childhood policy and practice’. International Journal of Early Years Education14(2): 141-54.
38.
Martin, P. and Caro, T.M. ( 1985) ‘On the function of play and its role in behavioral development’, in J. Rosenblatt , C. Beer, M. Bushnel and P. Slater (eds) Advances in the Study of Behavior, Vol. 15, pp. 59-103. New York: Academic Press.
39.
Matthews, G., Deary, I.J. and Whiteman, M.C. ( 2003) Personality Traits, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
40.
McCrae, R.R. and Costa, P.T. ( 1997) ‘Personality trait structure as a human universal’ . American Psychologist52(5): 509-16.
41.
Miller, D.C. and Byrnes, J.P. ( 1997) ‘The role of contextual and personal factors in children’s risk taking’. Developmental Psychology33: 814-23.
42.
Murgatroyd, S., Rushton, C., Apter, M.J. and Ray, C. ( 1978) ‘The development of the Telic Dominance Scale’ . Journal of Personality Assessment42: 519-28.
Pellegrini, A.D. and Bjorklund, D.F. ( 2004) ‘The onthogeny and phylogeny of children’s object and fantacy play’. Human Nature15(1): 23-43.
45.
Pellegrini, A.D. and Smith, P.K. ( 1998) ‘Physical activity play: the nature and function of a neglected aspect of play’. Child Development69(3): 577-98.
46.
Putnam, S.P., Ellis, L.K. and Rothbart, M.K. ( 2001) ‘The structure of temperament from infancy through adolescence’, in A. Eliasz and A. Angleitner (eds) Advances in Research on Temperament, pp. 165-82. Germany: Pabst Scientist Publisher.
47.
Rothbart, M.K., Ahadi, S.A., Hershey, K. and Fisher, P. ( 2001a) ‘Investigations of temperament at three to seven years: the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire’. Child Development72: 1394-408.
48.
Rothbart, M.K., Chew, K.H. and Gartstein, M.A. ( 2001b) ‘Assessment of temperament in early development’ , in L.T. Singer and P.S. Zeskind (eds) Biobehavioral Assessment of the Infant, pp. 190-208. New York: Guilford Press.
49.
Rothbart, M.K., Derryberry, D. and Hershey, K. ( 2000) ‘Stability of temperament in childhood: laboratory infant assessment to parent report at seven years’, in V.J. Molfese and D.L. Molfese (eds) Temperament and Personality Development across Life Span, pp. 85-119. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
50.
Sandseter, E.B.H. ( 2007a) ‘Categorizing risky play - how can we identify risk-taking in children’s play?’ European Early Childhood Education Research Journal15(2): 237-52.
51.
Sandseter, E.B.H. ( 2007b) ‘Risky play among four- and five year old children in preshool’. Paper presented at the Vision into Practice. Making Quality a Reality in the Lives of Young Children , Dublin Castle, 8-10 February.
52.
Sandseter, E.B.H. ( 2009). ‘Children’s expressions of exhilaration and fear in risky play’. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood10(2), 92-106.
53.
Sandseter, E.B.H. and Kennair, L.E.O. (in preparation) ‘Children’s risky play from an evolutionary perspective: the anti-phobic effects of thrilling experiences’.
54.
Smith, P.K. and Vollstedt, R. ( 1985) ‘On defining play: an empirical study of the relationship between play and various play criteria’. Child Development56: 1042-50.
55.
Smith, S.J. ( 1998) Risk and Our Pedagogical Relation to Children: On Playground and Beyond. New York: State University of New York Press.
56.
Stephenson, A. ( 2003) ‘Physical risk-taking: dangerous or endangered ? ’ Early Years23(1): 35-43.
57.
Sutton-Smith, B. ( 1997) The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press.
58.
Trimpop, R.M., Kerr, J.H. and Kirkcaldy, B. ( 1999) ‘Comparing personality constructs of risk-taking behavior’. Personality and Individual Differences26: 237-54.
59.
van der Molen, P.P. ( 1986) ‘Reversal theory, learning and psychotherapy’ . British Journal of Guidance and Counselling14(2): 125-39.
60.
Zuckerman, M. ( 1979a) ‘Sensation seeking and risk taking’ , in C.E. Izard (ed.) Emotions in Personality and Psychopathology, pp. 163-97. New York: Plenum.
61.
Zuckerman, M. ( 1979b) Sensation Seeking: Beyond the Optimal Level of Arousal . Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum .
62.
Zuckerman, M. ( 1983) ‘A biological theory of sensation seeking’ , in M. Zuckerman (ed.) Biological Bases of Sensation Seeking, Impulsivity, and Anxiety, pp. 37-68. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
63.
Zuckerman, M. ( 1994) Behavioral Expressions and Biosocial Bases of Sensation Seeking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
