The Genetics of Risk Taking

Adrenaline junkies to tech innovators: We call them Type-T and they’re wired to be bold

By Tess Barker

It was 11 PM on a Tuesday when I got the text from my sister: “There’s one spot on the hot air balloon I’m jumping out of in the morning if you can be here at 5:15.” Goddammit. I had been planning on going to yoga. But a hot air balloon? That was an unchecked box. No. I had no business buying a hot-air balloon ride. I was already going bungee jumping over the upcoming weekend. Sunrise hot-air balloon, though? The sky at that hour. 5:15 AM. That meant waking up at 3:30 AM. Four hours of sleep. I shouldn’t do it. I shouldn’t do it. I had to.

“Where do I meet you?” I asked her when I called without saying hello. She cackled maniacally.

“Perris Airport.”

My sister and I both have fire blood. We love tattoos. We give chances to strangers. We can’t turn down a dare. We are what Dr. Frank Farley has coined as “Type T” personalities. Farley is the former president of the American Psychological Association, and president of The Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict & Violence. He has spent decades studying Mount Everest climbers and similar-minded individuals — people who follow risk or, depending on your perspective, are ruled by it. The Type T personality runs on a continuum. It ranges in severity and the ways it manifests. Some Type T’s, people who Farley calls “T positive,” are highly creative innovators. They are daring, inventive, and at the forefront of progress in virtually every discipline. Lady Gaga is a Type T. So was Martin Luther King. Virgin Group CEO and real-life Bond Richard Branson is a prototypical T positive.

“T negatives,” on the other hand, are extreme thrill-seekers who have learned, due largely to things like lack of stimulating resources in early life, to seek risk in destructive ways. T negatives, Farley says, are often dangerous people who commit crime for sport — a behavior problem he blames for much of the violent crime in this country. “A kid can start off life with a genetic predisposition to risk-taking … but the direction that their life trajectory takes, I think, is heavily influenced by the environment,” Farley says.

Lady Gaga is a Type T. So was Martin Luther King. Virgin CEO and real-life Bond Richard Branson is a prototypical T positive.

For this reason, Farley strongly advocates educational programs that cater to the needs of children whose risk-seeking personalities are just starting to develop. Creative fields like art, science, and music are “All things that have high T potential,” Farley says. The school system should offer these disciplines to Type T kids, he says, otherwise they will likely seek the satisfaction they crave in rebellion like drugs and violence.

All T’s like to break rules. We have a biological, genetic, and environmental predisposition to be most at home in the space just beyond our own edge.

I couldn’t sleep. I kept picturing the lift-off. The air up there. I’d barely wrestled myself unconscious when the alarm beeped. I poured a cup of coffee and headed out for the desert in the darkness. I pressed the gas as far as it would go, bleary with exhaustion, sharp with live nerves. It is at times like these that I understand exactly how a chicken runs with its head cut off.

When I arrived at the airport, I saw a man who I would later learn was known as “Dan the Balloon Man.” He had gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses and was at once whimsical and curmudgeonly. “I’m here for a ride-along,” I told him.

Dan tilted his headlamp down at me. “You afraid of heights?”

“No.’”

“You a skydiver?”

“No. But I’ve been 11 times.”

I’m not a skydiver. I just went through a monthlong phase. Skydivers crash for weeks on third-hand couches in dingy houses near godforsaken towns so that they can be near the drop zone, their gateway to the sky, at all times. They eat cheap burritos and drink watery beer so that they can pour endless money into their rigs, which they love dearly and are constantly looking to upgrade. They keep what’s left of their cash crumpled up in sweat-soaked balls, which they throw down on beer or more jumps. They tell good dirty jokes and break bones jumping out of trees and occasionally die — out of nowhere — knocking the wind out of everyone who knew them who was sure they were masters of invincibility.

“T types don’t have a death wish. It’s exactly the opposite,” says Farley when I speak with him. “They’ve got a life wish. They love life. They want to live it to the fullest. They want a meaningful life…. They really are the great experimenters of life. In the course of experimenting with this strange journey we’re all on, sometimes you let your guard down, and do things the rest of the world would see as foolhardy. And you might die due to it. But they don’t want to die.”

One such man was 73-year-old BASE jumper James E. Hickey, who lit his parachute on fire after jumping off the 500-foot Perrine Bridge in Idaho last May. Hickey had planned to cut away from the flaming chute and land with his reserve. His reserve chute did not deploy on time and he died of blunt-force impact. Those around him were likely shocked that he didn’t survive. He had 1,000 BASE jumps under his belt and had reportedly pulled off the stunt without a hitch while skydiving. In the video of the horrific incident, onlookers were laughing until the second before his fiery body hit the riverbed.

My sister Marlena and her boyfriend, Michael, arrived in his Jeep as it crunched over the gravel. Michael stepped out: “I’m going in late for work today. I told my boss I had to do something important.” He jovially tightened the leg straps on his thighs. On the ride over to the launch site, Michael told me that Dan the Balloon Man had been up all night, taking precise measurements of the wind to determine the ideal location from which to lift off. “He’s crazy,” said Michael, who, again, was about to squeeze in a quick prework balloon jump.

The writer’s sister, Marlena Dee, falling through the sky after her jump/ PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL MAX

The balloon was much bigger than I had thought it would be and it was lying flat on the ground when we walked up. “You ready?” Dan smiled conspiratorially at me before firing off the torch at the center of the basket, which roared in swells as it bloated the balloon with air.

Twelve of us crowded into the basket. With another belch from the torch beside me, we took off. The floor below me abruptly became light and unsubstantial. The push beneath us moved through the wooden boards and up my body. My stomach tightened. I couldn’t stop smiling.

Several of us involuntarily cheered at the sun as it rose with us. “I don’t hate my life right now!” yelled one of the skydivers as we looked down on the cars making their morning commute. As we climbed, the balloon got quiet. Marlena and Michael, who were planning on jumping together, whispered the sequence they had planned. The rest of us stared out at the sky, collectively giving each other space for our own hearts to race.

“It’s interesting to juxtapose thrill-seekers who are trying to have a unique appreciation for life and the advent of the mindfulness movement…. Meditation, for example, as a way of connecting to the here and now through stillness,” Dr. Judith White, a clinical psychologist with a private practice in Los Angeles, told me. In fact, many of the extreme athletes I’ve met talk more about the tranquility their sport brings them than the speed at which they achieve terminal velocity.

“There are people who have BASE-jumped off of cliffs tens of thousands of times and successfully lived, and they’re the calmest, quietest people you could imagine. They’re very reserved,” Michael told me later. He said he “skydives so that he can see the green on the leaves.”

“It helps me treat other people better. It’s about focus. Mindfulness,” said Marlena. “You’re not supposed to go skydiving or BASE jumping when you’re pissed off. You’ll have the wrong intentions.” Focus is, in fact, a neurological side effect of engaging in risky behavior. When the human body perceives that it is in peril, it releases the hormone epinephrine (adrenaline), which, among other things, gives the brain the ability to think with heightened clarity. This, from an evolutionary standpoint, gives us the best chance at escaping imminent danger.

The noiseless balloon felt like the placid surface of a lake. On a skydiving plane the cabin is filled with the hum of the propellers and the chug of the engine. When the door opens, it’s time to jump out. The wind roars. No one will hear what you mutter to yourself when you step out.

“Alright, if you’re doing the rings, you gotta go out first,” Dan instructed casually when we reached altitude.

One of the skydivers stepped over the basket wall to a ledge on the outside. He grabbed a gymnastics ring suspended from the balloon. “I believe in you,” offered another skydiver. The man leaped off, hanging onto the ring. The basket rocked when we lost his weight. My knees locked. I squeezed down on a rope handle at the wall. Dan released a flame from the torch to even us out. Hanging onto the ring, the man did a flip. It was like watching a child on a playground in the sky — until he released the ring and dived rapidly toward the earth.

This euphoric state, the “rush” that many extreme athletes seem to chase, is partially from the release of the neurotransmitter “pleasure hormone” dopamine. It’s the same chemical released during activities like cocaine use, sex, or anything that your mind responds favorably to.

Marlena described her experience of free-fall as, “A euphoric, lucid state of mind that can no longer be described as fear. I’m mesmerized by reality in a way I don’t even remember as a child.” This euphoric state, the “rush” that many extreme athletes seem to chase, is partially from the release of the neurotransmitter “pleasure hormone” dopamine. It’s the same chemical released, among other times, when the fight-or-flight system is triggered. It is also released during activities like cocaine use, sex, or anything that your mind responds to favorably. For this reason it is sometimes assumed that adrenaline addiction is similar to drug addiction — a perpetual search for that sublime carnal sensation.

Farley cautions, however, against using the phrase “adrenaline addiction” too liberally. “I would argue that this is just these people’s personalities. It’s who they are,” he explains. He also believes that chemical high of a dopamine surge is actually only about 10 percent to 15 percent of what compels Type T’s to engage in extreme behavior, pointing out that “You can get a lot of the physiological changes that you get from climbing Mount Everest by simply having great sex in your bedroom.” Some combination of other things is predominantly what drives Type T’s to step off that platform in the sky, he says.

Perhaps part of that compulsion is tied into our preservation, not as individuals but as a species. Progress has always been built on the adrenal glands of Type T’s. “You’re not going to do great creative things unless you’re a risk taker,” says Farley, who noted that it was virtually impossible to determine what percentage of the population was at the high end of the Type T continuum. He does believe, however, that the measure of Type T’s in any given population can be roughly determined by the amount of progress displayed there. Some countries, because of the way they are constructed, also lend themselves to generating Type T’s. New World nations like those in South America or countries with a large immigrant population, including the United States, are generally home to more Type T’s. This is because inherent in the act of immigrating is a tendency toward taking risks. “Immigrants have sort of kept the T-flame burning,” he says.

“I think we find a higher portion [of Type T’s] by-and-large in the U.S. than in most countries,” says Farley, citing technological advances like social media as well as, “Another hallmark of America — the violence…. This country is doing Type T things all over the place. We’re everywhere in the world. We’re engaging in war and so on. Wars are very thrilling.”

White has witnessed the aftermath of thrilling warfare in her volunteer work with veterans. “They’ve experienced death. They, in some ways, have come back from death, and yet, they sometimes yearn to reconnect to the intensity and meaning they experienced when lives were on the line in combat. This has something to do with the difficulty many of them have in reentering civilian life.” Repeated exposure to severe stress, such as that experienced by soldiers, can alter the nervous system. “When the system is flooded with stress hormones after exposure to chronic combat conditions, or maybe even long-term skydiving activity, it often doesn’t know how to modulate. It’s just on all the time. The body, chronically primed to pump adrenaline, continues to seek conditions for that to happen.”

The skydiver who had earlier yelled, “I don’t hate my life right now!” was now standing outside the balloon. He was not wearing a parachute. Instead, he held a nylon canopy called a “speed wing,” which is intended for BASE jumping and not skydiving. Apparently, regular balloon skydiving felt too vanilla for him. We all watched breathlessly as he dipped the limp canopy through the air, inches away from the edge. “No more speed wings! No more speed wings! Everyone hear me?” Dan, now annoyed, repeated to the remaining balloon passengers. The speed wing caught no air. He kept trying. We became more tense. Get back in. Get back in. He was not even holding on to the balloon.

“Gamblers that I’ve met are actually most excited when they’re losing, because they’re closer to the possibility of failure,” White would later tell me.

“Get back in the balloon. Other people want to jump,” ordered Dan. The man rolled his eyes and, disappointed, returned to the basket.

It was Marlena and Michael’s turn. They climbed over the wall. “I love you!” I yelled at my sister. It was the first I’d spoken all ride. I hadn’t wanted to break anyone’s concentration.

“I love you!” she echoed like she does when we’re getting off the phone. She jumped.

When I hear horrible news like when Nitro Circus star Erik Roner was killed in a skydiving accident in Lake Tahoe, I feel sucker punched. “That could have been my little sister,” I think. Most of my fears are closets in my mind that I’ve grown used to walking into. I donate blood regularly because I’m phobic of needles. I started doing stand-up because it was the form of comedy that frightened me the most. I pity people who tell me they “can’t” do something because it scares them. My worst nightmare, though, I leave vigilantly untouched. That could have been — no, don’t even think it. That fear — one that I am not in control of — attacks my vulnerability so completely that I have to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Many of the people dear to me live on the ledge of some figurative hot-air balloon. Whether riding a motorcycle or betting your rent or writing a joke that plays chicken with the demons that threaten to destroy you, the irony of thrill-seeking is that it is at once involuntary and the ultimate expression of human autonomy. Thrill-seekers don’t choose to live in extreme conditions any more than lizards choose to live in the desert. We like the air at 5,000 feet because we know we wouldn’t survive long in one of the cars below us, riding mindlessly toward another day in the same routine life.

Tess Barker is a writer, comedian, and co-host of the Lady to Lady podcast. Her work has also appeared in Vice, Curbed LA, Jezebel, and MTV News.