How risk tolerance develops

AndrewArroz wrote:On this note I'm always surprised by people who don't bail because they think it's "expensive" to bail and leave gear. Now, sure, nobody likes leaving gear behind. But I can walk into a climbing store and pay full price for replacement gear for FAR less than the cost of getting even a sprained ankle or broken arm treated in a emergency room. Which doesn't even account for pain and suffering, evacuation costs, and potential for DEATH.

i dont think anyone deciding to push on or bail is thinking "well i could leave a couple nuts and a sling or break my leg. better push on and break my leg." they have some confidence that they are not going to fall. thats what makes it a tough decision. ive climbed in plenty of places where if i fell it wouldnt be clean, i just climb stuff im fairly certain i wont fall on, as you can tell by my tick list.

I should have phrased #3 as "watch your mindset on obscure routes". I agree some turn out surprisingly good.

OP,

From the psychology and operand conditioning perspective the answer to your question is "exposure." You put yourself in initially a fear-provoking situation and nothing bad happens. Over time you (your automatic brain) learns that these and other similar situations are safe. The operand (your climbing behavior) is getting reinforced with having positive results. Before you know, you are taking more and more risk.

It's important to remember that good outcomes are often due to luck and not skill and the conclusion your subconscious brain draws about safety can be plain wrong. When something bad happens, it shatters all that learning and causes one to re-evaluate. Which is a good thing if you do not get hurt too much or could be a bad thing if it makes you overly cautions. In everyday life, you have to strike the middle ground between being an agoraphobic who will not leave the house and a nut stepping into the middle of a highway during rush hour. In climbing, individual skill aside, it is somewhere between top-roping in a gym and free-soloing El Cap.

normajean wrote:OP, From the psychology and operand conditioning perspective the answer to your question is "exposure." You put yourself in initially a fear-provoking situation and nothing bad happens. Over time you (your automatic brain) learns that these and other similar situations are safe. The operand (your climbing behavior) is getting reinforced with having positive results. Before you know, you are taking more and more risk. It's important to remember that good outcomes are often due to luck and not skill and the conclusion your subconscious brain draws about safety can be plain wrong. When something bad happens, it shatters all that learning and causes one to re-evaluate. Which is a good thing if you do not get hurt too much or could be a bad thing if it makes you overly cautions. In everyday life, you have to strike the middle ground between being an agoraphobic who will not leave the house and a nut stepping into the middle of a highway during rush hour. In climbing, individual skill aside, it is somewhere between top-roping in a gym and free-soloing El Cap.

one of the more informed posts ive seen im MP. i think desensitizing oneself in climbing is a good thing when it is to overcome irrational fears you have. like walking on a sidewalk sized ledge next to big exposure or when people will get scared seconding a big route where there is little risk, simply because of the exposure. if you fall you fall a foot, or whatever the slack is and nothing happens. its good to get over that type of thing.

normajean wrote:OP, From the psychology and operand conditioning perspective the answer to your question is "exposure." You put yourself in initially a fear-provoking situation and nothing bad happens. Over time you (your automatic brain) learns that these and other similar situations are safe. The operand (your climbing behavior) is getting reinforced with having positive results. Before you know, you are taking more and more risk. It's important to remember that good outcomes are often due to luck and not skill and the conclusion your subconscious brain draws about safety can be plain wrong. When something bad happens, it shatters all that learning and causes one to re-evaluate. Which is a good thing if you do not get hurt too much or could be a bad thing if it makes you overly cautions. In everyday life, you have to strike the middle ground between being an agoraphobic who will not leave the house and a nut stepping into the middle of a highway during rush hour. In climbing, individual skill aside, it is somewhere between top-roping in a gym and free-soloing El Cap.

Sorry normajean, I gotta disagree on most of this. It's no different than many other activities, your training (in this case experience) should take over,,luck takes a side seat
sometimes a negative becomes a positive

john strand wrote: Sorry normajean, I gotta disagree on most of this. It's no different than many other activities, your training (in this case experience) should take over,,luck takes a side seat sometimes a negative becomes a positive

Over time, you definitely develop experience and skill and they matter. But that takes significantly longer than extinguishing fear as well as re-gaining it. Habituation has a huge role in escalating risk-taking. One good example would be my husband who has fear of heights doing Observation Point hike with me at Zion. Two hours into it he is comfortable on a narrow cliffside trail. How much skill does he gain in 2 hours? He learned to walk uphill? Also, if you look at what OP is saying: one bad experience and you are re-evaluating your risk tolerance. There is no experience loss here, just one bad outcome and normal, lifesaving fear is back. I think it behooves us to re-evaluate our risk-taking from time to time and try to strike a balance somewhere between vegging in front of tv and climbing Everest without oxygen.

This is fascinating stuff, so thanks for sharing your experience, bad as it may be. I got myself in over my head fairly early in trad climbing (sorta took a ";aw fuckit"; approach to learning trad, and while I managed to escape (relatively) unscathed, there were several situations that I acknowledged were luck, not skill, and were huge learning experiences for me. I agree that bailing should never be off the table - I'm sure your hospital bills are unfortunately more expensive than a few nuts and cams, not to mention the non-monetary costs. It seems like you've put yourself into similar experiences before and made it out...did the danger of the situation not spark reflection?

I think Arno's Rock Warrior approach is solid. While people associate that with always falling, it's really not - the key is to actively assess each situation and make a decision. There was another really cool clinic video at Squamish (Sonnie Trotter?) somebody posted over the summer...anyone have a link? I remember the instructor's attitude was really good for this. Basically, don't assume you're not going to fall - always consider what will happen if you do. Weigh that against the difficulty of the movement. If you're not able to adequately protect a move that could be challenging to you, should you ";go for it";?

Before the accident, I was certainly aware of my growing list of "got away with one" experiences. 2 things kept me from changing my policy:

(1) The fear that being safer would mean missing a lot of great climbs. Maybe only 5% of what I'd climbed turned out to be dangerous, but the reliability of available safety beta (in my perception) was so low that, in order to systematically avoid that 5%. I would have had to forego 70-80% of what I climbed.

(2) Not knowing what probability of injury those situations really corresponded to. For all I knew, it might have been 1/1000, in which case the risk was arguably worth taking. The accident updated my estimate to 1/10.

Funny that you mention the cost of bailing in terms of lost gear and chance of ascent as this thinking fits squarely into Kahneman's Prospect theory for which he won the Nobel prize for economics. The theory specifically considered economic decision making in risky gambles:

"People underweight outcomes that are merely probable in comparison with outcomes that are obtained with certainty. This tendency, called the certainty effect, contributes to risk aversion in choices involving sure gains and to risk seeking in choices involving sure losses."

You have a sure loss in gear and chance of asscend if you bail. Getting hurt is a mere probability.

Interesting. Makes sense for this situation.

Hmmm. It's an interesting topic, but 'risk tolerance' is just one facet among many that come into play and interrelate in trad climbing.

Maybe think of them like a mixing board where the sum of the sliders make up a profile. The profile below is not an uncommon looking one for fresh sport cross-overs to trad who tend to be fairly competent sport climbers.

=====================================================

Physical ability..............0 ---------------------+------------#---------100

Risk tolerance...............0 ---------------------+--------#-------------100

Route assessment.........0-------------#-------+----------------------100

Risk mitigation skills......0-------------#-------+----------------------100

Fall assessment skills....0---------------#-----+----------------------100

Skill with pro..................0--------#------------+----------------------100

Pro assessment skills.....0------#--------------+----------------------100

stop for pro or go skills...0-------#-------------+----------------------100

Downclimbing skills .......0-----#---------------+----------------------100

Experience......................0---------------#-----+----------------------100

Judgment........................0--------#------------+----------------------100

======================================================

The issue is often that crossovers have physical abilities and risk tolerances from sport climbing that are too 'advanced' in a trad climbing crossover context. By 'too advanced' I mean too out-of-proportion or out-of-scale with all the other facets involved with climbing trad 'safely' (I do hate that word). Every year I watch crossovers get in over their heads and sometimes getting hurt from getting on trad lines at their sport grade and not having all or enough of the requisite skills and judgment to draw on once in over their heads

You basically don't want to get too far ahead of yourself in terms of getting on more challenging trad lines based solely on the rating. You want to work your way into it all focusing on bringing up the scores of all those other facets of trad climbing. Do that and you'll probably be alright. Push it and it will be at your peril. As serge mentioned - if a bunch of you trad track record to-date has a bunch of 'just squeaked through it' or 'got lucky' ascents then, yeah, past performance is probably a lousy predictor of future performance.

Again, don't get ahead of yourself or the game as it's not nearly as forgiving as sport climbing. Better to work on getting in some solid yardage over stone on moderates and classics for awhile as opposed to playing the numbers game out of the gate.

[ P.S. don't underestimate the value of downclimbing skills in hard trad, they can save your ass. You might want to consider doing some of it instead of lowering or rapping in the gym or on sport climbs ]

Serge Smirnov wrote:Before the accident, I was certainly aware of my growing list of "got away with one" experiences. 2 things kept me from changing my policy: (1) The fear that being safer would mean missing a lot of great climbs. Maybe only 5% of what I'd climbed turned out to be dangerous, but the reliability of available safety beta (in my perception) was so low that, in order to systematically avoid that 5%. I would have had to forego 70-80% of what I climbed. (2) Not knowing what probability of injury those situations really corresponded to. For all I knew, it might have been 1/1000, in which case the risk was arguably worth taking. The accident updated my estimate to 1/10.

Just re-read your post and realized that another one of Kahneman's theories applies here. He says that people make specific type of errors in judgement for the sake of speedy decision-making. One type of those errors, the law of small numbers, is in estimating probabilities. It basically says that we draw generalized conclusions based on too small number of trials. So in your case what is probably (statistically) a small number of near misses leads you to (possibly wrongly) conclude that you have a 1/1000 chance of getting hurt. Then based on a bad outcome from only one other trial your estimate (perhaps again wrongly) shifts up to 1/10. The real chances may be 1 in 5, 73, or 2000. Your number of trials is just too low for a better estimate.

Another thing that you don't mention here but that clearly figures into the decision is what kind of injury you may experience at failure. Whether it is scratch, broken leg, or sure death I bet would make for a different call at fixed odds. I would like to hear more about the exposure and the injury in the accident that shifted your odds perception.

Risk assessment also starts before the climb.

Personally I try not to climb things at the edge of my limit if a fall could be injurious. Likewise I push my trad limits and beyond on climbs where gear is good and a fall is mostly safe. On moderate stuff sure I put myself at risk and sometimes I even give myself a scare, but I've never fallen on moderate graded climbs.

I do make some exceptions. I've climbed some serious R/X rated slab climbs at the edge of my ability. At least on such climbs you have a bit more time to consider you options as the climb is generally more about balance than strength.

There are many good points made here, by some ' long toothed' climbers,
'Lifers' who learned to climb & not let go, we learned that a climber never lets go,
Neither the leader or the second. A clean ascent was the goal , no one weighting the rope,
not the second or third person on the rope - not even to clean the gear.

Healyje wrote:Hmmm. It's an interesting topic, but 'risk tolerance' is just one facet among many that come into play and interrelate in trad climbing. Maybe think of them like a mixing board where the sum of the sliders make up a profile. The profile below is not an uncommon looking one for fresh sport cross-overs to trad who tend to be fairly competent sport climbers. ===================================================== Physical ability..............0 ---------------------+------------#---------100 Risk tolerance...............0 ---------------------+--------#-------------100 Route assessment.........0-------------#-------+----------------------100 Risk mitigation skills......0-------------#-------+----------------------100 Fall assessment skills....0---------------#-----+----------------------100 Skill with pro..................0--------#------------+----------------------100 Pro assessment skills.....0------#--------------+----------------------100 stop for pro or go skills...0-------#-------------+----------------------100 Downclimbing skills .......0-----#---------------+----------------------100 Experience......................0---------------#-----+----------------------100 Judgment........................0--------#------------+----------------------100 ====================================================== The issue is often that crossovers have physical abilities and risk tolerances from sport climbing that are too 'advanced' in a trad climbing crossover context. By 'too advanced' I mean too out-of-proportion or out-of-scale with all the other facets involved with climbing trad 'safely' (I do hate that word). Every year I watch crossovers get in over their heads and sometimes getting hurt from getting on trad lines at their sport grade and not having all or enough of the requisite skills and judgment to draw on once in over their heads You basically don't want to get too far ahead of yourself in terms of getting on more challenging trad lines based solely on the rating. You want to work your way into it all focusing on bringing up the scores of all those other facets of trad climbing. Do that and you'll probably be alright. Push it and it will be at your peril. As serge mentioned - if a bunch of you trad track record to-date has a bunch of 'just squeaked through it' or 'got lucky' ascents then, yeah, past performance is probably a lousy predictor of future performance. Again, don't get ahead of yourself or the game as it's not nearly as forgiving as sport climbing. Better to work on getting in some solid yardage over stone on moderates and classics for awhile as opposed to playing the numbers game out of the gate. [ P.S. don't underestimate the value of downclimbing skills in hard trad, they can save your ass. You might want to consider doing some of it instead of lowering or rapping in the gym or on sport climbs ]

I had to go back and check, I wish this were my quote,
But it came from The maestro who as an aside points out DOWN CLIMBING, AND THE SKILL SET TO KNOW WHEN TO SAY WHEN.

HealyJe wrote: most if not all those climbing today would have never been interested or able to rock climb before. . . .

I did not include the litany of short-cuts that (included; indoor & 'sport', Information Age technology, modern gear etc.) have provided & helped to make it to easy for modern climbers to get into greater & more serious danger. By-passing critical steps arriving at life/death decisions ahead of the learningcurve that should be a curve, a steady ascention through practice and experience, climbing,
Not as it is today Gym Three outdoor top ropes > try to lead>Potential near death experience potential?Bad/good ?luck?

Many of us learned by doing, taking the responsibility, never weighting the rope. Down climbing,
Going up and down till the moves to the high point were routine.
Also
The swami, & 'hip' belay, from a stance, very much dissuaded one from hanging.

It's also worth noting that the development of 'risk tolerance' one experiences in sport climbing happens within an highly constrained context where the consequences for 'just going for it' are limited. The spectrum of consequences for failure in trad climbing, however, is quite a bit broader such that 'just going for it' without really knowing what you're doing will - sooner or later - extract a price. Again, unless you're the next Ondra or Sharma and have that kind of physical reserves to hang out and sort things out on the fly, then a lot of yardage on moderates and classics is very much the better way to go.

Michael Schneider wrote: Many of us learned by doing, taking the responsibility, never weighting the rope.

To add to that, sport climbing on gear where crossovers rely on the sport tactic of hanging on pro is both a really bad idea and a bad habit to get into. Another suggestion if you're thinking about crossing over to trad is to stop hanging in the gym and on sport climbs - either climb, downclimb or fall, but don't hang. You'll discover a whole new climbing and develop skills that will serve you well should you ever find yourself 20-30' out from your last piece, not sure of the next move and faced with marginal or no placements.

I learnt my climbing in trad and learnt to never to weight the rope.

That said I now have shifted on that. If I'm pushing my limits of my strength then I will happily and readily weight the rope to recover in preference to pushing on and taking a potentially risky fall. For example if there is a long distance before then next piece of gear and I'm already tired then the safe move is to sit on the rope. (assuming good gear)

It diminishes my pride of achievement significantly. But the advantage is that I can be climbing harder stuff when I'm less strong. (I don't train regularly enough unfortunately.)

patto wrote:If I'm pushing my limits of my strength then I will happily and readily weight the rope to recover in preference to pushing on and taking a potentially risky fall. For example if there is a long distance before then next piece of gear and I'm already tired then the safe move is to sit on the rope. (assuming good gear)

"assuming good gear" is the sticking point. Sure an experienced trad climber can make this kind of call on the quality of their placements, the majority of sport crossovers shouldn't be doing this as they don't have the experience or judgment for it. Aside from just not being into the sprad climbing aesthetic, I personally still think it's a bad idea as it unavoidably develops into a habit / crutch that may not be available to you when runout someday and then you likely won't have the mental/emotional goods to deal. Definitely to each his own and I have been seeing this more often of late, typically with good young trad climbers newly with wives and babies, middle-aged or aging climbers either not willing to risk anymore. A lot just quit trad climbing altogether so the sprad climbing thing is certainly an alternative to that.

Also, for me (if I were climbing for 'safety') the "safe move" would be pick a different route I knew I could do clean if I'm not prepared to risk a fall. Again, to each his own.

I hate falling, always have, even when it's safe.

Not pushing my limits ? I don't think so...it's not all about numbers

No0ß not that there is anything wrong with that !

From Indiana, climbed at Acadia Main, and maybe more than once at the Red -(not tall)
Not there IS Anything wrong wit That!
Says he climbs .10 or so, Wants to go to the Valley for Snake Dike as warm up for RNWF on Half Dome,
( not that there is , . . .m. Well ? There's the rub) at 17 yrs old (more, again) not that there's any thing wrong with that!, but go various places ago climbing ! Build up the skills to make it really happen.. ., .'!!

Eventually old salts gripe but "Go for it kid" rules the modern day.
Risk assessment, like 'stance', belaying, has fallen to dependable gear. Where practiced skills were 1st attained then applied now those skills or the gear that assists,
Replace a lot of real time experience as to how things look feel and yank, up or down.
What once was 'responded to and learned from' is now ~> Got away with one? . . ,?!

john strand wrote:I hate falling, always have, even when it's safe.

Me too! I was four years in before my first trad leader fall. I can still count lead falls (trad) on my fingers. I've down climbed off stuff, switched leads on multi-pitch a time or two (both ways) and have had to bail in the rain twice. The thing to consider here is fall avoidance rather than "risk assessment" when faced with a possible fall.

Risk assessment is over when you step off the deck. The whole thing boils down to a cool head and thinking your way through problems.

I lived through a "freesolo phase" in my late twenties. This was accomplished with a falling is not an option attitude. I soloed a lot of climbs I knew well and had done dozens of times without falls, if I got on something and wasn't feeling good I just climbed back down.

To paraphrase Joe if I may, Go to climb, not to fall, not to hang, you will be amazed at what climbing is really all about. JB