14 DAY TRIAL // For some reason, men have stopped being as adventurous as they used to be, researchers say. Otherwise put, few of them still feel the urge to engage in thrill-seeking activities.
Specialists explain that surveys carried out back in the 1970s show that, at that time, men were about 48% more likely than women to willingly take part in sports and other outdoor activities that would have resulted in an adrenaline rush.
By comparison, recent surveys indicate that modern men are merely 28% more likely than women to have an itch for activities such as parachuting, scuba diving or mountaineering, Daily Mail reports.
Although this difference might be due to the fact that women have taken a liking to thrill-seeking activities themselves, courtesy of efforts to decrease gender-related differences, researchers doubt that this is the case.
Dr. Kate Cross at the University of St. Andrew believes that, all things considered, men have lost their interest in said activities due to the fact that they are less fit than they used to be.
She theorizes that, the less fit a man is, the less likely he is to be motivated to participate in sports that considerably up adrenaline levels and compel him to push his limits.
Needless to say, this happens because people who are not physically fit have high chances to experience great discomfort when exercising intensely.
“The decline in the difference in thrill and adventure-seeking scores between men and women could reflect declines in average fitness levels, which might have reduced people’s interest in physically challenging activities,” Dr. Kate Cross argues.
However, the researcher admits that one other possible explanation for the outcome of these recent surveys showing that men have grown boring is that, unlike in the 1970s, sports such as skiing are no longer viewed as challenging.
In other words, men do engage in thrill-seeking activities. They just don't know that they are doing so.