Looking for a Life of Thrills

By John Leo

Comedian John Belushi. Gangster John Dillinger. Nobel Biologist Francis Crick. All are classic Type T personalities, and so, fittingly enough, is television's Mr. T.

As Psychologist Frank Farley of the University of Wisconsin tells it, many of the world's daredevils, doers and delinquents share a common personality, Type T (for thrill seeking). Whether scientists or criminals, mountain climbers or hot-dog skiers, says Farley, all are driven by temperament, and perhaps biology, to a life of constant stimulation and risk taking. Both the socially useful and the socially appalling Type Ts, he says, "are rejecting the strictures, the laws, the regulations--they are pursuing the unknown, the uncertain."

Farley, 48, has spent 20 years of study to reach his Type T theory. In one series of tests with student volunteers at Madison, Wis., he made a connection between drinking and thrill seeking. While non-T personalities may drink to grow numb, Type Ts drink to shed inhibitions and are prone to act disruptively while under the influence. Says Farley: "It's experimenting with forbidden fruit." He finds that Type Ts have twice as many automobile accidents as non- Ts, and many even make a point of driving while drunk for the added excitement and risk. "We have become accustomed to the idea that Type A individuals are dangerous to themselves," says Farley, referring to the shorthand designation for hard-driving people who have a tendency to heart attacks. "Type T individuals are doubly dangerous--to themselves and others."

Farley's work is in a field of research known as arousal studies. A major assumption of researchers is that a broad curve traces the susceptibility to stimulation in the general population: at one end of the spectrum are those who need excitation; at the other end are people who feel so overwhelmed by the normal stimulation of everyday life that they devote themselves to avoiding any further stress, risk or adventure. This avoidance group would include those who are comfortable with routine, and perhaps agoraphobics. Farley thinks schizophrenics and the autistic might belong in the non-T category as well, although available evidence is inconclusive.

Farley, who classifies himself as a moderate T, thinks there is a physical predisposition toward risk taking and says a few studies of identical twins support the notion. Another psychologist, Marvin Zuckerman of the University of Delaware, also proffers a physical explanation: Zuckerman says sensation seekers may have distinctly different brain chemistry. Despite their various emphases, researchers in the field generally reject the idea that risk takers are acting compulsively out of a neurotic need or a desire to solve a psychological problem.

| Farley also believes that the U.S. has developed into a Type T nation. Since the country is largely made up of the descendants of immigrants who took the supreme risk of uprooting themselves to come to the New World, he says, the nation's genetic stock and national culture should be heavily Type T. "If I'm right on that," Farley conjectures, "we should be an enormously vital nation with both T-plus, creative people, and T-minus, destruc tive people, both overrepresented." He adds, "We should--and do--have very high crime rates relative to many other countries of the world."

Using various psychological and physiological tests, Farley thinks he can identify Type Ts with reasonable accuracy. In maze tests, for example, stimu lus seekers constantly vary their routes, even after finding an exit. In figure tests, where subjects are asked to make a circle around a design they like best, Type Ts tend to choose complex patterns. In studies that Farley ran at schools for juvenile delinquents, he found, as expected, that Type Ts were four to seven times as likely to try to escape as non-thrill seekers, presumably because they found prison life so intolerably dull and routine. The studies also showed that Type Ts at prisons engaged in fighting and other disruptive acts at a far higher rate than their fellow inmates.

Type Ts, says Farley, are invariably high-energy people, some of whom find excitement in mental exercise. Scientist Crick, he points out, was a successful physicist who switched in mid-career to biology, where he won honors for his work with DNA. Sometimes, Farley believes, the energy goes awry: Belushi, a creative entertainer, sought stimulation in drugs, turning from a T-plus into a T-minus. Says Farley: "I can't predict whether the Type T will become a Dillinger or a Crick, but if you can interest them early and work with them, you can push them toward the creative." His research, he says, has practical ap plication right now. Children identified as Type Ts should not be tamped down in school but given different outlets, and Type T research can tell parents which of their children are likely to run away from home and which need special attention and encouragement.

Farley is now talking about setting up special therapy for Type Ts that would combine a search for socially approved outlets with some behavior modification to change people from T-minus tracks to T-plus ones. "This country, in order to survive this century and beyond, needs enormous levels of creativity," says Farley. "The interesting thing is that the destructive forces-crime, drinking and driving--arise from the same group who could be the most creative."

With reporting by Ruth Mehrtens Galvin/Madison