I have been a diver almost as long as I have been a psychologist. I began training with the British Sub Aqua Club in 1975, two years after I started on an undergraduate psychology course. At one point, the two even came together when I studied the effects of stress, along with a colleague, Arthur Grierson, who was an active sky diver. Sadly, Arthur died in a sky diving accident and I moved on to other areas of psychology. However, the psychology of scuba diving has always interested me and this page reflects that interest. These days, I am a diving instructor with PADI, in my spare time, and my knowledge of psychology has undoubtedly made me a better instructor. I hope that this page teaches you a few interesting things about the psychology that underlies scuba diving and maybe even leads to changes that improve your diving enjoyment and safety.
Personality of divers
Are you interested in becoming a scuba diver, or are you one already? If so, there is a good chance that you will score higher than average on a type of personality that is called 'Sensation Seeking'. Sensation Seeking refers to a preference for a particular level of sensory stimulation. People who score highly on scales of Sensation Seeking prefer higher levels of stimulation. They are people who are often looking for new and exciting things to do.
If you want to find out where you are on the Sensation Seeking continuum, try the following quiz. Answer 'True' or 'False' to each of the following items:
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Scoring: Give yourself 1 point for answering 'True' to items 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 13. Also give yourself 1 point for answering 'False' to items 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 14. Add up your points and compare yourself to the following norms: 11 - 14, High Sensation Seeker; 6 - 10, Moderate Sensation Seeker; 1 - 5, Low Sensation Seeker.
This is an adapted and shortened form of Zuckerman's (1979) Sensation Seeking Scale. It gives a rough measure only.
Boredom is the main enemy of sensation seekers, who like adventure and challenges such as those you get from scuba diving. They are generally more impulsive, uninhibited, extraverted and non-conformist than low sensation seekers. High sensation seekers also have the following characteristics, according to Zuckerman:
1. They are more willing to engage in activities that involve a risk. So, as well as scuba diving, they are also more likely to go mountain climbing, sky diving and surfing. They are more likely to ride motor cycles and drive their cars faster than others. They are also more likely to experiment with recreational drugs such as marijuana.
2. They are more willing to volunteer for unusual experiments or activities that they may know little about. So they volunteer more often to participate in meditation, studies of hypnosis and so on.
3. They engage in a wider range of sexual activities with a greater variety of partners. They also report more sexual experimentation than others.
4. They show other preferences that promote high levels of stimulation. For example, they tend to like extensive travel, gambling, spicy foods, provocative art, wild parties and unusual friends.
According to Lesnik-Oberstein and Cohen (1984), compatibility in sensation seeking may influence the progress of romantic relationships. Studies show that partners in intimate relationships tend to be fairly similar in terms of sensation seeking. According to Zuckerman, this similarity occurs because incompatibility in sensation seeking places strain on intimate relationships. He theorises that persons very high and very low in sensation seeking may have difficulty understanding and relating to each other, and also in finding mutually enjoyable activities.
Nevo and Breitstein (1999) surveyed many studies of the characteristics of divers and came up with the following robust features that emerged from many individual studies:
* Divers tend to gamble, take risks and seek adventure.
* Divers are more masculine and more aggressive than non divers.
* Divers suffer less anxiety than non divers.
* The general health of divers is better than non divers.
On the other hand, they also found some health problems that were associated with professional divers (in other words, divers who dive for a living):
* Hearing impairments.
* Muscular and joint health problems.
* Possible impairment of neuropsychological functioning. This one is less certain, but there may be a slow accumulation of small effects over many years.
On the other hand, according to a study in the December 12 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology, scuba diving has no long-term effects on the brain. The study compared 24 professional German Navy divers and 24 German Navy employees who do not dive. A battery of exams testing their brain functions showed no difference between the two groups.
Good Diver - Bad Diver
Nevo and Breitstein (1999) have pointed out that problems sometimes occur because of an incompatibility between some of the tasks needed for safe diving and the personality of the kind of person attracted to the sport. Many divers are attracted to the sport because of the challenges and a liking for proximity to danger. Yet safe diving can require meticulous attention to details such as checking the condition of one's gear or dive tables, that this type of diver is less likely to do.
Stress, anxiety and panic
Most divers will experience enough stress at some time in their diving lives to feel anxiety before, during or after a dive. For some, this will reach an intensity that makes normal functioning difficult or impossible and this is the state we call panic. According to some diving psychologists, such as Bachrach and Egstrom (1987), panic is the leading cause of diving fatalities. Panic can result from a gradual accumulation of anxiety evoking events (cold, tiredness, unfamiliarity with equipment etc.), or from a single event that the diver feels unable to handle (regulator free flow, loss of a mask etc.). Edmonds (1986) pointed out that fear alone, without the addition of any other stress, can cause death. Panic is more likely to happen when diving at a new site or in more extreme conditions than the diver is used to.
The main signs and symptoms of panic are:
* Respiratory changes: Changes in the breathing rate and pattern. In a panic attack, shortness of breath is common and the diver may feel that they cannot get enough air into their lungs.
* Cardiovascular changes: Changes can include tachycardia (rapid heart rate) and arrhythmias (irregular heart beat). The diver may experience heart 'palpitations', a feeling of heaviness or chest pain.
* Gastrointestinal changes: The GI system may become more active, with symptoms ranging from 'butterflies in the stomach' to nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.
* Genitourinary changes: Changes in the GU system include increased urination or the sensation of needing to urinate and tingling sensations.
* Musculoskeletal changes: Muscular tension, headache and tremor are common symptoms.
* Vocalisation changes: Tremor in the voice, a high-pitched voice or 'frozen' vocalisations are the main signs here.
Panic can lead to death in several ways. If the diver is breathing rapidly and shallowly, insufficient oxygen reaches the lungs, causing hypoxia and the build up of excess CO2. The diver thus tries to breathe even faster and may expel the regulator because they feel it is preventing them from getting enough air. Some divers in this situation bolt for the surface and expose themselves to the risks of decompression sickness. Hypoxia can also lead to loss of consciousness. The increase in heart rate and sympathetic nervous system activity can cause a heart attack in someone with a weak heart.
Panic also prevents the diver from thinking in a cool, rational way. If the situation calls for rational thought, if the diver is tangled in a line or has an equipment malfunction for example, panic can prevent the kind of reasoning that is needed to solve the problem and will often make it worse.
Divers can prevent panic in a number of ways:
* Improving physical fitness. Divers who are fit have more resources that they can use to combat cold, fatigue etc.
* Improving knowledge of diving. Knowing the real risks of diving prevents unrealistic fears from taking over. For example, many novice or trainee divers ask me if we are likely to encounter sharks on a dive and how dangerous they are. It usually helps them to know that the chances of being bitten by a shark are less than the chances of being stung to death by bees. If divers were worried by truly risky situations, they would be far more likely to panic when they get behind the wheel of a car. Driving a car is far more likely to lead to danger than a shark encounter.
* Practising emergency responses. One of the most useful things that divers can do to prevent panic is to practice emergency response techniques, such as buddy breathing ascents, until they become automatic. For one thing it saves valuable time because in a real emergency you don't have to spend as much time thinking of every step. For another thing, the confidence of knowing you can handle emergencies makes panic a less likely response.
* Knowing your limits. When you know what kind of dives you are trained and competent to carry out, you are less likely to get into emergency situations.
* Improving psychological fitness. Spigolon and Dell'oro (1985) have proposed that autogenic training can be useful to divers. This involves learning techniques that break the negative circle that goes from difficult situation to anxiety to panic. A diver who, when confronted by difficulties, can direct himself to "Relax - Breathe easily - Think" will be in a better frame of mind to help himself and/or others.
A simple way of doing this is to include deliberate pauses at important points in a dive. This will improve your diving and reduce stress. At each major transition point - before donning gear or entering the water; at the surface and before descending; when arriving at the bottom and before ascending; at the safety stop; and finally when arriving on the surface or before leaving the water:
- Pause.
- Check yourself, your gear, your buddy and the environment.
- Take time to allow your body and mind to adjust to where you are and what you are doing.
- Compare instruments and communicate with your buddy as needed.
* Use appropriate equipment. If you know that you will be diving under potentially difficult conditions, it can be very reassuring to know that you have the appropriate equipment. For example, if you will be drift diving in choppy conditions so that the boat captain may find it difficult to locate you after the dive, it can be reassuring to carry a signalling device, such as a tall surface marker buoy, so that you are visible even from a long way away.
