UKC

Posted with permission of UKclimbing

Hi my name is Rob White,

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

I have been an outdoor instructor for many years and I have always believed in the positive influence of outdoor activities on peoples mental health. However I have discovered that while there is considerable anecdotal evidence to support this opinion there is little academic research in this area.

I am currently undertaking a MSc in Psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University and as part of the course I am required to undertake a research project for my Dissertation. As a result I have developed an online questionnaire to investigate this subject.

Specifically this study aims to explore the influence of the environment in which people climb (indoors or outdoors) on their mental wellbeing. If you would be interested in supporting this research please use the link below to access the questionnaire (It should take about 15 to 20 minutes to complete).

The questionnaire is a combination of questions about your climbing experience/habits and pre-existing psychological questionnaires. (Please note that some of the questions use existing, validated psychological scales. At times these can appear to be cumbersome and ask the same question in different ways, however there are reasons for this to do with data analysis.)

If you have any questions please feel free to post on this thread or to contact me on robert.p.white@stu.mmu.ac.uk

Many thanks in advance for you time and assistance.

Rob White

Link:

https://mmupsych.eu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8IZWn4GADLFsv1X

In reply to wwrobw:

Done, best of luck with the research

In reply to wwrobw:

Done - a bit different to the usual risk-taking angle!

In reply to wwrobw:
Not completed. I'm not leaving any personal info. Good luck with your research

In reply to wwrobw:

Re: the questions about how I felt after my last indoor climbing session --- halfway through my last indoor climbing session, I heard about the attack on Parliament, while it was still considered a "live" incident, from a friend who works at Westminster and was in lockdown.

So I'd say that my feelings afterwards had a lot more to do with that than with the psychological effects of climbing, and it'd be liable to skew your results.

Do you want me to answer the questions re: that session regardless?

In reply to wwrobw:

Done. But I had to google what "full of pep" in q19 and q23 meant. I was also slightly unsure of the meanings of fatigued, worn out, exhausted, bushed in q19 and q23. Did you mean mentally or physically? I answered them assuming you meant physically but I'm not convinced that's what you were asking.

In reply to Sam Beaton:


I'm guessing it's one of the validated psychological scales -- one of the down sides of having had a bunch of studies done on them to validate them is that they've usually been around long enough for the language and some of the attitudes to start to seem dated. And then you can't change them without re-doing all the studies needed to validate them.

It's like the well-known risk-taking scale which asks solemnly about whether you'd be interested in meeting "homosexuals" or punks, and whether you're the kind of crazy out-there adrenaline junkie who enjoys abstract art.

In reply to wwrobw:

Done, good luck.

In reply to wwrobw:

Done, quite intriguing set of very similar sounding descriptions of feelings - I wonder how that works.

In reply to wwrobw:

Questionnaire completed.

Not sure if a blank space for other comments may have been useful.

Just to let you know that the questionnaire was filled in after an indoor bouldering session.
This was used as a base for rehabilitation from an injury and therefore focussed on training for outdoor climbing.
Normally I am your joe average VS outdoor trad man.

Results may have been different if filled in next week as I am hoping to be on the crag this Sunday!

Good survey though.

In reply to pwo:

Thank you for taking the time to let me know your feelings. I fully respect your choice not to participate.

I would just like to reassure anyone that any information provided is completely anonymous, the data recorded on the survey is in no way is traceable to anyone. I do ask for a reference code to be generated so that people can withdraw at a later date if they so choose.

Happy Climbing

Rob

In reply to wwrobw:

I don't recognise your distinction between meditation and mindfulness nor do I view either as a relaxation technique. In my last outdoor climbing session I hurt my back so that has hugely coloured the responses I gave. It's interesting to go through the process but I'm not very convinced that these questionnaires produce results of much real value.

As far as I'm concerned I would suggest that climbing could well be detrimental to mental wellbeing in many cases, being outside and active might be helpful but there are potentially healthier ways of doing that than climbing. Many of the climbers I know have suffered from depression (obviously causality could go both ways or none and it's not a very big sample). I think particularly trad climbing is mentality stressful and encourages unhealthy obsessive behaviour. It might bring you closer to nature but it can also undermine friendships and relationships with those who not climb. Finally generally I think it encourages a self-interested attitude towards life, but then I still do it!

In reply to Sam Beaton:

I can confirm that those terms do come from a validated psychological scale. The terms are slightly dated but a bigger factor is that the scale was developed specifically to measure Australian athletes so there is also an element of cultural slang.

In answer to the second part of your post the questions are related to how you feel overall which is always going to be a combination of mental and physical.

Rob

In reply to slab_happy:

Thanks for your post, I agree that last Wednesday was a significant situation that will have affected a lot of people, I hope your friend is ok.

I am happy for you to complete the survey when thinking about climbing on Wednesday, as life happens and that is a part of psychology. Given that this study is an online survey rather than an experiment your responses will not significantly skew the results but thank you for checking.

Another option if you prefer is to redo the survey at a later date after you have been climbing again. The survey will be available till mid May.

The choice is entirely up to you.

Thanks for taking the time to help with my research.

Rob

In reply to sheelba:

Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey and sharing your thoughts.

I agree with you that climbing has the potential to have either a positive or negative affect on our mental wellbeing. I think that the psychological nature of climbing is vastly more complex than other sports, which is one of the reasons that I find it so fascinating.
I am hoping that this study will be the start of further research in this area. So far it seems that most academic studies have either focused on the risk taking aspects of climbing or the benefits of activities such as walking or swimming, and not the impact of climbing on our mental wellbeing.

Thank you again for your comments, you have raised some interesting thoughts around the impact that climbing can have on our mental wellbeing.

Rob