THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS AND RISKY SPORT PARTICIPATION SERDAR TOK Ege University, Izmir, Turkey The purpose in this study was to examine differences between risky sport participants and nonparticipants using the Big Five (McCrae & Costa, 1997) personality traits. The sample included 328 individuals ranging in age from 18 to 53 (M = 23.42 and SD = 3.98). The Five Factor Personality Inventory developed by Somer, Korkmaz, and Tatar (2002) was used to measure personality traits. The results showed that risky sport participants have significantly higher levels of extraversion and openness to experience and lower levels of conscien- tiousness and neuroticism. The measurement of Big Five personality traits might be a valuable means of estimating individuals’ tendency to participate in adventure/risky sport, which in turn could be used to promote adventure/risky sport tourism. Keywords: adventure sport tourism, risky sport tourism, Big Five, sensation seeking, tourist behavior, risk taking. Previous attempts to identify relationships between generally risky behavior, participation in risky sports, and personality factors have been focused on sensation seeking (SS), which is defined as “the need for varied, novel, and complex sensations and experiences and the willingness to take physical and social risks for the sake of such experiences” (Zuckerman, 1979, p. 10). Many researchers have used Zuckerman’s Sensation Seeking Scale-V (SSS-V; Zuckerman, 1983), which assesses four aspects of SS: thrill and adventure seeking (TAS), experience seeking (ES), disinhibition (DIS), and boredom susceptibility (BS). In these studies it has been revealed that there are significant associations between risky sport participation and SS facets. For example, Freixanet (1991) found that risky sport participants (mountain climbers, water SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY, 2011, 39(8), 1105-1112 © Society for Personality Research http://dx.doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2011.39.8.1105 1105 Serdar Tok, School of Physical Education and Sports, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey. Appreciation is due to anonymous reviewers. Please address correspondence and reprint requests to: Serdar Tok, School of Physical Education and Sports, Ege University, 35100, Bornova, Izmir, Turkey. Email: tokserdar@gmail.com