ABSTRACT
Voluntary risk taking is an activity that attracts a sizable number of people in American society but has been largely ignored by sociologists. A literature review is presented that points to a number of shortcomings in existing studies, most of which are associated with the psychological reductionism that predominates in this area of study. An effort is made to provide a sociological account of voluntary risk taking by (1) introducing a new classifying concept—edgework—based on numerous themes emerging from primary and secondary data on risk taking and (2) explaining edgework in terms of the newly emerging social psychological perspective produced from the synthesis of the Marxian and Meadian frameworks. The concept of edgework highlights the most sociologically relevant features of voluntary risk taking, while the Marx and Mead synthesis offers a framework for tracing the connections between various aspects of risk-taking behavior and structural characteristics of modern American society at both the micro and macro levels. This approach ties together such factors as political economic variables, at one end of the continuum, and individual sensations and feelings, at the other end.
