No, let ME be Frank

More from the Frank Farley interview

So there is a flip side to the T-type personality?

Definitely. I see positive and negative sides to this characteristic. There's positive, healthy, constructive risk-taking that you see in most creative fields, science for example, or entrepreneurship, or in the risks of creating a healthy personal relationship. But there's a negative side as well -- in delinquency, crime, unsafe sex, drinking and driving, crazy risk-taking in general. Part of the motivation here is simply the desire for thrills -- although I want to stress that I'm not suggesting type TO is a sole cause of anything. But we've found that big T's have twice as many highway accidents as small t's -- when you control for age, sex, etc. Accidents are the leading cause of death among teenagers, often because they put themselves in a dangerous position from a need for thrills. devil tarot card

I was almost getting the idea that thrills are all fun and games. Can your analysis help us raise big-T children so they survive childhood? fortune tarot card

I think so. If you understand that certain children need thrills, you can raise them more intelligently. For example, the T-type rebels at rules, and we may do better providing guidance than setting hard-and-fast rules. And there's always the opportunity to channel that thrill-seeking into relatively safe, positive activities. You are not going to stop that thrill-seeking, but you try to prevent them from taking lethal risks. At the very least, you want them to avoid putting other people at risk.

Sounds like you'd support Outward Bound [the wilderness experience program for youth]... death tarot card

I think it's one of the best examples of a type-T treatment for adolescents. I should also mention Vision Quest, a Tucson, Ariz., project for extremely hard-core delinquents that's mostly adventure-based. Delinquent kids fresh from the city streets get their own wild horse to break; it's a shock, has high T value, novelty, variety, intensity.

That does not describe all sports...

No. I've always said that baseball is not the American sport -- it's too slow, too routinized, too rule-governed. If you want to look at the American character, you'd have to look at sports like ice hockey or basketball -- they're fast-moving, changing, intense.

Maybe roller coasters are what T-types really need...

There are 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 documents. (Glossary | Bibliography)

	So there is a flip side to the T-type personality?
	Definitely. I see positive and negative sides to this characteristic. There's positive, healthy, constructive risk-taking that you see in most creative fields, science for example, or entrepreneurship, or in the risks of creating a healthy personal relationship. But there's a negative side as well -- in delinquency, crime, unsafe sex, drinking and driving, crazy risk-taking in general. Part of the motivation here is simply the desire for thrills -- although I want to stress that I'm not suggesting type TO is a sole cause of anything. But we've found that big T's have twice as many highway accidents as small t's -- when you control for age, sex, etc. Accidents are the leading cause of death among teenagers, often because they put themselves in a dangerous position from a need for thrills.
	I was almost getting the idea that thrills are all fun and games. Can your analysis help us raise big-T children so they survive childhood?
	I think so. If you understand that certain children need thrills, you can raise them more intelligently. For example, the T-type rebels at rules, and we may do better providing guidance than setting hard-and-fast rules. And there's always the opportunity to channel that thrill-seeking into relatively safe, positive activities. You are not going to stop that thrill-seeking, but you try to prevent them from taking lethal risks. At the very least, you want them to avoid putting other people at risk.
	Sounds like you'd support Outward Bound [the wilderness experience program for youth]...
	I think it's one of the best examples of a type-T treatment for adolescents. I should also mention Vision Quest, a Tucson, Ariz., project for extremely hard-core delinquents that's mostly adventure-based. Delinquent kids fresh from the city streets get their own wild horse to break; it's a shock, has high T value, novelty, variety, intensity.
	That does not describe all sports...
	No. I've always said that baseball is not the American sport -- it's too slow, too routinized, too rule-governed. If you want to look at the American character, you'd have to look at sports like ice hockey or basketball -- they're fast-moving, changing, intense.