A personality profile of Mount Everest climbers

The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised was administered to a group of climbers (N=39) who were attempting to summit Mount Everest. The personality profiles for these climbers were characterized by higher scores on the Extraversion (sociability) and Psychoticism (toughmindedness) scales and lower scores on the Neuroticism (anxiety) scales than for the normative sample. This profile is consistent with the pattern typically observed for athletes and notably for higher achieving athletes.