Past research has demonstrated that individuals engage in
greater risk taking for activities with which they have greater
experience. Presumably, as individuals accumulate non-injurious
experience with an activity they perceive this activity as more
familiar and risk appraisals change to reflect a belief that the activity
is less risky than thought initially (Zuckerman, 2007). The fact that
risk compensation is greater for high than low experience activities,
however, suggests that not only do children show greater risk
taking for high vs low experience activities but they also respond
with significantly greater levels of risk taking when wearing safety
gear during high than low experience activities. Hence, wearing
safety gear has a much more deleterious impact on risk taking
as children become increasingly familiar with an activity. At the
same time, therefore, that parents are likely to be becoming more
lax in monitoring because they assume children’s familiarity with
the activity indicates expertise (Morrongiello and Major, 2002),
children’s behavior is likely to be becoming increasingly risky, particularly
if they are wearing safety gear. Furthermore, the child’s
level of sensation seeking, moderates the extent of impact of wearing
safety gear on risk compensation, with the most significant
impact of injury risk being evident for children high in sensation
seeking.