Momentary clumsiness and attention: Everyday interactions (and risks) in the world

Typically, explorations into risk-taking involve the conscious undertaking of actions that are potentially harmful. Rarely considered in such risk-taking contexts, however, are everyday, innocuous behaviors that nevertheless have the potential to cause some level of harm to actors; such behaviors could be considered as lying on a continuum of risky activity. The current study explored individual and developmental differences in one such category of behavior, entitled "momentary clumsiness". Momentary clumsiness refers to a tendency to perform movements involving non-optimal motor control, such as knocking over a glass of liquid or tripping while walking up stairs. This project explored the link between such behaviors and attentional factors. Specifically, twenty participants in three age groups (7- and 8-year-olds, 11- and 12-year-olds, and young adults) completed the experiment in 2 testing sessions. Momentary clumsiness was assessed by a 2-week daily phone interview, and was correlated with Stroop performance. The incidence of momentary clumsiness remained steady with age and was not related to motor ability or anthropometric measures. A high incidence of momentary clumsy behaviors was associated with a narrow focus of attention, and specifically, the tendency to ignore irrelevant and distracting stimuli. These findings are interpreted with respect to the relation between action and attentional focus, and provide a basis for extending our conceptualizations of injury proneness and risk-taking into a continuum of behaviors, varying in their degree of riskiness.