Baseline trust moderates risk appraisal in guided aerial adventure sports: a three-wave field study

Guided aerial adventure sports combine environmental uncertainty with reliance on pilots, equipment, and safety systems, making trust a plausible resource in risk appraisal. This three-wave field study examined whether baseline trust moderated associations between pre-activity risk perception and post-activity threat and challenge appraisals, and how these appraisals related to perceived safety, flow, and later re-participation intention. Participants at commercial sites in the Western Sichuan Plateau, China completed surveys before the activity (T1), 15-30 min after landing (T2), and approximately 21 days later (T3; linked n = 424). An eight-factor confirmatory model fit the data well, chi-square(1,297) = 1,523.42, CFI = 0.989, TLI = 0.988, RMSEA = 0.020, 90% CI [0.016, 0.024], and SRMR = 0.027. In standardized observed-score models, T1 risk perception was positively associated with T2 threat appraisal (beta = 0.443) and challenge appraisal (beta = 0.555). Baseline trust weakened the risk perception-threat association (interaction beta = -0.307) and strengthened the risk perception-challenge association (interaction beta = 0.250). Threat appraisal was negatively associated with perceived safety and flow, whereas challenge appraisal was positively associated with both. Perceived safety (beta = 0.432) and flow (beta = 0.442) were positively associated with T3 re-participation intention. The total conditional indirect association shifted from negative at low trust (estimate = -0.186, 95% CI [-0.256, -0.114]) to positive at high trust (estimate = 0.308, 95% CI [0.235, 0.384]). The pattern remained stable across HC3, inverse-probability-weighted, leave-one-site/activity, and influential-case analyses. These findings position baseline trust as an appraisal resource that helps organize perceived risk as threat or challenge, with implications for psychologically informed risk communication in guided aerial sport.