Getting back to the original question of this thread, the mental aspects, I think the overall temperment/personality of the pilot is an essential factor in this discussion.

Two extremes exist, the timid/reserved personality and the fearless/"I can do anything" guy. The timid flier will error on the conservative side, I use "error" deliberately as I think the pilot who doesnt grow beyond this extreem will be the guy who doesnt progress in real experience level irregardless of how many hours he has. He is an accident waiting to happen.

The second guy, the fearless "it wont happen to me" guy also is an accident waiting to happen. Many of these guys never get a chance to survive their folly in order to even recognize the mistake they made.

Thankfully most of us are somewhere in the middle between these two guys. I found however that it was helpfull for me personally to self analyse where I fit between these two guys. For the timid conservative flier, if he also has personal goals towaed xc or contest flying, he needs to realize that to reach his goals he is going to have to in a knowledgeable fashion, stretch into unknown territory.

For the guy who is toward the daredevel side of this spectrum, he needs to recognize his temperment and also in a similar fashion, find a means to curb his disregard for danger and understand the realities/consequences of his decisions.

This is not an easy thing for either guy. The timid guy feels pushed and some of them become the guys that try to impose their personal minimums on everyone else.

The fearless fellow feels held back. Many times this is the guy with a big ego driven by who knows what (many reasons) and he also in a different way, attempts to impose his perspective on everyone else.
Personally speaking due to my flying experience in the duster business, I trend toward the conservative side in agricultural flying. Just as 2G I have seen the results of needless pilot errors in my business. Thus I am super conservative when hauling around 2,000 lbs of fertilizer 12 ft above the ground at 135mph.

Conversely, I trend toward the fearless perspective when flying my glider on my own. In regards to the low level save question, I guess it is exactly due to my profession ( flying thousands of hours at below 100 ft) that I am not overly concerned when pulling off a save below 600ft. I do recognize this percieved "nonchalance " and mentally acknowledge it when i am in a low save situation but I guess due to my experience at doing so much low level turning, it doesnt worry me the same way it would others who dont fly at ground level except for final approach.

Other situations in soaring are an entirely different matter for me. For example, my ridge soaring experience is rather limited, and as a consequence, I am extremely conservative when playing on a turbulent rough ridge day. Other guys who "ridge soaring" is their thing laugh at my personal minimums when on a ridge, but my experience level is not like theres thus my minimums are way different and my temperment is different on the ridge.

As a side note, my wife likes my "ridge" temperment way better than my "low save" temperment.
Dan