In this paper, we establish that, for statistically convex-cocompact actions, contracting elements are exponentially generic in counting measure. Among others, the following exponential genericity results are obtained as corollaries for the set of hyperbolic elements in relatively hyperbolic groups, the set of rank-1 elements in CAT(0) groups, and the set of pseudo-Anosov elements in mapping class groups. Regarding a proper action, the set of non-contracting elements is proven to be growth-negligible. In particular, for mapping class groups, the set of pseudo-Anosov elements is generic in a sufficiently large subgroup, provided that the subgroup has purely exponential growth. By Roblin's work, we obtain that the set of hyperbolic elements is generic in any discrete group action on CAT(-1) space with finite BMS measure. Applications to the number of conjugacy classes of non-contracting elements are given for non-rank-1 geodesics in CAT(0) groups with rank-1 elements.
This paper presents a study of the asymptotic geometry of groups with contracting elements, with emphasis on a subclass of statistically convex-cocompact (SCC) actions. The class of SCC actions includes relatively hyperbolic groups, CAT(0) groups with rank-1 elements and mapping class groups, among others. We exploit an extension lemma to prove that a group with SCC actions contains large free sub-semigroups, has purely exponential growth and contains a class of barrier-free sets with a growth-tight property. Our study produces new results and recovers existing ones for many interesting groups through a unified and elementary approach.