Marvin Zuckerman

Sensation seeking in England and America: Cross-cultural, age, and sex comparisons.

This study compared the factor structure of the Sensation-Seeking Scale (SSS) in English and American samples, and a new form of the SSS, applicable to both samples, was constructed. Three of the four factors showed good crossnational and cross-sex reliability. English and American males did not differ on the total SSS score, but American females scored higher than English females. Males in both countries scored higher than females on the total SSS score and on the Thrill and Adventure-Seeking and Disinhibition subscales. Significant age declines occurred for both sexes, particularly on Thrill and Adventure Seeking and Disinhibition.

A comparison of three structural models for personality : the Big Three, the Big Five, and the Alternative Five

The major factors from 3 models of personality are compared: Eysencks Three Factor model, Costa and McCraes version of the Big Five, and Zuckerman and Kuhlmans Alternative Five. The 1st study describes the development of a questionnaire measure for the Alternative Five and the reliability assessments of the scales. The 2nd study used factor analysis to compare the factors among the scales from the 3 models. Extraversion and Neuroticism were quite similar across all 3 models. Eysencks Psychoticism scale marked a factor that included Conscientiousness and Impulsive Sensation Seeking factors from the other 2 models. Agreeableness and Aggression-Hostility formed a 4th factor. Openness could be identified as a factor using facet scales, but it showed no convergence with other factors. Four of the five factors showed convergence across at least 2 of the models.

Personality and Risk-Taking: Common Biosocial Factors

The first part of this article describes a study of the relationships between personality and risk-taking in six areas: smoking, drinking, drugs, sex, driving, and gambling. The participants, 260 college students, were given self-report measures of risky behaviors in each of the six areas and the Zuckerman-Kuhlman five-factor personality questionnaire. Generalized risk-taking (across all six areas) was related to scales for impulsive sensation seeking, aggression, and sociability, but not to scales for neuroticism or activity. Gender differences on risk-taking were mediated by differences on impulsive sensation seeking. The second part discusses biological traits associated with both risk-taking and personality, particularly sensation seeking, such as the D4 dopamine receptor gene. the enzyme monoamine oxidase, and augmenting or reducing of the cortical evoked potential. Comparative studies show relationships between biological markers shared with other species and correlated behaviors similar to sensation seeking in humans. A biosocial model of the traits underlying risk-taking is presented.

Sensation seeking: a comparative approach to a human trait

A comparative method of studying the biological bases of personality compares human trait dimensions with likely animal models in terms of genetic determination and common biological correlates. The approach is applied to the trait of sensation seeking, which is defined on the human level by a questionnaire, reports of experience, and observations of behavior, and on the animal level by general activity, behavior in novel situations, and certain types of naturalistic behavior in animal colonies. Moderately high genetic determination has been found for human sensation seeking, and marked strain differences in rodents have been found in open-field behavior that may be related to basic differences in brain neurochemistry. Agonistic and sociable behaviors in both animals and humans and the trait measure of sensation seeking in humans have been related to certain common biological correlates such as gonadal hormones, monoamine oxidase (MAO), and augmenting of the cortical evoked potential. The monoamine systems in the rodent brain are involved in general activity, exploratory behavior, emotionality, socialization, dominance, sexual and consummately behaviors, and intracranial self-stimulation. Preliminary studies have related norepinephrine and enzymes involved in its production and degradation to human sensation seeking. A model is suggested that relates mood, behavioral activity, sociability, and clinical states to activity of the central catecholamine neurotransmitters and to neuroregulators and other transmitters that act in opposite ways on behavior or stabilize activity in the arousal systems. Stimulation and behavioral activity act on the catecholamine systems in a brain–behavior feedback loop. At optimal levels of catecholamine systems activity (CSA) mood is positive and activity and sociability are adaptive. At very low or very high levels of CSA mood is dysphoric, activity is restricted or stereotyped, and the organism is unsocial or aggressively antisocial. Novelty, in the absence of threat, may be rewarding through activation of noradrenergic neurons.

Sensation seeking, risk appraisal, and risky behavior☆

This study evaluated the relationships between sensation seeking and impulsivity, appraisal of risk in several areas including crime, financial, social violations, sports, and risk of AIDS from sexual activity, and risky behavior in the same areas. Subjects were 447 undergraduates who were given personality tests, and risk appraisal and risky behavior scales developed from factor analyses. Multiple regression analyses showed perceived peer behavior and sensation seeking to be strong predictors of risky behavior, particularly in the areas of criminal behavior and social violations. Personal risk appraisal was negatively related to risky behavior for all the areas except AIDS risk where it was positively related to risky sexual behavior for men. Structural equation modeling analyses showed that a model specifying that risk appraisal trait is a consequences of risky behavior was superior to a model with risk appraisal as a mediator of the relationship between sensation seeking and risky behavior.

Sensation seeking and its biological correlates.

Reviews the trait of sensation seeking and the biological phenomena associated with it: strength of the initial orienting reflex, augmenting vs reducing of the average evoked potential, MAO, and gonadal hormones (both androgen and estrogens). Both psychological and biological measures have retest re

Disinhibitory sensation seeking, personality and gonadal hormones

Abstract The study compared normal males who scored at the extremes of Disinhibition (a subscale of the Sensation Seeking Scale) on gonadal hormones. High disinhibitors were higher than lows on testosterone, estradiol and estrone, but not on progesterone. A broader range of personality traits, attitudes and experience was factor analyzed and correlated with the hormone measurements. Two large factors were found: (1) stable extraversion vs neurotic introversion; (2) social deviancy vs social conformity. Testosterone loaded positively on the stable extraversion factor and estradiol loaded on the social deviancy factor. Measures of sensation seeking, impulsivity and heterosexual experience tended to correlate positively with both testosterone and estradiol, and persons low on both of these hormones were characterized by a high degree of self control and social conformity.

Sensation seeking and sports

The field of sports has not suffered from neglect by psychologists interested in the study of individual differences. As Morgan (1980) has pointed out, the area has become caught up in the controversy over the usefulness of broad nomethetic traits in prediction of behavior and their consistency across situations (Magnusson and Endler, 1977). A kind of consensus has been emerging in these issues with most personality theorists in agreement that some kind of person-situation interaction provides the best way of viewing any area where consistencies in individual behavior can be shown to exist across situations of some diversity. The question of the relative importance of person and situation has proven to be one of those pseudo-issues that plague psychology periodically, and result in much useless research that fills our journals and impedes progress toward a unified science of behavior. But a real interactional approach requires good theories and measures that are relevant to the theories. As Morgan (1980) concludes:

Five (or three) Robust Questionnaire Scale Factors of Personality without Culture

Abstract Thirty-three personality scales, which were good markers for personality factors in a previous study, were analyzed in a new study involving 525 subjects in four samples: men and women in Fall and Spring terms. Two techniques for the computation of factors were employed: (a) traditional factor analysis via the SPSSX Factor procedure, and (b) Simultaneous Component Analyses (SCAs), via a program developed by Kiers (SCA: a program for simultaneous component analysis, Groningen: IEC ProGamma, 1990). The latter approach showed that sets of common factors defined over all four groups had virtually the same explanatory power as separate components computed for each group separately, and results from traditional factor analyses of the separate groups showed that the loadings of corresponding factors were highly related. A robust five-factor solution, very similar in males and females, included the following factors: Sociability, Neuroticism-Anxiety, Aggression-Hostility (vs Social Desirability), Impulsive-Unsocialized-Sensation Seeking, and Activity.

Demographic influences in sensation seeking and expressions of sensation seeking in religion, smoking and driving habits

A large sample of readers of a popular psychology magazine took the Sensation Seeking Scale (form V) and filled out a personal data form. The information in the data form was used to examine the relationship between SSS scores and demographic and experience variables. Sex and age showed strong relationships with the SSS. Education and occupation of the subjects and their parents showed lesser relationships with the SSS and primarily in females. Non-believers in conventional religion and infrequent church-goers had higher SSS scores than those who identify with such religions and attend church regularly. Smokers had higher scores than non-smokers although the relationship with amount of smoking was not a linear one. Driving habits of speeding related strongly to sensation seeking in a linear fashion.