Sensation Seeking
Zuckerman, M. · 1979
也被称为: SSS · Zuckerman Sensation Seeking
Sensation seeking is the trait defined by the pursuit of varied, novel, complex and intense experiences, together with the willingness to accept physical, social, legal and financial risk for their sake. Zuckerman grounded it biologically in optimal-arousal theory: individuals differ in the level of stimulation their nervous system finds rewarding, and sensation seekers are chronically below their optimum in ordinary conditions. The construct is usually decomposed into thrill and adventure seeking, experience seeking, disinhibition and boredom susceptibility.
Theory that individuals differ in their optimal level of stimulation, with sensation seekers pursuing novel, complex, and intense experiences. Distinguishes dangerous thrill-seeking (physical risk), impulsive sensation-seeking (spontaneous behavior), and calculated thrill-seeking (controlled risk-taking).
- 来源:
- Zuckerman, M. (1994). Behavioral Expressions and Biosocial Bases of Sensation Seeking. New York: Cambridge University Press.
参加基于此理论的经过验证的测试
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证据概览
- 实证支持
- 强证据支持
- 重复验证
- 已充分重复验证
- 跨文化性
- 大致具普遍性
- 綜合分析(统合分析)
- 已收录 12 项
这些评等总结了关於该理論已发表的文獻,而非以此理論建构的任何单一测验的品质。它们是根据下方所列来源所作的編輯判斷,並會隨著证据累积而變化。
历史背景
The construct emerged from Zuckerman's 1960s sensory-deprivation experiments, where individual differences in tolerance of understimulation proved large and stable. The Sensation Seeking Scale went through five major forms between 1964 and 1979, with Form V becoming standard. Zuckerman later folded sensation seeking into a broader alternative five-factor model as Impulsive Sensation Seeking, and the brief BSSS-8 and SSS-V short forms extended its use into large epidemiological studies. It is among the personality constructs with the strongest biological evidence base, including twin heritability estimates around 60 percent.
构念
Dangerous Thrill-Seeking
Attraction to physically dangerous activities and situations involving risk of injury (Zuckerman, 1994).
Impulsive Sensation-Seeking
Acting on impulse, doing unpredictable and spontaneous things without planning (Zuckerman, 1994).
Calculated Thrill-Seeking
Willingness to take controlled risks — confident risk-taking with awareness of potential outcomes (Zuckerman, 1994).
工具
- IPIP Sensation Seeking Scales(IPIP-SS)Goldberg, L. R. (IPIP), measuring constructs of Zuckerman, M.1999
基于此理论的测试
实际应用
Sensation seeking is one of the most consistent personality predictors of substance use, risky driving, unprotected sex and gambling, and is used in public health to target and design prevention messaging — high-sensation-seeking audiences respond to high-intensity message formats that low-sensation-seekers find aversive. It also predicts positive outcomes: occupational choice in emergency services, entrepreneurship and exploratory behaviour. Read for self-knowledge, it usefully separates the appetite for novelty from the disinhibition that makes that appetite costly.
如何测量
Measured with forced-choice or Likert self-report items yielding four facet scores plus a total; interpreted normatively against age and sex-stratified norms, since sensation seeking declines markedly with age.
批评与局限
The four subscales are only moderately intercorrelated and have distinguishable correlates, so the total score is heterogeneous; disinhibition carries most of the association with problem outcomes while experience seeking carries little. Several Form V items reference drug and sexual content that has dated badly and produces differential item functioning across age and culture. The optimal-arousal explanation is now regarded as too simple, having been substantially superseded by dopaminergic reward-sensitivity accounts that overlap with Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory.
重要文献
- Zuckerman, M.. (1979). Sensation Seeking: Beyond the Optimal Level of Arousal.
- Zuckerman, M.. (1994). Behavioral Expressions and Biosocial Bases of Sensation Seeking.
- Hoyle, R. H., Stephenson, M. T., Palmgreen, P., Lorch, E. P. & Donohew, R. L.. (2002). Development of a brief sensation seeking scale for use with adolescents. 10.1016/S0191-8869(01)00032-0