CHAPTER
13
Measures of Sensation Seeking
Marvin Zuckerman1and Anton Aluja2
1University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA
2University of Lleida, Lleida, Catalonia, Spain
The sensation seeking construct is defined as: ‘A trait defined by the seeking of varied, novel, complex, and
intense sensations and experiences, and the willingness to take physical, social, legal, and financial risks for the
sake of such experience’ ( Zuckerman, 1994 , p. 27). Some have equated sensation seeking with ‘risk seeking’.
However the definition above stresses the ‘willingness’ to take risks for the rewards of the primary qualities of
valued stimulation such as novelty and intensity. Others have equated the trait with ‘thrill seeking’. Thrill seek-
ing is identified with one type of sensation seeking involving activities with a primary physical risk, as in the
thrill and adventure seeking subscale of the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS) (described in Zuckerman, 1994 ). Not
all types of sensation seeking involve risk. Entertainment preferences, for instance, may involve arousal through
sensory or vicarious experience but there is no perceived risk ( Zuckerman, 1996, 2006a, 2006b ). Measures of sen-
sation seeking exhibit validity in a wide range of contexts, far beyond the initial use as a method devised to pre-
dict the outcomes of sensory deprivation experiments. Some changes in the original theory of optimal levels
of stimulus intensity were needed to include individual differences in preferences for novelty and change
(Zuckerman et al., 1993b).
Volunteers for sensory deprivation experiments tend to be drawn from the high sensation seeking range of the
General scale of the SSS. Post-experimental interviews revealed that they volunteer because they hope to have
some unusual experiences suggested by the media, like hallucinations and ‘ out-of-body ’ experiences. Sensation
seeking is more involved with seeking of novel internal or external sensory or fantasy experiences than with
mundane cognitive or social experiences. Low sensation seekers tend to regard such experiences as risky and
tend not to volunteer even despite financial incentives. Sensation seeking, as measured by the SSS-II General
scale, was related to volunteering for sensory deprivation, drug, and hypnosis experiments but not for experi-
ments in learning or social psychology ( Zuckerman, 1994 ).
Soldiers who volunteered for certain types of risky behavior in the American or Israeli army and Israel secu-
rity forces were found to be high sensation seekers ( Zuckerman, 1994 ). Israeli psychologists found that those dec-
orated for bravery in combat during the Yom Kippur war scored higher on the SSS than other soldiers who
fought in the war but won no decorations ( Neria, Solomon, Ginsberg, & Dekel, 2000 ).
Police are not higher in sensation seeking than the general population ( Goma-i-Freixanet & Wismeijer, 2002;
Homant, Kennedy, & Howton, 1994 ), but patrol officers who engage in high-speed car chases do score higher
on measures of sensation seeking ( Homant et al., 1994 ). Sensation seeking is not a universal motive in all those
who engage in such activities, but it is a strong trait in those who voluntarily take extra risks. This confirms the
part of the SS definition, ‘ ...the willingness to take risks ...for the sake of such experience. ’
If we array various sports by their mean scores on the Total score of the SSS-V (see Table 3-1, p. 394,
Zuckerman, 2007 ), the highest scoring group is expedition mountain climbers who attempt to climb the highest
mountains like Mt. Everest. Next highest are groups of skydivers, elite mountain climbers and white-water canoe-
ists all of whom score higher than the norm, not only on the Total SSS, but also on Thrill and Adventure Seeking
(TAS) and Experience Seeking (ES) subscales. Karate fighters, physical education students, ice-hockey players,
male teachers, and tennis players, tend to score in the middle range on norms based on university students.
352Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Constructs.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-386915-9.00013-9 ©2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.