texting, putting on makeup, scolding kids, reading, or swatting
bees. It’s a small wonder anyone gets from one place to the next
without running off the road or into something along the way.
Unfortunately, in any given year, thousands of Americans are ser-
iously injured in automobile accidents and over 40,000 lose their
lives.^3
But sensation-seeking influences how we approach those
risks. Most of us have an amount of acceptable risk we feel comfor-
table with – an idea called “risk homeostasis theory.”^4 When the
perceived risk rises above a certain level, we suddenly become more
cautious. When it falls below this level, we feel more comfortable
and will take more risks. This might explain why we tend to be
more cautious when we are walking or driving in unfamiliar areas
or at night when we can’t see very far.
Another model, called the “zero risk model,” suggests that
most of the time we don’t find our activities to be risky.^5 When we
do, we begin to be more careful. These two different models essen-
tially say the same thing: When our perception of risk gets too high,
we change our behaviors accordingly. Whatever theory you favor,
one thing is certain: The perception of risk varies from person to
person. HSSs may very well be greater risk-takers, because they
don’t perceive their behaviors to be all that risky in the first place.
High sensation-seekers may take these driving risks to avoid
boredom. Sue with the dented car says that she only crashes when
her husband makes her drive “normally.” “I get sleepy when in
traffic, when I’m driving slow and following the rules. When I’m
driving residentially, that’s when it’s kind of boring and I zone out
and that’s when I crash.”
She’s not the only one. Monotonous conditions are particu-
larly hard for high sensation-seekers. In a study of highly mono-
tonous road conditions, sensation-seekers tended to either become
extremely restless or fall asleep.^6 It might be important for high
sensation-seekers to find safe ways to keep entertained on long
road trips. Anything that’s safe that might provide a bit of enter-
tainment like singing, chatting with passengers, or even car games
might be a better alternative to zipping and darting from lane to
lane.
Some people drive fast because they like the way it feels,
others do it to avoid feeling bored, but there’s another perceptual
reason people speed, despite the inherent risks of doing so: it’s that
they falsely believe that travel time decreases as driving speed141 / The Dark Side of High Sensation-SeekingDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:20:10, subject to the Cambridge