new experiences. Most people, as you can imagine, fall somewhere
in the middle, seeking out new experiences unless there’s some-
thing to lose by doing so.
Zuckerman suggests that “sensation seeking is a personality
trait defined by the search for experiences and feelings, that are
varied, novel, complex and intense, and by the readiness to take
physical, social, legal, and financial risks for the sake of such
experiences.”^18 Even though Zuckerman didn’t learn anything
about mind control with these experiments, he learned a lot
about the various components of sensation-seeking that we con-
tinue to build on today.
Zuckerman created a sensation-seeking scale to assess how
much of a sensation-seeker someone is overall and how they score
in each of four subtypes of sensation-seeking (a concept I’ll talk
about more in a moment). Zuckerman’s sensation-seeking scales
have evolved over time from a general scale in the early years to the
current, more complex version (known as Form V). I’ve put a copy
of this in Appendix 2.^19
It’s worth noting that some people have taken issue with
Zuckerman’s research, his definition of high sensation-seeking,
and the way his scale is structured in particular. For example, the
quiz is in what is called a “forced choice format” – this means you
must pick between one of two statements that best describes you (“I
like ‘wild’ uninhibited parties” or “I prefer quiet parties with good
conversation”). Researchers like Jeff Arnett have suggested this
forced choice format doesn’t allow for any shades of gray and that
a Likert-type format where you judge each statement based on how
well it describes you (i.e., “describes me very well,” “describes me
somewhat,” etc.) would be more effective.^20 Arnett and others have
created these Likert-type scales, and they work well enough, but the
research says they don’t seem to work any better (statistically) than
Zuckerman’s original scale. (You’ll find Arnett’s alternative scale in
Appendix 3.)
A few people have commented that dated terms reflecting
the idioms of the 1960s and 1970s were included in the original
scale (hippies, queer, and others). This problem was rectified when
the scale was updated in the 1980s to reflect the slang of the time.
As we’re now well into the 21st century, another update may be in
order. The language doesn’t necessarily impact the validity of the
scale, however, even if it may impact the ease of understanding of
those who take it.14 / Buzz!Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:20:54, subject to the Cambridge