Buzz Inside the Minds of Thrill-Seekers

(cont.)

surprised if she didn’t get herself into trouble every now and

then, which is probably why her family calls her wanderlust

pathological.

While Rachel’s and Alex’s scores are both in the high range,

you can expect the way in which they would exhibit sensation-

seeking to be quite different. This is true across the board. People

score differently in these areas and their scores have been shown

over and over again to reliably predict what they are likely to do.

Zuckerman’s tool for judging this turns out to be a simple and

elegant way to describe some of the nuances in sensation-seekers.

It’s no wonder so many researchers have used this model to dis-

cover the inner world of sensation-seekers. It’s always nice when

you hit on that combination as a scientist. Despite the individual

nature of the high sensation-seeking personality, there are some

tendencies we see in the population at large.

Who are the High Sensation-Seekers?

Scores on each of the components of sensation-seeking increase

with age, to a point. It’s higher in children and continues to

increase until the late teens and then starts to decrease as you get

older.^23 This might explain why people like Mike and Kirill and

those starring in YouTube videos hurling themselves off houses and

lighting themselves on fire, tend not to be in their fifties. They tend

to be, more often than not, males in the prime of their testosterone

producing years (more on that in thenext chapter). There is one

exception – boredom susceptibility. For most people, boredom

susceptibility remains relatively stable throughout life.

In general males have higher scores than females on three

of the four parts of sensation-seeking.^24 Men tend to score higher

on thrill- and adventure-seeking, boredom susceptibility, and dis-

inhibition. Women outscore men only in experience-seeking. The

gap, however, is closing in thrill- and adventure-seeking. The last

few years have seen a steady increase for the scores of women in

thrill- and adventure-seeking. You can see this reflected in the

number of women participating in extreme sports. While I don’t

believe the popularity of high sensation-seeking as a whole is the

25 / What is Sensation-Seeking

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