stimulation doesn’t even get our attention. When arousal levels are
just right, we are at our best. However, that perfect level can be very
different from person to person. Some like it hot, some like it cold,
while others, like Baby Bear, prefer something in between.
Optimal level theory can be traced back to one of the foun-
ders of experimental psychology, Wilhelm Wundt. In 1895, Wundt
noticed that for various levels of stimulation there was an optimal
level that was considered pleasurable for the subjects in his
experiment.^7 Below or above the optimal level was judged less
pleasurable or even aversive.
Let’s take peppers as an example. My friend Debra is the
Mama Bear of spicy foods. Even a little peppery heat is too much for
her. The optimal level for her would be hardly any spice at all.
That’s different from another friend, Jack, who’s more of a Papa
Bear when it comes to spicy. He’ll chow down on fistfuls of jalapeno
poppers – something that would send Debra scampering for ice
water while fanning her tongue.
It may be that Debra’s optimal level is so different from
Jack’s because they have different levels of ability to perceive sen-
sory information. Some researchers suggest that the more sensitiv-
ity to sensory experiences you have, the lower the stimulation you
need to reach that optimal level.^8 These researchers would say that
Debra’s taste receptors are so sensitive that she needs very little
stimulation from the spice to reach her optimal level. Jack, on the
other hand, might be less sensitive, so he would need more spice to
reach his optimal level.
The perception of the heat of the peppers may be like other
sensations or sensory experiences. Perhaps high sensation-seekers
are less sensitive to stimulation than most. That means that they
need more stimulation to reach their preferred level of arousal, just
like Papa Bear, who liked his porridge hot. Perhaps Nick only
appreciates the experience of jumping off the bridge, so the theory
goes, because of his high sensation-seeking personality. No low
sensation-seeking person could tolerate that much stimulation,
much less seek it out. Someone who actively seeks unusually high
levels of stimulation must have a much higher tolerance than
someone who is more sensitive. This means that Nick and other
high sensation-seeking individuals crave highly arousing situations
to reach their optimal level.
Even though his parachute opened late, Nick landed safely
in the Snake River near the bank. Then he trudged up from his32 / Buzz!Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:20:40, subject to the Cambridge