High sensation-seekers seem to habituate more quickly
than low sensation-seekers to arousing stimuli. To test this,
Patrick Litle measured the brain activity of students watching a 20-
minute segment of a horror movie.^10 While nearly everyone
reacted to the clip at the beginning, high sensation-seekers’ reac-
tions plummeted near the middle. The clip simply didn’t have the
same impact over time as it would for low sensation-seekers. This
might be even more true for people with higher boredom suscept-
ibility scores.
Because media becomes tedious for them more quickly,
high sensation-seekers are drawn to a wider variety of arousing
vicarious experiences.^11 Though they tend to prefer live events
like concerts and nightclubs, they also find stimulating sensations
in movies, art, music, and video games. They watch TV less than low
sensation-seekers, but when they do, they change channels more
often and the higher the sensation-seeking score the more likely
that they are drawn to graphic horror scenes and sports with high
levels of contact.^12Jazz, Classical or Muzak?
In an unpublished follow-up to the classic Zuckerman sensory
deprivation study, Zuckerman and Hopkins gave the subjects in
a sensory deprivation experiment an option to listen to music in
their rooms. They had three choices: classical, jazz, or Muzak
(bland, non-offensive elevator renditions of popular songs). It’s
probably not much of a surprise to find that the high sensation-
seekers chose jazz or classical music and the low sensation-seekers
were more likely to choose Muzak.^13 Why? Many low sensation-
seekers pick music for its ability to calm and soothe and high
sensation-seekers choose music for stimulation and arousal.^14 The
high sensation-seeker’s penchant for complexity extends beyond
background sounds.How Complex is Too Complex?
Researchers were curious to discover if high sensation-seekers’ love
of complexity would carry over into the visual realm. They
employed a test called the Welsh Figure Preference Test which
consists of 400 black and white figures.^15 Respondents are asked
to indicate whether they like or dislike each one. It is a pretty quick53 / The Everyday Life of a High Sensation-SeekerDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:18:13, subject to the Cambridge