o ur brains crave excitement, and varied stimuli and experiences.

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1 16 Unlock Your Life 4 Quest for Excitement It Can Exhilarate or Kill Sensation seekers generally prefer active to passive experience, or real life involvement to spectator status. Their preferences in art, media, and humor reflect a liking for stimuli that arouse strong emotions. 1 Prof. Marvin Zuckerman o ur brains crave excitement, and varied stimuli and experiences. One of the worst forms of punishment is to deprive people of stimuli. In prisons that punishment is solitary confinement. Even the toughest of prisoners, who have been locked up in dark, barren cells known as holes and cut off from all stimuli, have been known to go mad. In sensory deprivation experiments, normal volunteers, insulated from all stimuli for extended periods of time, hallucinated and exhibited other forms of psychotic behavior. In ordinary life, anxiety, boredom and depression can result if we don t get a sufficient blend of stimuli, appropriate for our needs. How much and what type of stimuli and excitement we need varies from person to person. Over a third of a century research on sensation seeking by Prof. Marvin Zuckerman helps us better understand this fundamental brain need. Sensation seeking is a trait defined by the seeking of varied, novel, complex, and intense sensations and experiences, and the willingness to take physical, social, and financial risks for the sake of such experiences, is how Dr. Zuckerman explains it. If we are to achieve a measure of happiness and avoid

2 making a mess of our lives, we have to fine-tune our sensation seeking needs. It s particularly critical in our jobs and relationships. If we are to achieve happiness with our mates, we need to be compatible and accommodating to each other s sensation/excitement seeking needs. High sensation seekers value differences and conflict as a positive arousal, whereas low sensation seekers tend to avoid differences and controversies with others, according to Zuckerman. As part of their sensation seeking, some people drink and drive aggressively, and subject themselves to other high risks. That can lead to a variety of serious consequences. As Zuckerman elaborates, If some people drive very fast after heavy drinking and become involved in accidents, they may kill or injure themselves (physical risk); they may be arrested and jailed (legal risk); they may be fined or lose their jobs (financial risk); and they may be exposed in the newspapers and condemned by others as drunk drivers (social risk). What happens when high sensation seekers wind up in monotonous jobs? Zuckerman s research shows that they either leave those jobs or cope with the boredom by using alcohol and other drugs. If our sensation seeking needs aren t met, we may feel bored, depressed, anxious. If we happen to be high sensation seekers we might inadvertently take up hard drugs, alcohol, gambling or bungee jumping to our detriment or untimely demise. Although sensation seeking has been popularly linked with thrill seeking, Zuckerman categorizes it as Thrill and Adventure Seeking such as sky diving, skiing and scuba diving. This is just one of four subscales of his basic Sensation Seeking Scale. The second is Experience Seeking defined by him as seeking of novel sensations and experiences through the mind and senses, as in arousing music, art, and travel, and through social nonconformity, as in association with groups on the fringes of society. The third is Disinhibition... seeking sensation through social activities like parties, social drinking, and sex. An attitude describing this factor is: I like to have new and exciting experiences even if they are a little unconventional or illegal. Finally the fourth, Boredom Susceptibility is an intolerance for repetitive experience of any kind, including routine work, and boring people. The worst social sin [for them] is to be a bore. Since sensation seeking is such powerful and indispen- Quest For Excitement 17

3 18 Unlock Your Life sable component of our lives, we need to consciously take them into account and design our lives accordingly or take the consequences. If we don t intentionally work into our lives activities that meet our level of sensation seeking (as part of our Pleasure Inventory, Chapter 6), we become vulnerable to addictions or risks that expose us to the loss of life or limb. All sensation seeking involves some risk and we need to consciously manage those risks by choosing the sensation seeking activities appropriate for us. The first step for doing that is to assess how much sensation and excitement we need. Here is the short version of Zuckerman s sensation seeking questionnaire. Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale For each of the 14 items, select the choice that best describes your likes or dislikes, or the way that you feel. Select only one statement for each item. 1. A. I would like a job that requires a lot of traveling. B. I would prefer a job in one location. 2. A. I am invigorated by a brisk, cold day. B. I can t wait to get indoors on a cold day. 3. A. I get bored seeing the same old faces. B. I like the comfortable familiarity of everyday friends. 4. A. I would prefer living in an ideal society in which everyone is safe, secure, and happy. B. I would have preferred living in the unsettled days of our history. 5. A. I sometimes like to do things that are a little frightening. B. A sensible person avoids activities that are dangerous. 6. A. I would not like to be hypnotized. B. I would like to have the experience of being hypnotized. 7. A. The most important goal of life is to live it to the fullest and experience as much as possible. B. The most important goal of life is to find peace and happiness.

4 Quest For Excitement A. I would like to try parachute jumping. B. I would never want to try jumping out of a plane, with or without a parachute. 9. A. I enter cold water gradually, giving myself time to get used to it. B. I like to dive or jump right in to the ocean or a cold pool. 10. A. When I go on vacation, I prefer the comfort of a good room and bed. B. When I go on vacation, I prefer the change of camping out. 11. A. I prefer people who are emotionally expressive even if they are a bit unstable. B. I prefer people who are calm and even-tempered. 12. A. A good painting should shock or jolt the senses. B. A good painting should give one a feeling of peace and security. 13. A. People who ride motorcycles must have some kind of unconscious need to hurt themselves. B. I would like to drive or ride a motorcycle. 14. A. In a good sexual relationship, people never get bored with each other. B. It s normal to get bored after a time with the same sexual partner. To Score: Give yourself one point for each of the following items that you circled: 1A, 2A, 3A, 4B, 5A, 6B, 7A, 8A, 9B, 10B, 11A, 12A, 13B, and 14B. Add up your points, and compare the total to the following scale: 1-3 (very low in sensation seeking), 4-5 (low), 6-9 (average), (high), (very high). If you want to find out how you rank in the four major sensation seeking subscales that I outlined earlier, you will need to take the more detailed version of the Sensation Seeking questionnaire at the following Website edu/~nschultz/305/scales/sss/sss.html. Here you will dis-

5 20 Unlock Your Life cover how you rank with other people of your gender. There is a marked difference between men and women in this area. Should you like more information and background on sensation seeking, you may want to obtain Marvin Zuckerman s book Behavioral Expressions and Biosocial Bases of Sensation Seeking. 2 In the next chapter we ll turn to another important process which stimulates your brain s reward pathways and gives you immense satisfaction and pleasure: flow. But as much as our brains need stimulation, we also need quiet, alone time. Too much stimulation can be overwhelming. For ways to structure your quiet, alone time, see Chapter 8, Organized and In Control.