COMMENTARY

doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2007.01959.x

Sensation seeking: a commentary

ABSTRACT
Aims To discuss some of the conceptual and methodological issues about race/ethnicity and sensation seeking not
discussed fully in the two empirical papers in this issue. Methods The authors of this commentary examined critically
the papers in this issue by Vallone et al. and Stephenson et al. and asked if there were underlying or foundational issues
that were ignored or not discussed adequately regarding the sensation seeking construct. After reviewing an initial list
of those issues, a decision was made to discuss four of them. Findings There is inadequate attention paid to: (i) the
developmental aspects of sensation seeking and the almost exclusive focus on youth; (ii) the possibility that sensation
seeking is relevant primarily for initial events and not continuation, progression within and across drug classes,
progression to dependence, regression, cessation and relapse; (iii) the putative multi-dimensionality of sensation
seeking and the pervasive tendency of researchers to ignore the dimensions; and (iv) possible lack of validity of the
construct within and across racial and ethnic groups. Conclusions The two papers in this issue by Vallone et al. and
Stephenson et al., each of which is focused on racial/ethnic differences in the relationship of sensation seeking to
tobacco attitudes, intentions and tobacco use, suggest that it is time for more foundational research on the relevance
of the multi-dimensional definition of the construct. The relationship of the putative dimensions to each other and to
other variables, and the utility of the construct for segmenting audiences and predicting public health outcomes, is an
area where more foundational research is needed.
Keywords

Ethnicity, race, sensation seeking, tobacco.

The author has no conflicts of interests.

The purpose of this commentary is to identify some of the

conceptual and methodological implications not discussed fully in the two empirical papers in this issue
[1,2]. Those papers are focused on racial/ethnic differences in the relationship of sensation seeking and
tobacco use. In the past two decades sensation seeking
has become a key psychographic variable used to
segment audiences for targeting of mass media prevention messages (public service announcements: PSAs).
There is substantial evidence that those classified as
high sensation seekers will attend to high sensation
value messages, especially if they are embedded in high
sensation value programming. An example is embedding
PSAs in MTV programming versus embedding them in a
televised musical performance of great waltzes. Sensation seeking has also been recognized widely as a predictive factor for various forms of risk-related behavior
(i.e. tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug use, unprotected sex,
delinquency, interpersonal violence).
In spite of a long tradition of theoretical/conceptual
work and a growing body of empirical research a
number of important issues are unresolved, thus this
commentary.
First, sensation seeking seems to be most relevant for a
small part of the developmental life-cycle. Much of the
research on sensation seeking as a predictive factor for

risk-related behavior has been focused on youth or, at

most, young adults. In fact, the sensation seeking construct is almost invisible in the literature on adults and
risk-related behavior. Does this mean that sensation
seeking is relevant only during the first 1825 years of
life? Does sensation seeking among adults become
re-conceptualized or classified among adults as something else [i.e. adult attention deficit disorder (ADD) or
attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), impulsive
decision-making, mid-life crisis]?
Secondly, if the assumption that sensation seeking is
primarily relevant as a predictive factor for youth, is sensation seeking predictive essentially of initial events (i.e.
initiation of tobacco, alcohol and marijuana) but not
continuing events? This would certainly be consistent
with evidence that as a person becomes dependent on a
drug, while they may continue seeking the high they initially received, much of their behavior is spent avoiding
withdrawal rather than seeking sensation. So does sensation seeking diminish with greater exposure to the behavior that initially produced the sensation? If so, what
determines the rate with which those activities become
less exciting?
Thirdly, sensation seeking has been described consistently as having multiple dimensions: (i) thrill and adventure seeking; (ii) experience seeking; (iii) disinhibition;

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Addiction, 102 (Suppl. 2), 9294

Commentary

and (iv) boredom susceptibility. The original scales

created by Zuckerman reflected the putative dimensions.
A very large proportion of the existing research literature
on sensation seeking uses the work of Zuckerman as the
intellectual foundation [35]. However, almost all the
research studies using this construct have created a total
score of sensation seeking. This approach ignores the
putative dimensionality of the construct. Further, almost
all of these studies have then taken the total score and
used a median split to create high- and low-sensation
seeking groups [4]. This ignores not only the putative
multi-dimensionality of the construct, but ignores dispersion from the median. The belief that sensation seeking is
multi-dimensional obviously guided the development of
the eight-item Brief Sensation Seeking Scale because two
items were selected from each of the four putative dimensions [7]. The same is true of the even shorter four-item
scale used by Vallone, Allen & Clayton paper included in
this issue [2]. The implicit assumption underlying these
shorter scales is that sensation seeking is multidimensional and that each of the dimensions may be
important. However, the need for a brief measure of a
complex construct is strong in evaluating the impact of
media campaigns. Is it possible that a more robust measurement of one dimension would be better than one
measure with one item, or two items representing each
dimension?
Fourthly, it is probably safe to assume that because
sensation seeking is defined as a presumed universal and
stable personality trait, a one-size-fits-all approach to
measurement of the trait is appropriate. The findings of
Vallone et al. using national samples of youth provide a
rationale to question the validity of that assumption [2].
The work of Stephenson et al. [1] using Latino samples of
adults in two cities in Texas also provides a rationale to
question the validity of the assumption. One possibility is
that by creating a generic measure of sensation seeking
and using that construct/measure to segment audiences
for messages we have ignored another bumper-sticker
reality. Namely, sensation seeking may reflect different
strokes for different folks.
Many years ago there were only a few electronic and
print media outlets and vectors for the general public to
be informed and influenced by public health messages,
regardless of sensation seeking propensity. Now, there is a
huge variety of sources to deliver public health messages
and those with high sensation seeking needs have a large
menu from which to select entertainment, recreational
and public health information. This heterogeneity may
dilute the value of sensation seeking as a psychographic
segmenting variable, particularly because its potency
seems to be influenced by the sensation value of the programming into which public health messages are embedded. If viewing choices were limited to only the so-called

93

legacy networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) this would not be a

problem. However, with the proliferation of program
selections from cable and other media vehicles, this heterogeneity may limit significantly the potential for using
sensation seeking as a targeting factor.
The two papers in this issue, each of which is focused
on racial/ethnic differences in the relationship of sensation seeking to tobacco attitudes, intentions and tobacco
use, suggest that it is time for more foundational research
on the relevance of the multi-dimensional definition of
the construct. The relationship of the putative dimensions to each other and to other variables, and the utility
of the construct for segmenting audiences and predicting
public health outcomes is an area where more foundational research is needed. In addition, from a translational perspective, sensation seeking is a very interesting
construct. It is one of those constructs for which there is
a close analog, novelty seeking at the pre-clinical level in
a rat model. The construct is also relevant because evidence from animal studies shows that novelty seeking
stimulates the reward center in the brain (i.e. the
mesolimbic dopaminergic system in the shell of the
nucleus accumbens), the same reward center stimulated
by nicotine [8]. The developmental aspects of novelty/
sensation seeking could be examined in animal models
comparing neuroscience impacts on adult compared to
peri-adolescent rats. In addition, because it is likely that
context influences the expression of sensation/novelty
seeking, it should be possible to model this in animal
research.
The authors of this commentary agree with
Palmgreen et al. [6] that sensation seeking is a potent
predictive factor for various types of risk-related behavior,
but argue for considerably more conceptual and methodological work on the construct and its measurement. If
sensation seeking does vary by developmental age and
stage, and by race/ethnicity, further work is needed to
insure the validity of segmenting and targeting specific
audiences on the basis of sensation seeking. Because
context may also affect sensation seeking, it is possible
that socio-economic status factors may provide environmental boundaries and parameters to the types of stimuli
that attract so-called high sensation seekers.
RICHARD R. CLAYTON, MELISSA J. H. SEGRESS &
CRYSTAL A. CAUDILL

University of Kentucky, College of Public Health,

Lexington, KY, USA. E-mail: clayton@uky.edu

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Addiction, 102 (Suppl. 2), 9294

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Commentary

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2007 The Authors. Journal compilation 2007 Society for the Study of Addiction

Addiction, 102 (Suppl. 2), 9294