Emory psychologist researches 'sensation seeking' people
By Elaine Justice | May 6, 2014
From Emory News Center http://news.emory.edu/stories/2014/05/upress_carter_sensation_seeking_people/campus.html
Whether you're a thrill seeker, or someone who'd rather be safe than sorry, clinical psychologist Ken Carter is looking for you.
Emory psychology professor Ken Carter is turning to social media to gather information on high sensation seekers. Emory Photo/Video.
Carter, professor of psychology at Emory University's Oxford College, is casting a wide net in gathering research for an upcoming book project on "high sensation seeking" people.
He's looking for people to visit his website,buzz.drkencarter.com, where they can complete a brief survey showing how much of a "sensation seeker" they are. The survey is a modified version of a sensation seeking scale personality test developed in the 1960s by Marvin Zuckerman of the University of Delaware.
Zuckerman says that sensation seeking is "a personality trait expressed in behavior as a tendency to seek varied, novel, complex and intense sensations and experiences and to take physical risks for the sake of having such experiences."
Know anyone like that?
One of the things Carter noticed in some of his friends, his clients and some of his students, too, is that there seem to be certain people who tend to have more chaotic lives than others.
"I didn't know how much of that they were creating themselves or whether they just happened into these situations," he says. "I thought about them as 'chaos junkies,' as people who loved a chaotic life, who feed off that chaos. The concept of sensation seeking seemed to explain what I was seeing."
While there are people who get their thrills from really high sensation seeking activities, "it doesn't have to be jumping off a building or sky diving," says Carter. He cites the example of fire fighters or police officers, who have fairly routine activities during long stretches, punctuated by very high sensation activities that are part of the job.
High sensation has different dimensions
The sensation seeking test shows an overall score as well as sub-scores in four areas: thrill and adventure seeking, experience seeking, dis-inhibition, and boredom susceptibility.
"Different people can be high or low on different parts of the overall concept," says Carter, "and the high sensation seeking person can look very different in different situations."
Carter says he plans to use not only the sensation seeking test results but people's stories as well. "When I did a workshop on sensation seeking recently, people's eyes light up, because they either know someone like this, or they themselves are like this," he says.
A psychologist approached Carter after the workshop and said he was an introverted high sensation seeking person.
"You'd think that introversion and high sensation seeking would be an oxymoron, but introversion has a lot to do with being in your head and recharging yourself by being alone," says Carter. "There are high sensation activities you can do alone, such as rock climbing, which an introvert would really enjoy."
Gathering people's stories
Carter says one of the great things about using social media to gather research material is that it gives him the ability to test his ideas and find out what's interesting to audiences before publishing the final product. Those wishing to share their stories can do so onCarter's Facebook page, and can follow him (@drkencarter) on Twitter as well.
"I'm looking forward to collecting people's stories and experiences," he says. "For instance, sensation seeking tends to decrease as we get older, so I'm curious to see how individuals who were high sensation seeking when they were younger change as they get older."
His book is intended for three audiences and purposes: as a compendium of research on sensation seeking for academics; as a resource for counselors and therapists; and as an information tool for the public.
For therapists, more information on sensation seeking could help them help clients. "Some people may seem to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or be bipolar, but what it really may be is high sensation seeking, which requires a very different kind of intervention than a psychological disorder might."
Benefits for high sensation seekers
"I don't want people to think that sensation seeking is a psychological disorder at all, but it can be linked to or exacerbate certain situations," says Carter. "I want to explain to people what this concept is, how them how it can manifest itself in different ways, but also help them get the most out of that awareness."
For example, "some research indicates that people who are high sensation seeking have lower levels of stress and anxiety, that there's a protective factor for them," says Carter. "You'd think they'd be more stressed out, but apparently they can tolerate a lot more chaos."
While lower sensation seeking people may be more easily thrown off base, says Carter, "high sensation seeking people can more easily roll with the punches, so there are some great aspects of it, too."
Sky diving, anyone?
Mike A's Buzz Bio
Cliff diving and sky diving isn't something you think a person would do if they are afraid of heights. Read my interview with thrill seeker Mike A to find out why he does these things as often as he can!
Cliff diving and sky diving isn't something you think a person would do if they are afraid of heights. Read my interview with thrill seeker Mike A to find out why he does these things as often as he can!
This is a first in a series of interviews of high sensation seeking individuals. Go to drkencarter.com/buzz to learn more about sensation seeking and to take a sensation seeking survey yourself.
Mike A is a 20 year old intern living in Atlanta. Here are his sensation seeking scores and some of the activities he's done and his sensation seeking "to do list". Following that is our interview.
Zorbing is a sport in which a participant is secured inside an inner capsule in a large, transparent ball that is then rolled along the ground or down hills. It's one of the thrill seeking activities that Mike A has done....swimming with sharks is on his "to do" list
Interview
Dr. Carter: I'm excited to hear about what you've been up to. You gave me your sensation seeking resume and I have to ask you about what some of these things were like. Of all these things that you've listed which is the thing that you feel was the most incredible experience?
Mike A: They each have kind of their own appeal. Now there's different types of incredible I'd say for them. As far as utter and complete fear before hand, I'll give that to cliff diving every time ... cause I am quite scared of heights. Even if it's only a 35 foot jump it still gets the blood pumping quite a bit ...
Dr. Carter: You're afraid of heights?
Mike A: Yeah, extremely afraid of heights.
Dr. Carter: ... but a lot of these things you've listed have a lot to do with heights. Skydiving, hang gliding, bulls aren't that high but we'll talk about that later. How did you first get interested in these kinds of activities?
Mike A: The first time I went sky diving was in high school. I was interested in possibly going, but never really took that first step, but then a friend of mine was turning 18 and he asked me if I wanted to go, and I said, "Alright, I'll try it out." Eventually I went with him and did my first tandem skydive. It was kind of cool cause it's a no control situation at first. When you're in free fall immediately followed by a serene sort of feeling...the closest thing to humans flying. I basically determined that I actually wasn't scared at any point, which was weird. I determined that was because of the relativity of it. When you're that high in the plane and you can't see the ground as a feasible threat. When you're on the plane the world is like you're viewing it from a microscope, like a bunch of ants.
Dr. Carter: You mentioned serenity....so it feels like a serene experience in the midst of it?
Mike A: Well that's an experience with skydiving particularly, right before you jump it's kind of like out of body, you're on auto pilot. You're already there, you're already kind of committed to it. As soon as you walk up to the edge of the plane you have a person attached to you until you're certified. They ask you, "are you ready to jump," and once you're at the door way, regardless of what you say, they jump. Realistically you're no longer in control, you've kind of already handed over the reigns, and you've pretty much signed your life away already, you've signed a waiver and all of that fun stuff, and your life is entirely in someone else's hands. You're kind of like a spectator almost in your own life, so it doesn't feel real.
Free fall goes by in a minute and a half, and when you're falling at 120 miles per hour it seems even faster than that. Then next thing you know the chute is pulled and you go from as fast as a human being can realistically travel with out any vehicle to floating. The shock of it is instant like flipping off the switch of intensity.
Dr. Carter: Yeah. How does that compare to the bull runs though? I see you've done the Great Bull Run twice actually ...
Mike A: Yes, well the same...day...I did two bouts basically. Basically that was largely adrenaline leading up to the actual run. Once you're in the actual run it's also sort of out of body experience, but intensely adrenaline packed in that you don't want to die or get run over by the bull or anything like that. It's the moments right before the run that are probably most intense in my opinion, cause your imagination's going, and your adrenaline's pumped cause you're about to run as fast as you physically can. I don't know, it's the moments leading right up to it, which is a complete opposite for me from the skydiving in my opinion.
Dr. Carter: When did you first realize that this was something that was really interesting to you, these high sensation seeking activities?
Mike A: It would have to be after that first jump, cause basically after that first jump when I determined that it didn't necessarily scare me as much as I thought it should of, I decided to try something else, or try again. I went skydiving 3 more times. The second time I told the tandem person, " well, the last guy failed to scare me so I want you to scare me." Which is not something you probably should say to a skydiving person.
Dr. Carter: Did he scare you?
Mike A: Yeah, he went about it very cleverly. Basically before hand he told me about how when they've got somebody who's not cooperating, and grabbing at their arms or something when they should be pulling the chute they spin them around really fast and eventually they can handle the Gs a little bit better than a typical individual, so the person on them will pass out and they will be conscious and able to do what ever they need to. We're in the middle free fall and he takes my hand and bends it down slightly, so I start spinning extraordinarily fast in one direction. The he stops me and we spin in the other direction extremely fast, then the next direction extremely fast, and then the next direction extremely fast, and my eyes were pretty much popping out of my head ...... and then he pulls the chute, and before I knew it we were just coasting again.
Dr. Carter: How would you describe that?
Mike A: It was definitely exciting. Going through my mind was; is he toying with me, or is he actually trying to knock me out, or what?
Dr. Carter: What do your friends say about all of these activities that you do?
Mike A: A lot of them say they'd like to join me or that they would never join me in a million years, it's one or the other.I try to get friends to go with me on a lot of this stuff. My co-worker right next to me, Stacey, went with me on the bull run. A couple of friends have gone skydiving with me. That's actually, surprisingly, the easiest one to get people to go with you for. It's like that bucket list item. Hang gliding ...
Dr. Carter: Have you ever been doing something and then caught yourself and thought, "why am I doing this?"
Mike A: That's a cliff diving mentality for me. Each time I am like, "why am I up here?" Usually you have to climb up to get there in the first place, and swimming is not my favorite. I'm literally jumping from fears that I hate, from the fear of heights that I hate into the water that's not my favorite. I'm like, "why am I doing this again?" Afterwards I'm like, "that was awesome," but at the moment right before you jump you're just like, "what the hell am I doing?" As soon as you get that thought, it's from my experience, is the time that you just say, "disregard, jump." If you look into that you're just going to sit there for the rest of the day.
Dr. Carter: Your thrill seeking, do you feel that it shows up in other areas of your life? Does it help you, or does it cause problems for you in other areas of your life that are not these sort of recreational activities?
Mike A: I think it helps me. I think it makes me more challenging of, not necessarily the roles I'm supposed to play and stuff like that, but more challenging of my limitations. Quite frankly I'm not really scared of things, because my biggest fears I try to challenge them on a regular basis, so essentially when you're not scared of anything you go full force with confidence.
Self confidence can be really helpful in, well, everything. I think having a list of experiences that I'm after, and an adrenaline kind of seeking nature, it kind of makes me more exciting, and I don't know, kind of makes everything better.
Dr. Carter: It must be a really, incredibly freeing experience.
Mike A: It really is, it adds a certain strength that I really appreciate. I don't know, I like being an adrenaline junky of sorts.
Dr. Carter: Is there anything that you'd like people who are not adrenaline junkies, or thrill seekers, to know about thrill seekers?
Mike A: That's a really good question. I guess it would be mostly the nots, not what they are but what they are not. They are not suicidal for one, I have no interest in dying skydiving, it's actually way safer than getting in your car and driving to work. I don't know, it's kind of an addiction to life for lack of a better words. I think it's not a disregard for life, but an addiction to life and trying to intensify the other moments instead of dull them out.
A heightened sense, probably the best way I can put it because there is sort of a come down from an experience like that. Like, after you skydive walking feels a bit weird, looking around things are different. Mind you, you return to normal after a fairly short period of time, like a week or two you get back to the same mentality and everything, but there is a point in time where it changed a little bit. It's kind of cool, and I think it heightens your appreciation for everything outside of just the thrill seeking. It's like a different perspective.
Watch 8 BASE Jumps From 8 Famous Buildings
BASE jumping is a classic High Sensation Seeking Personality activity. It hits on pretty much every single one of the 4 components of sensation seeking. What makes this more of a dangerous activity are the arrests that can come from the jumps.
Take a look at this article. It describes and SHOWS 8 famous jumps! Would you do that?
Sensation Seeking and and Oxycodone
by Na’eem Gibson
High sensation seekers tend to seek a wide array of sensations to satisfy their urges and impulses. Ranging from relatively low risk activities such as skydiving or recreational drug use, to dangerous activities like reckless driving and drug abuse, high sensation seekers tend to find themselves apart of experiences involving such as those previously mentioned. In a study conducted by James P. Zacny, he came to find that like many other drugs, oxycodone had varying effects on male and female high sensation seekers and low sensation seekers. As expected the high sensation seekers generally responded with overwhelmingly positive reactions to the opiate while the low sensation seekers responded with a mix of euphoric and dysphoric effects.
While it is expected for a high sensation seeker to find the novel effects of oxycodone pleasurable and it is expected for low sensation seekers to find the effects disturbing, the addition of both female and male sensation seekers varied the results quite a bit. In the study Zacny found that male high sensation seekers did not report the dysphoric effects that the male and female low sensation seekers reported such as nausea or general confusion. Zacny’s experiment was not the first of its kind as many others have compared potential differences in drug abuse between low sensation and high sensation seeks, but it is the first to do the comparison study between the two types of sensation seekers concerning their reactions to opioids.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091305709003566?via=ihub