Skydiving, Anyone?
Whether you’re a total thrill seeker or someone who’d rather be safe than sorry, clinical psychologist Ken Carter is looking for you.
Carter, professor of psychology at Oxford College, is casting a wide net as he gathers research for an upcoming book project on “high-sensation-seeking” people.
He’s looking for people to visit his website and 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.
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 skydiving,” says Carter. The sensation-seeking test shows an overall score as well as sub-scores in four areas: thrill and adventure seeking, experience seeking, disinhibition, 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.”
