Sensation Seeking and Risky Behavior

"Risky behavior can be an expression of a normal, genetically influenced personality trait--sensation seeking. In Sensation Seeking and Risky Behavior, Marvin Zuckerman offers a comprehensive account of the theory and research on sensation seeking, and a detailed examination of the role of sensation seeking in a wide range of behaviors, from risky driving and extreme sports to substance use, unsafe sex, hazardous vocations, and crime and other antisocial behaviors. How the personality trait sensation seeking relates to these risky behaviors is described and explained in terms of genetics, biology, attitudes, and social influences and expectancies. Insights are offered into the motivations of the risk taker, the emergence of risky behavior in adolescence, and prevention and treatment of maladaptive forms of sensation seeking, such as substance abuse and unsafe sexual activity, on the basis of the published research. The author of this engagingly written book is one of the world's foremost experts in this important area of behavior. He was the originator of the first sensation seeking scale in the early 1960s and has made sensation seeking the primary focus of his work in the subsequent decades"--Jacket. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).