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Sensation-seeking and preference for emotional visual stimuli
Pcwon Printed
rndf~fd. D!# Vol 5. No 5. pp. 609-61 I. 1984 tn Great Britain All rtghts reserved
Sensation-seeking
Copyright
and preference for emotional
0191-8869/84 53.00 + 0.00 cc 1984 Pergamon Press Ltd
visual stimuli
ZBIGN~EW ZALESKI Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland (Received 17 October 1983) Summary-The Zucketman Sensation-seeking Scale (SSS) was administered to 190 men and 197 women, who were also asked 10 choose 5 pictures out of a group of 21. Seven of these pictures had been rated as emotionally positive, 7 as emotionally neutral and 7 as emotionally negative. Choices of the high and low sensation-seeking groups were compared, and it was found that the high sensation-seekers had a stronger.preference for the negative stimuli than the lows, and the low sensation-seekers had a stronger preference for the positive stimuli than the highs. The results are discussed in terms of optimum level of arousal.
INTRODUCTION The stimuli that we perceive are registered selectively. Some are preferred over others in the process of selection, and an individual who wants to ensure for himself the optimum level of arousal (OLA) chooses specific situations and pays attention to selected stimuli. This specificity refers both to the rype of stimulus chosen, and to its intensify. It is generally held that people prefer strong stimuli only when they are accompanied by some positive emotions, a notion close to some theories of motivation (e.g. McClelland, 1961). One person may expenence such positive emotions at a big joyful party, another in a situation of uncertainty or even of danger. What these two experiences have in common is that, subjectively, they help the individual to obtain an OLA. The concept of OLA (Eysenck, 1967; Zuckerman, 1969) is not regarded as a unidimensional process (Zuckerman and Como, 1983), but rather suggests that people organize the input of stimuli in different ways, often extravagant, unusual and unacceptable by society. Some people apparently have to seek different and unusual stimuli in order to function normally. Some people require very strong stimuli in order to experience optimally strong emotions, for only at this level of activation can some people feel well and function appropriately. The OLA is, by definition, a positive state, but it can be reached either by means of positive or negative stimuli. In this investigation, it was hypothesized that in the experimental situation the high sensation-seekers would prefer visual stimuli emotionally loaded, rather than unemotional stimuli. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that such people would choose the negative type of emotional stimulus more frequently, and the positive stimulus less frequently, than low sensation-seekers (Zuckerman, 1976a, b, 1978, 1979).
METHOD Subjects could choose between visual stimuli which were graded in terms of an emotionality continuum. To begin with, 100 pictures were evaluated by seven independent judges on a 7-point Emotionality scale, ranging from pictures which were experienced as emotionally very positive to pictures which were experienced as emotionally very negative, through the region of ambivalence or neutrality. Emotionally-positive pictures contained scenes of joint celebration, mild love-making etc.; pictures at the other end of the distribution contained scenes of torture and hanging, corpses etc. Out of these 100 pictures, 21 were chosen in such a way that 7 evoked the most positive emotion, 7 the most negative, while 7 were neutral. One hundred and ninety males and 197 females, all university students or students at the high schools in Lublin were tested; Ss were between the ages of I9 and 28 yr. These Ss were administered the Zuckerman SSS, and on the basis of the results, the 30 highest and lowest scoring men and women were chosen for the second part of the experiment. These Ss were asked individually to choose 5 pictures out of the 21, laid out on a table. They were instructed to pick out the one they liked the most, and then the other 4 in order of preference. Ss were instructed to look at the contents and not at the artistic value of the pictures.
RESULTS The high and low sensation-seeking groups were compared with regard to the number of positive, neutral and negative pictures chosen. Table 1 shows the results for men and women separately, and also for calculations using only the first choice, or using all 5 choices. As the table shows, high and low sensation-seekers differed in their choices, in the predicted direction. There is a distinct tendency, more noticeable in men than in women, for high sensation-seekers to give a relative preference to emotionally-negative pictures, and for low sensation-seekers to reverse this trend. x2 for the single-choice results shows the data for the men to be significant at the 1% level, while the data for the women falls short of significance. No x’ values are given for the 5 choices because the statistic is not appropriate due to the lack of independence of the choices. To cope with the statistical difficulty raised by the lack of applicability of the x2 statistics, choices were scored by giving a score of 5 to the first chosen picture, down to a score of I for the last choice. An analysis was carried out on these measures, and this is shown in Table 2. It will be seen that the low sensation-seeking females and males have stronger preferences for the positive stimuli than the high sensation-seeking peers, whereas in the preference for the negative stimuli there is a reverse relationship, with high sensation-seeking Ss preferring quite strongly the negative stimuli. For the neutral pictures there is no significant difference between the groups. Figure I shows these trends very clearly. 609
NOTES AND SHORT COMMlJNlCATlONS
610 Table
I
The number of chosen pxtures [posmve (P), neutral (NI) and negative (Nell bv hieh and low sensation-seekine men and women One choice
.
Five choices
P
NI
Ne
42
IO
8
5 3 R
6 18 24
P
NI
Ne
60
184
63
53
300
30 30 60
88 58 146
38 25 ti7
24 67 91
150 150 300
I.
x2 = 4.46. df = 2, NS
MelI
M, Mll
I* = 10.08, d/=
19 9 28 2, P < 0.01
F,. high sensation-seeking
women; F, low sensation-seeking men; M,, low sensation-seeking men.
sensation-seekmg
Table 2. The strength
of picture
preference
women;
in high and low sensation-seeking
Hieh
LOW
---o-
Positive Neutral Negative ‘P <0.05:
l*P
high
groups
MeIl
Women Pictures ___ ~...~
M,,
LOW
Hieh
x
SD
x
SD
I
8.53 2.63 3.83
2.05 3.04 3.33
10.90 2.83 1.27
3.63 2.45 1.87
3.08.. 0.27 3.66’.
F 5 77 2.20 7.03
- sf 3.89 1.81 4.11
x 9.00 3.63 2.37
SD
I
4.28 3.24 3.08
3.03.8 2.04 4.91..
< 0.01
The tables and the figure show marked sex differences, in that the males appeared to show a preference for negative, the females for positive stimuli, in the high and low sensation-seeking groups, respectively. Taking the two factors together (sex and SSS scores), it appears that the high sensation-seeking men and low sensation-seeking women show the most discrepant choices. A similar analysis to that used in Table 1 has been used on each subscale of the SSS. Independently of the previous extreme groups based on the total SSS score, high and low Ss were found for the scales separately, and their choices analysed. Results for the first choice only is shown in Table 3, together with x2 analyses. It seems that the BS scale does not have any significant influence on stimulus preferences, while TAS does so only in men. The ES scale is of importance both for men and women, and the biggest differences are found between high and low men on the Dis scale, where none of the low disinhibition-seeking Ss has chosen a negative picture and more than half of the high-scoring Ss preferred that type of stimulus.
DISCUSSION
Psychological dimensions measured by the SSS apparently have some real influence on the behaviour of people. Those with a strong need for sensation choose different stimuli as compared with those who do not have this desire to the same extent. When offered a set of stimuli producing either positive or negative emotions, the former prefer the positive much
II L10 98765432l-
f
L
-
Fig. 1. SSS scores and picture preference. a, High sensation-seeking men; A, low sensation-seeking 0, high sensation-seeking women; n , low sensation-seeking women,
men;
NOTES AND
61
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
Table 3. Choices of pictures in high and low sensation-seeking subscales groups MelI
F, F,
F, F,
P
Nl
25 23 48
2 0 2 x*=4.08
28 I5 43
Nl?
NI
P
Ne
3 7 10 NS
30 30 60
6 7 1 15 7 22 x2 = 6.78, df = 2, P < 0.05
0
2
5
10
30 30 60
6 4 30 5 18 30 II 22 60 x2 = 15.26, df = 2, P < 0.001
df=2
5 12 x1 = 14.28, df = 2, P < 0.001
F, F,
25 18 43
2 5 I x*=4.02.
F, F,
25 23 48
2 2 4 x2 = 0.58, NS
F, F,
20 27 47
2 8 2 1 4 9 x2 = 6.48, df = 2, P < 0.05
3 7 IO df=2, NS 3 5 8
@s
30 30 60
Bs
30 30 60
30 30 60
ML M,
21 8 29
9 0 30 4 18 30 13 18 60 x2 = 25.74, df = 2, P < 0.001
MI M,
17 12 29
5 5 10 x2 = 2.04, NS
8 13 21
30 30 60
MI Wl
15 20 35
5 4 9 x’ = 1.84. NS
IO 6 16
30 30 60
IAS
30 30 60
more frequently than do the latter. Apparently, strong excitement; there is empirical evidence that some people
emotions
can be searched
for in order
to produce
tension
and
like excitement and like to be tense, even without the possibility of tension reduction (Nuttin, 1980). It thus appears for the high sensation-seekers that ordinary life does not give them enough opportunity to have and reach a high enough level of stimulation or, in Nuttin’s (1980) theory, to have an optimum relation with the world. It is not obvious why high sensation-seekers prefer the negative stimulation rather than the positive. It is possible that for them the negative and the positive stimuli with the same position on the intensity scale, do not represent the same subjective value; for them the negative stimuli seem to be stronger. Another possibility is that these stimuli have lost, for high sensation-seekers, the negative character; it is as if the high sensation-seeker does not perceive them in the same negative light. For the negative stimuli help in effect to obtain the derived OLA. In terms of the static theories of motivation, one might say that the negative stimuli set aside the need for stimulation. If it is possible to risk an extrapolation from the data to real-life situations, it could be predicted that the high sensation-seekers would involve themselves in events that either strongly excite them, make them happy or irritate them, satisfy or disgust them, make them angry or help to give them ‘highs’. It is logical that they will try to create such situations if the natural and cultural environment does not offer them. This means that sensation-seeking is not only seeking after existing strong stimuli but also creating such incentives. Acknowledgemenrs-The with this project.
author wishes to express his gratitude to Mrs J. Szczurkowska and Mr J. Kasprzak for their help
REFERENCES H. J. (1967) The Biological Basis of Personaliry. Thomas, Springfield, Ill. McClelland D. (1961) The Achieving Society. Von Nostrand, Princeton, N.J. Nuttin J. (1980) Theorie de la motivation humoine. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris. Zuckerman M. (1969) Theoretical formulations-I. In Sensory Deprivation. Fifreen Years of Research (Edited by Zubek J.). Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York. Zuckerman M. (1976a) Sensation seeking and anxiety, traits and states, as determinants of behaviour in novel situations. In Srress and Anxiety, Vol. 3 (Edited by Sarason I. and Spielberger C.), pp 141-170. Hemisphere, Washington, D.C. Zuckerman M. (1976b) Preliminary Manual wirh Scoring Keys and Norms for Form V of the Sensation-Seeking Scale. Delaware Univ., Newark, Del. Zuckerman M. (1978) Sensation seeking. In Dimensions in Personality (Edited by London H. and Exner J.), pp. 487-559. Wiley, New York. Zuckerman M. (1979) Sensation seeking and risk taking. In Emotions in Personaliry and Psychoparhology (Edited by Izard C.), pp. 163-197. Plenum Press, New York. Zuckerrnan M. and Como P. (1983) Sensation-seeking and arousal systems. Person. individ. 01% 4, 38!-386. Zuckerman M., Eysenck H. J. and Eysenck S. B. G. (1978) Sensation seeking in England and America: cross cultural, age and sex comparisons. J. consulr. clin. Psychol. 46, 139-149. Eysenck
I
rndf~fd. D!# Vol 5. No 5. pp. 609-61 I. 1984 tn Great Britain All rtghts reserved
Sensation-seeking
Copyright
and preference for emotional
0191-8869/84 53.00 + 0.00 cc 1984 Pergamon Press Ltd
visual stimuli
ZBIGN~EW ZALESKI Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland (Received 17 October 1983) Summary-The Zucketman Sensation-seeking Scale (SSS) was administered to 190 men and 197 women, who were also asked 10 choose 5 pictures out of a group of 21. Seven of these pictures had been rated as emotionally positive, 7 as emotionally neutral and 7 as emotionally negative. Choices of the high and low sensation-seeking groups were compared, and it was found that the high sensation-seekers had a stronger.preference for the negative stimuli than the lows, and the low sensation-seekers had a stronger preference for the positive stimuli than the highs. The results are discussed in terms of optimum level of arousal.
INTRODUCTION The stimuli that we perceive are registered selectively. Some are preferred over others in the process of selection, and an individual who wants to ensure for himself the optimum level of arousal (OLA) chooses specific situations and pays attention to selected stimuli. This specificity refers both to the rype of stimulus chosen, and to its intensify. It is generally held that people prefer strong stimuli only when they are accompanied by some positive emotions, a notion close to some theories of motivation (e.g. McClelland, 1961). One person may expenence such positive emotions at a big joyful party, another in a situation of uncertainty or even of danger. What these two experiences have in common is that, subjectively, they help the individual to obtain an OLA. The concept of OLA (Eysenck, 1967; Zuckerman, 1969) is not regarded as a unidimensional process (Zuckerman and Como, 1983), but rather suggests that people organize the input of stimuli in different ways, often extravagant, unusual and unacceptable by society. Some people apparently have to seek different and unusual stimuli in order to function normally. Some people require very strong stimuli in order to experience optimally strong emotions, for only at this level of activation can some people feel well and function appropriately. The OLA is, by definition, a positive state, but it can be reached either by means of positive or negative stimuli. In this investigation, it was hypothesized that in the experimental situation the high sensation-seekers would prefer visual stimuli emotionally loaded, rather than unemotional stimuli. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that such people would choose the negative type of emotional stimulus more frequently, and the positive stimulus less frequently, than low sensation-seekers (Zuckerman, 1976a, b, 1978, 1979).
METHOD Subjects could choose between visual stimuli which were graded in terms of an emotionality continuum. To begin with, 100 pictures were evaluated by seven independent judges on a 7-point Emotionality scale, ranging from pictures which were experienced as emotionally very positive to pictures which were experienced as emotionally very negative, through the region of ambivalence or neutrality. Emotionally-positive pictures contained scenes of joint celebration, mild love-making etc.; pictures at the other end of the distribution contained scenes of torture and hanging, corpses etc. Out of these 100 pictures, 21 were chosen in such a way that 7 evoked the most positive emotion, 7 the most negative, while 7 were neutral. One hundred and ninety males and 197 females, all university students or students at the high schools in Lublin were tested; Ss were between the ages of I9 and 28 yr. These Ss were administered the Zuckerman SSS, and on the basis of the results, the 30 highest and lowest scoring men and women were chosen for the second part of the experiment. These Ss were asked individually to choose 5 pictures out of the 21, laid out on a table. They were instructed to pick out the one they liked the most, and then the other 4 in order of preference. Ss were instructed to look at the contents and not at the artistic value of the pictures.
RESULTS The high and low sensation-seeking groups were compared with regard to the number of positive, neutral and negative pictures chosen. Table 1 shows the results for men and women separately, and also for calculations using only the first choice, or using all 5 choices. As the table shows, high and low sensation-seekers differed in their choices, in the predicted direction. There is a distinct tendency, more noticeable in men than in women, for high sensation-seekers to give a relative preference to emotionally-negative pictures, and for low sensation-seekers to reverse this trend. x2 for the single-choice results shows the data for the men to be significant at the 1% level, while the data for the women falls short of significance. No x’ values are given for the 5 choices because the statistic is not appropriate due to the lack of independence of the choices. To cope with the statistical difficulty raised by the lack of applicability of the x2 statistics, choices were scored by giving a score of 5 to the first chosen picture, down to a score of I for the last choice. An analysis was carried out on these measures, and this is shown in Table 2. It will be seen that the low sensation-seeking females and males have stronger preferences for the positive stimuli than the high sensation-seeking peers, whereas in the preference for the negative stimuli there is a reverse relationship, with high sensation-seeking Ss preferring quite strongly the negative stimuli. For the neutral pictures there is no significant difference between the groups. Figure I shows these trends very clearly. 609
NOTES AND SHORT COMMlJNlCATlONS
610 Table
I
The number of chosen pxtures [posmve (P), neutral (NI) and negative (Nell bv hieh and low sensation-seekine men and women One choice
.
Five choices
P
NI
Ne
42
IO
8
5 3 R
6 18 24
P
NI
Ne
60
184
63
53
300
30 30 60
88 58 146
38 25 ti7
24 67 91
150 150 300
I.
x2 = 4.46. df = 2, NS
MelI
M, Mll
I* = 10.08, d/=
19 9 28 2, P < 0.01
F,. high sensation-seeking
women; F, low sensation-seeking men; M,, low sensation-seeking men.
sensation-seekmg
Table 2. The strength
of picture
preference
women;
in high and low sensation-seeking
Hieh
LOW
---o-
Positive Neutral Negative ‘P <0.05:
l*P
high
groups
MeIl
Women Pictures ___ ~...~
M,,
LOW
Hieh
x
SD
x
SD
I
8.53 2.63 3.83
2.05 3.04 3.33
10.90 2.83 1.27
3.63 2.45 1.87
3.08.. 0.27 3.66’.
F 5 77 2.20 7.03
- sf 3.89 1.81 4.11
x 9.00 3.63 2.37
SD
I
4.28 3.24 3.08
3.03.8 2.04 4.91..
< 0.01
The tables and the figure show marked sex differences, in that the males appeared to show a preference for negative, the females for positive stimuli, in the high and low sensation-seeking groups, respectively. Taking the two factors together (sex and SSS scores), it appears that the high sensation-seeking men and low sensation-seeking women show the most discrepant choices. A similar analysis to that used in Table 1 has been used on each subscale of the SSS. Independently of the previous extreme groups based on the total SSS score, high and low Ss were found for the scales separately, and their choices analysed. Results for the first choice only is shown in Table 3, together with x2 analyses. It seems that the BS scale does not have any significant influence on stimulus preferences, while TAS does so only in men. The ES scale is of importance both for men and women, and the biggest differences are found between high and low men on the Dis scale, where none of the low disinhibition-seeking Ss has chosen a negative picture and more than half of the high-scoring Ss preferred that type of stimulus.
DISCUSSION
Psychological dimensions measured by the SSS apparently have some real influence on the behaviour of people. Those with a strong need for sensation choose different stimuli as compared with those who do not have this desire to the same extent. When offered a set of stimuli producing either positive or negative emotions, the former prefer the positive much
II L10 98765432l-
f
L
-
Fig. 1. SSS scores and picture preference. a, High sensation-seeking men; A, low sensation-seeking 0, high sensation-seeking women; n , low sensation-seeking women,
men;
NOTES AND
61
SHORT COMMUNICATIONS
Table 3. Choices of pictures in high and low sensation-seeking subscales groups MelI
F, F,
F, F,
P
Nl
25 23 48
2 0 2 x*=4.08
28 I5 43
Nl?
NI
P
Ne
3 7 10 NS
30 30 60
6 7 1 15 7 22 x2 = 6.78, df = 2, P < 0.05
0
2
5
10
30 30 60
6 4 30 5 18 30 II 22 60 x2 = 15.26, df = 2, P < 0.001
df=2
5 12 x1 = 14.28, df = 2, P < 0.001
F, F,
25 18 43
2 5 I x*=4.02.
F, F,
25 23 48
2 2 4 x2 = 0.58, NS
F, F,
20 27 47
2 8 2 1 4 9 x2 = 6.48, df = 2, P < 0.05
3 7 IO df=2, NS 3 5 8
@s
30 30 60
Bs
30 30 60
30 30 60
ML M,
21 8 29
9 0 30 4 18 30 13 18 60 x2 = 25.74, df = 2, P < 0.001
MI M,
17 12 29
5 5 10 x2 = 2.04, NS
8 13 21
30 30 60
MI Wl
15 20 35
5 4 9 x’ = 1.84. NS
IO 6 16
30 30 60
IAS
30 30 60
more frequently than do the latter. Apparently, strong excitement; there is empirical evidence that some people
emotions
can be searched
for in order
to produce
tension
and
like excitement and like to be tense, even without the possibility of tension reduction (Nuttin, 1980). It thus appears for the high sensation-seekers that ordinary life does not give them enough opportunity to have and reach a high enough level of stimulation or, in Nuttin’s (1980) theory, to have an optimum relation with the world. It is not obvious why high sensation-seekers prefer the negative stimulation rather than the positive. It is possible that for them the negative and the positive stimuli with the same position on the intensity scale, do not represent the same subjective value; for them the negative stimuli seem to be stronger. Another possibility is that these stimuli have lost, for high sensation-seekers, the negative character; it is as if the high sensation-seeker does not perceive them in the same negative light. For the negative stimuli help in effect to obtain the derived OLA. In terms of the static theories of motivation, one might say that the negative stimuli set aside the need for stimulation. If it is possible to risk an extrapolation from the data to real-life situations, it could be predicted that the high sensation-seekers would involve themselves in events that either strongly excite them, make them happy or irritate them, satisfy or disgust them, make them angry or help to give them ‘highs’. It is logical that they will try to create such situations if the natural and cultural environment does not offer them. This means that sensation-seeking is not only seeking after existing strong stimuli but also creating such incentives. Acknowledgemenrs-The with this project.
author wishes to express his gratitude to Mrs J. Szczurkowska and Mr J. Kasprzak for their help
REFERENCES H. J. (1967) The Biological Basis of Personaliry. Thomas, Springfield, Ill. McClelland D. (1961) The Achieving Society. Von Nostrand, Princeton, N.J. Nuttin J. (1980) Theorie de la motivation humoine. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris. Zuckerman M. (1969) Theoretical formulations-I. In Sensory Deprivation. Fifreen Years of Research (Edited by Zubek J.). Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York. Zuckerman M. (1976a) Sensation seeking and anxiety, traits and states, as determinants of behaviour in novel situations. In Srress and Anxiety, Vol. 3 (Edited by Sarason I. and Spielberger C.), pp 141-170. Hemisphere, Washington, D.C. Zuckerman M. (1976b) Preliminary Manual wirh Scoring Keys and Norms for Form V of the Sensation-Seeking Scale. Delaware Univ., Newark, Del. Zuckerman M. (1978) Sensation seeking. In Dimensions in Personality (Edited by London H. and Exner J.), pp. 487-559. Wiley, New York. Zuckerman M. (1979) Sensation seeking and risk taking. In Emotions in Personaliry and Psychoparhology (Edited by Izard C.), pp. 163-197. Plenum Press, New York. Zuckerrnan M. and Como P. (1983) Sensation-seeking and arousal systems. Person. individ. 01% 4, 38!-386. Zuckerman M., Eysenck H. J. and Eysenck S. B. G. (1978) Sensation seeking in England and America: cross cultural, age and sex comparisons. J. consulr. clin. Psychol. 46, 139-149. Eysenck
I