In 1964, Zuckerman (1) described sensation seeking as “ the individual’s need to reach and maintain an optimum level of arousal.” The author asserted that people who enjoy new and arousing experiences are more inclined to experiment with alcohol and illicit drugs.

In 1984, Zuckerman (2) reentertained the idea of an optimal-level theory and proposed a biological model of sensation seeking, postulating that the trait is related to an optimal level of catecholamine system activity.

Manuscript received March 2001 and accepted September 2001.
¹Psychiatrist, University Department of Psychiatry, Hôpital Pinel, Amiens, France.
²Psychologist, University Department of Psychiatry, Hôpital Pinel, Amiens, France.
³Psychiatrist, the CNRS-UMR 75-93, Paris, France.
⁴Research Engineer, the CNRS-UMR 75-93, Paris, France.
⁵Psychiatrist, Department of Adolescent Psychiatry of the Institut Mutualiste Monsouris, Paris, France.
⁶Psychiatrist, University Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Lausanne, Suisse.
⁷Psychiatrist, University Department of Psychiatry, Saint Etienne, France.
⁸Psychiatrist, University Department of Psychiatry, Besançon, France.
⁹Psychiatrist, University Department of Psychiatry, Nantes, France.
¹⁰Psychiatrist, University Department of Psychiatry, Sainte Anne Hospital, Paris, France.
¹¹Psychiatrist, Department of Adolescent Psychiatry, Institut Mutualiste Monsouris, Paris, France.
Address for correspondence:  Dr G Loas, Service Universitaire de Psychiatrie, Hôpital Pinel, 80044 Amiens cedex 01, France.
e-mail: gloas@francenet.fr

That the high sensation-seeking trait compensates for reduced activity in the catecholamine system has been hypothesized. In addition, Zuckerman underlined the role of dopamine in primary reward systems, which suggests a link between sensation seeking and these systems. High sensation seekers could have lower levels of tonic activity in the dopaminergic systems and thus use drugs to seek intense and novel stimulation, which increases activity in these systems (3).

The Sensation-Seeking Scale (SSS) was developed in an attempt to provide an operational measure of the sensation-seeking trait.

SSS studies have shown that sensation seeking was also related to a variety of sexual experience; use of illegal drugs (and to variety of drugs used within drug-using populations); food preferences and driving habits; engaging in risky sports (with some aspects of risk taking in those sports); cognitive, perceptual, and aesthetic preferences (such as preference for complexity, tolerance for ambiguity, originality, and creativity); richness of imagery and dreams; vocational interests and choices; and liberal, permissive, and nonconforming attitudes (2). Moreover, the relation between the sensation-seeking trait and the Eysenck’s dimension of personality have shown that sensation seeking seems to constitute a dimension that lies between 2 of the Eysenck’s primary dimensions—extraversion and psychoticism—rather than representing a component trait of either (2).