SENSATION SEEKING AND FANTASY

After filling out Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale, Form V (SSSV), participants (113 male and 142 female university students) were asked to fantasize about what they would do if they won a million dollars while filling out a 39-item multiple-choice questionnaire that asked a wide variety of questions that covered such topics as how they would invest their money, what they would buy, how they would spend their time. The results indicates that high sensation seekers of both sexes have more flamboyant, sensual, and varied fantasies. They fantasized, for example, that they would be more inclined than low sensation seekers to buy an exotic car, buy an expensive boat (such as a large sailboat), buy expensive (designer) clothes, use drugs, and would be more inclined to look for short-term heterosexual relationships. High sensation seeking males indicated they would devote more of their time to socializing and working while high sensation seeking females indicated they would devote more time to sports. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that such fantasies grow out of the same motivational system that governs overt sensation seeking behavior. © 1990.