Buzz!
Inside the Minds of Thrill Seekers, Daredevils, and
Adrenaline Junkies
Visit the link below to download the full version of this book:
https://medipdf.com/product/buzz-inside-the-minds-of-thrill-seekers-daredevils-a
nd-adrenaline-junkies/
Click Download Now
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India
79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906
Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.
It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at
the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108738101
DOI: 10.1017/9781108557252
© Cambridge University Press 2019
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant
collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2019
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Carter, Kenneth, 1967– author.
Title: Inside the minds of thrill-seekers, daredevils, and adrenaline junkies / Kenneth Carter, Oxford College of Emory
University.
Description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2019. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019018394 | ISBN 9781108738101 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Sensation seeking. | Risk-taking (Psychology)
Classification: LCC BF698. 35.S45 C37 2019 | DDC 152.4–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019018394
ISBN 978-1-108-73810-1 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet
websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate
or appropriate.
To all those who bring delicious chaos into my life.
Contents
Preface: My Fascination with Thrill
Acknowledgments
1 What is Sensation-Seeking
2 Born to Be Wild
3 Faster, Hotter, Louder: The Everyday Life of a High Sensation-Seeker
4 Lights, Camera, Action: Sports and Adventure in High Sensation-Seeking
5 What about Your Friends: The Relationships of High Sensation-Seekers
6 All in a Day’s Work
7 The Dark Side of High Sensation-Seeking
8 Super Power or Super Problem
Conclusion
Appendix 1 For Students: Learning Objectives and Topics for Discussion
Appendix 2 Zuckerman’s Sensation-Seeking Scale Form V
Appendix 3 The AISS (Arnett Inventory of Sensation-Seeking)
Appendix 4 Grit Scale
Inventory of Notes
Index
Preface: My Fascination with Thrill
Do you ever wonder how two people can have the same experience but react to it in completely
different ways?
I do. I think about this question all the time. As a psychologist it’s sort of my job.
Consider the following: Two friends are at an amusement park and decide to take a ride on
the Twisted Cyclone roller coaster. Two minutes and forty-four seconds of twists, dives, and
jerks later, the ride is over. When they emerge, one is terrified, the other is exhilarated. The one
who is terrified is breathing hard, his legs are shaking, and his heart is pounding. He did not have
an enjoyable experience. The other looks almost tranquil in her satisfaction and is ready to go
again, except this time she wants to ride in the front car. Two people, same situation, totally
opposite experiences. Why does this happen? How can two people have such completely
divergent responses to the same stimuli?
Of course, you can say, “They are different.” But how are they different? Why are they
different? What makes them so different?
These are the kinds of questions that psychologists bump up against all the time. On the one
hand, I’m quite aware that people are unique – each of us has our own physiological,
psychological, and cultural influences and predispositions that drive what we think and what we
do. On the other hand, there are patterns to these thoughts and behaviors. Psychologists are
always looking for ways to describe, explain, and even predict what people do; it’s in the job
description. I’m looking for the patterns in the seemingly unpredictable mélange of human
behavior. My job is to find these patterns not only to understand people, but also to help them
understand each other and even themselves. If you look carefully, you can see the patterns too.
I’m that guy who hates roller coasters. They aren’t fun for me. I’ve ridden them many
(many) times with friends, so it’s not simply a matter of exposure. Sure, I can tolerate them and I
ride when I’m pressed, but it’s not fun. How someone could get off a roller coaster and not only
be ready to ride again, but also actually feel happier, even more tranquil after the ride, has
baffled me for years.
What’s more, I am a person who is relatively staid. I’m a professional academic who spends
the vast majority of his time in the library, behind the computer, or in front of students lecturing.
My life is ordered. I wake up at the same time and go to sleep at the same time pretty much every
day. I don’t eat exotic foods. I don’t seek out new experiences. I am perfectly content quietly
doing my work. I bask in the subtleties of experience and my predictable day is a luxury. I crave
calmness.
Yet, I see people who are almost perpetually and intentionally drawn not only to literal but
also to metaphorical roller coasters. From the outside they seem to seek out chaos: students who
change their entire course schedule the morning of the first day of classes; clients who propose
marriage on the second date; friends who leave wonderful jobs to move to a different city on a
whim. Some people seem to attract problems and drama like honey attracts ants. These folks
often struggle to live in modern society where having a tolerance for monotony may have serious
advantages.
You may have met people like this (or maybe you are like this yourself). Constantly moving
from job to job, relationship to relationship, place to place. Some struggle with mental health
issues. Most don’t. But the underlying likeness between them is an inability to tolerate the
mundane, an itch for excitement.
Take for example my friend Andrew. Andrew has an industrial-sized case of wanderlust. By
the time Andrew was 27 he’d moved 13 times (to three different countries), been in nine
different relationships, and had six different careers. When I asked him if moving so many times
was difficult, he laughed. “No, it wasn’t a challenge at all. It was an adventure.”
I’ve met so many people like Andrew in my life that I began to wonder what they had in
common. Are there people who are chaos junkies? Is there some psychological model to explain
why some people are attracted to drama?
When I come up with a question like this, the first thing I do is hit the library and geek out,
digging into thought pieces, research studies, articles, and books to see if someone has already
answered the question I am pondering (you’ll find these sources in the notes).
This is how I stumbled across the work of Marvin Zuckerman and his investigation into the
high sensation-seeking personality. You’ll learn more about Zuckerman’s work in Chapter 1, but
the essence of what he discovered is that there is a subset of people who crave stimulation and
thrive in environments that would seem overstimulating, even chaotic, to the rest of us.
I became fascinated by the idea that there are people in the world who seek out stimulation
and thrive on chaos. It is so contrary to my own experience that I had to learn more. I wanted to
see if I could get a glimpse into what it might be like to be the kind of person who came off the
roller coaster exhilarated instead of exasperated.
That was the beginning of my two-year journey to better understand the high sensation-
seeking personality. I dug deep into the research, I interviewed high sensation-seekers and even
followed them to the tops of cliffs and into exotic restaurants. I pried into their motivations. I
asked them why they crave stimulation and questioned them about how their seemingly strange
behavior impacts their daily lives, their careers, their relationships and more. Over its 70-year
history, psychological research has yielded fascinating findings and constructed telling theories
about sensation-seeking.
In Chapter 1, we’ll examine the history of sensation-seeking and learn how various
personality theories have tried to understand thrill-seekers, we’ll also examine the components of
sensation-seeking, and you’ll take a sensation-seeking scale to learn about your own thrill (or
chill) seeking personality. You’ll also have a chance to examine the profiles of other sensation-
seekers.
High sensation-seekers are, indeed, different than the rest of us. As you’ll learn in Chapter
2, there is some evidence that they experience stress differently, their neurochemical makeup
may also be different than the average person, and they may even be genetically predisposed to
seek out sensation for evolutionary reasons.
In Chapter 3 we’ll explore the everyday life of a high sensation-seeker. We’ll delve into
their preferences for jokes, travel, and even what they like to eat.
In Chapter 4 we’ll dive into extreme sports and other adventures that attract high sensation-
seekers and explore why many people with high sensation-seeking personalities crave activities
like skydiving, rock climbing, and adventure travel. We’ll look at extreme sports like tough
mudder races, ice climbing, and wingsuit flying and what high sensation-seekers get out of those
experiences.
We’ll shift gears in Chapter 5 and consider the relationships of high sensation-seekers.
Certain relationship patterns and challenges are common among people with high sensation-
seeking personalities. We’ll explore both friendships and romantic relationships.
In Chapter 6 we’ll examine careers and work. People with high sensation-seeking
personalities tend to gravitate toward certain kinds of careers. This chapter explores the often
risky careers of high sensation-seeking personalities and how their personality traits can benefit
and cause problems at work.
Chapter 7 looks at the dark side of sensation-seeking. For most people, high sensation-
seeking isn’t a problem, but for some it can be. Those with high sensation-seeking personalities
sometimes struggle with problems, including anger, addiction, gambling, substance use and
abuse, and crime and antisocial behavior.
And in Chapter 8 we’ll try to get to the bottom of the question “Is high sensation-seeking a
superpower or a super problem?” High sensation-seeking doesn’t have to get you into trouble. In
fact, it can be a positive force. People with high sensation-seeking personalities are active and
curious, and they experience less stress and anxiety than those with low sensation-seeking
personalities. While avoiding excessive risk-taking is important, high sensation-seeking can help
some people get more out of life.
High sensation-seekers are different than the rest of us, but does this difference make them
out of control and broken, or does it make them fascinating? Are high sensation-seekers a
dangerous part of our world, or are they integral to it? Are these seekers of sensation also seekers
of chaos, or is something else at play here? This book is my attempt to answer these questions. I
sought to discover why high sensation-seekers do what they do, and over the course of that
journey I came to see life through their eyes just a little bit. What I discovered was not at all what
I predicted.
Acknowledgments
There’s a particular formula for being helpful: a lot of encouragement, a dash of support, and
even sometimes a pinch of constructive abuse. That’s where it starts. Not everyone gets this
right, but I’m fortunate to have people in my life who have mastered this tricky recipe and made
this project possible. A sampling of the many deserved acknowledgments follows.
This book would have consisted entirely of blank pages had it not been for the guidance and
assistance of my agent, editor, and friend Cecelia A. Cancellaro of Word Creative Literary
Services. From mentor to editor, to advocate to cheerleader, it’s hard to overstate how valuable
Cecelia has been to me. Her unflinching faith, artful strategies, and keen editing eye have made
her a powerful partner. She is a literary alchemist.
Special thanks go out to Jennifer Danforth, William Wahlgran, and Spencer Smith for their
help in the early days of the manuscript; to Jonna Kwiatokowski for her wonderful learning
objectives and student discussion questions; and to coding wizard Jennifer McFadden for making
my midnight mumblings and napkin sketches into the magic of the brief sensation-seeking
survey on my website.
A hat tip to all the people I interviewed, wrote about, or quoted. There were many who
weren’t mentioned specifically in the book but who really helped me to think about high
sensation-seeking and who transformed the tables, graphs, and statistics of research studies into
the reality of how people live their lives every day. Thank you all for being so generous with
your time and allowing me to look into your lives.
The team at Cambridge is truly exceptional. Thanks go to Emily Watton, Grace Morris and
especially to my commissioning editor, David Repetto, whose patience is only exceeded by his
encouragement and good nature.
I also want to thank the many scientists whose works are described, cited, and synthesized
in this book. I’m especially thankful to Marvin Zuckerman, the father of sensation-seeking.
I’m grateful to Jack Hardy, Debbie Woog, Teddy Ottaviano, Michael McGloin, Susan
Ashmore, Sharon Lewis, Jennifer McGee, Molly McGehee, Shira Miller, DJ VanCronkhite and
of course my parents, Bill and Eugenia Carter. There are many other people and organizations
who have been important in this process. You can find their names on my gratitude website
www.drkencarter.com/thanks. Thank you all for relentless support, encouragement, and
reassurance. It absolutely made a difference.
1 WHAT IS
SENSATION-SEEKING
Cliff diving isn’t a typical activity for anyone, much less
a person who is afraid of heights. But Mike,1 a 20-year-old intern
living in Atlanta, does it as often as he can, despite this fear. He’s
also gone skydiving at least four times. The first time, he was a little
disappointed. “I actually wasn’t scared at any point, which was
weird.” The second time Mike actually told his guide, “The last
guy failed to scare me, so I want you to scare me.” Even by his
own reckoning, this isn’t something you should say to a skydiving
coach. I couldn’t help but ask, “Well, did he scare you?” “Yeah,” he
said, “he went about it very cleverly. Beforehand he told me that
when they’ve got somebody who isn’t cooperating (apparently
some people will grab the guide’s arms or something when they
should be pulling the chute), they spin the person around really
fast. Because this increases G-force, the person passes out and the
instructor can get them safely to the ground. So we’re in the middle
of free fall and that is basically what he does to me. He takes my
hand and bends it down slightly, so I start spinning extraordinarily
fast in one direction. Then he stops me, and we spin in the other
direction extremely fast. Then the next direction extremely fast,
and the next. My eyes were pretty much popping out of my head . . .
eventually he pulls the chute, and before I knew it we were just
coasting again.”
My heart started racing and I felt dizzy just hearing about
this, but Mike explained all of it in a voice that seemed a little too
calm for someone who insists he doesn’t like heights. And his
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:20:54, subject to the Cambridge
Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108557252.002
2 / Buzz!
aeronautic feats don’t end with skydiving and cliff diving. He also
hang glides. The more terrifying, the better, and Mike seems to reserve
that label for his cliff diving exploits. “As far as utter and complete fear
beforehand, I’ll give that to cliff diving every time . . .’cause I am quite
scared of heights. Even if it’s only a 35 foot jump it still gets the blood
pumping quite a bit . . . Each time I am like, ‘why am I up here?’ I’m
literally jumping from heights that I hate into the water that’s not my
favorite.” (Mike is not a big swimmer.)
Mike is partial to spending his leisure time participating in
activities that seem dangerous to the rest of us like bull runs, zorb-
ing, and eating strange foods. As for bull runs, the Pamplona run is
perhaps the most famous. Originally, its purpose was to move the
bulls from the fields to the bullrings for bullfights that celebrated
various festivals across Spain. Now it has become a local tradition
and a worldwide phenomenon. Across the United States you can find
great bull runs that are held in arenas and on racetracks. The idea?
Well, you get out on the track and a pack of bulls is released behind
you. You run like crazy or get trampled by a herd of cattle. Some
people even take selfies along the way. It might seem like a strange
way to spend your downtime, but they are actually pretty popular.
Mike loves them. “Once you’re in the actual run it’s a sort of out of
body experience, but intensely adrenaline packed.” Mike has also
been zorbing – a sport in which you are strapped inside a capsule that
is then placed inside a gigantic transparent ball. The ball is rolled
along the ground or down hills. It’s like an enormous hamster ball
for humans. It sounds nauseating, but apparently some people can’t
get enough of it. And Mike has eaten fugu (pufferfish – which numbs
the tongue and lips). Although, disappointingly for him it was only
the moderately poisonous type. And things he’s not done yet that are
on his to do list include: swimming with sharks, bungee jumping,
and saving a human life.
~
Sophie can’t seem to get enough out of life. Endurance athlete,
blogger, marketer, model, and motivational speaker, she’s a lover
of challenges, determined to experience life’s adventures. Sophie
quit her job running the commercial division at a major UK tech
startup because she was tired of being safe and was ready to live her
life guided by her personal mantra, “one life, live it!”
And she’s not kidding. She’s packed more in the last few
years than some people do in a lifetime. She’s completed an
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:20:54, subject to the Cambridge
Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108557252.002
3 / What is Sensation-Seeking
adventure race through the jungle of Borneo, cycled the 244 miles
from London to Paris in 24 hours, and in 2014 she was the first (and
so far only) person to cycle the Alps and climb the highest mountains
in all eight alpine countries. She says she enjoys her “pain cave.” “I
love pushing myself physically and mentally. I love being in the pain
cave because it’s there I find out the most interesting things about
myself and that helps me to learn and grow into the person and
athlete I’d love to become.”
Sophie writes a fitness lifestyle and adventure blog and
recently moved from Great Britain to France to prepare for her
next adventure. She cycles, she climbs, she runs, she travels.2 She
tried skydiving but didn’t enjoy it because she says she’s not into
high adrenaline activities. For Sophie, the satisfaction comes from
pushing herself in order to conquer challenges. She’s on a mission
to inspire others to undertake extreme adventures too.
~
Kirill Vselensky loves taking pictures, especially travel photos. He
shoots landscapes, buildings, bridges, landmarks, selfies, nothing
too unusual – except that his shots are captured from atop some of
the world’s tallest buildings. Kirill loves to climb to the top of sky-
scrapers, bridges, anything climbable, and take pictures of himself
dangling hundreds of feet above the ground – suspended without
any safety gear. Known as the Russian Spider-Man, he is one of
Russia’s extreme climbers, called roofers, who are known to hang
off buildings by only their fingers. He snaps incredible, whoa-tastic
photos.3
Kirill should have “do not try this at home” permanently
tattooed on his forehead. Roofers like Kirill sneak their way to the
tops of buildings and perform tricks like standing on one leg,
balancing on the side of window ledges, teetering on the edge of
roofs, and climbing up huge structures without any safety rope or
climbing gear. His biggest fear? It’s not falling – it’s “to be
detained.”
Although he now has over 55,000 followers on Instagram,
he was seeking out sights long before anyone was watching. “As
a kid I used to love to visit people as every time there was a new
view from the window, it was an easy way to find adventure in your
own city,” Kirill explained to a newspaper reporter. Now what he
sees is much more extreme. He started scaling buildings in 2008,
because he “likes the views.” When he was asked what goes on
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:20:54, subject to the Cambridge
Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108557252.002
4 / Buzz!
inside his head, he replied, “Nothing special. I just try to think
about hanging tight and staying alive.”4
~
This is a book about Mike, Sophie, and Kirill. It’s about people who
perform their best in highly stimulating and emotionally charged
environments. It’s a book about some of your friends, family mem-
bers, or coworkers who fit the bill. It might be a book about you too,
if you’re one of those people who craves new experiences in work,
in friends, and in fun. It’s a book about people who base jump,
spelunk, drive ambulances, and chase tornadoes. It’s about thrill-
seekers, adrenaline junkies, people looking for a buzz. It’s about
what became known in psychological circles as “the high sensation-
seeking personality” or HSS for short.
If you aren’t a thrill-seeker, it’s entirely likely that these
kinds of actions appear irrational and maybe even foolhardy. It may
seem like thrill-seekers have a death wish. This is what Sigmund
Freud might have believed, as you’ll discover later in this chapter.
It’s also what I believed for a long time. In fact, it’s one of the
reasons I’ve spent so much time reading about, researching, and
interviewing thrill-seekers all around the world. I began to wonder
what could drive a person to intentionally seek out activities that
were so utterly intense, even chaotic. Why would someone risk
their life running with the bulls? Why would someone hang from
a building or quit a high-paying desk job to spend more time in
their “pain cave”? What drives people to seek out the most danger-
ous, even outrageous experiences they can find? Why would they
risk swooping around in a wing suit when they could relax with
a nice book on the beach? Do they really have a self-destructive
urge? Is it genetic? Biochemical? Is it a modern social phenomenon?
Or is something else at work here?
These are the questions we’ll explore in this book. We will
investigate the lifestyle, psychology, neuroscience, and environ-
mental factors that influence people with high sensation-seeking
personalities. We’ll examine both the healthy and the unhealthy
aspects of high sensation-seeking. We’ll look at the habits and
havoc this kind of personality creates. Along the way, you’ll dis-
cover that high sensation-seekers’ motivations and their experi-
ence of the buzz are not what most people might assume.
But what is “high sensation-seeking”? What does that term
even mean?
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:20:54, subject to the Cambridge
Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108557252.002
