I Can't Get No Satisfaction: The Psychology of Risk Taking

The throw of the genetic dice has dictated that some of us are biologically driven to engage in all sorts of exciting and risky behaviors while others of us are very resistant to change, careful to avoid physical, social, financial or legal risks. Happily, most of us are average and fall in between these extremes. This fundamental personality trait, called sensation seeking or openness to changehas several dimensions: thrill and adventure-seeking, experience-seeking, disinhibition and boredom susceptibility that vary with gender and age. You will have the opportunity to complete a personality test to see how your scores on the various sensation seeking dimensions may have affected your life, including your relationship with others.

The sensation-seeking personality trait: what is it, how is it related to gender and age, what are its components, how does it fit into our personalities and is risk taking behavior a goal or simply a means to an end?

Life on the edge: the remarkably unique and predictable personality structure of the men and women who engage in high-risk sports and how their personality structure differs from elite athletes in lower-risk sports and from most of the rest of us.

How our sensation seeking needs affect our everyday lives: The strength of our individual sensation seeking needs plays a large role in determining our interests and occupational choices, how we view love and sex, our sexual activity and responsiveness, our premarital and marital satisfaction with  regard to both sex and relationships, our choice of mates and how differences and similarities in sensation seeking needs between mates are related to the degree to which we are satisfied with our relationships.

Dopamine rules: how heredity is the major player in shaping the strength of our sensation seeking needs. Testosterone, MAO-Type B and serotonin are all significant determiners, but the feel good neurotransmitter, dopamine, which impacts our brain's pleasure centers rules.

Alcohol, street drugs and high rollers: how high sensation seeking needs put us at risk with regard to these disorders.

Psychopathology: how high sensation seeking needs are related to other mental disorders such as bipolar disorder, borderline disorder and antisocial personality disorder.

Star Wars brain circuitry: how the brains of high sensation seekers (such as jet fighter pilots) are uniquely wired, allowing them to function at high levels under conditions of extreme stress—conditions which would overwhelm most of us.

For better or for worse: how environment determines how some high sensation seekers will satisfy their needs in aggressive, dishinhibited and antisocial manners and others will do so in manners which make a positive contribution to society. Why we need high sensation seekers in our lives.

Dr. Keith Johnsgard is an emeritus professors of psychology at SJSU who spent a decade studying the personality makeup of high sensation seekers such as race car drivers, parachutists and mountain climbers. He tested them, interviewed them and then to better understand their experiential worlds, he joined them (providing him with a dandy excuse to never have to grow up). Now, while still pretending to be an adult, he is an international authority whose pioneering research erased speculative media misconceptions about these remarkable men and women. He is widely published in professional journals such as the International Journal of Sports Medicine and lay magazine such as Road & Track, Car & Driver and Playboy. He has appeared on the NBC Today Show, the CBS Winter Olympics, Dateline NBC and a BBC series as well as specials and series on DSC, TLC, A&E and LIFE television channels.