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Personality and curiosity about morbid and sexual events
Abstract
The study was designed to examine the relationships of sensation seeking, extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism traits with an interest in presentations of violent or morbid and sexual events in the media and in live sports. Scales of curiosity about morbid and sexual events and self-ratings of attendance of horror and X-rated erotic movies were developed and given to 89 male and 213 female undergraduates along with the personality scales. Males scored higher than females on both types of curiosity and film attendance scales as well as on the SSS and P scale. The SSS and P scale correlated positively with curiosity scales and sensation seeking also correlated with film attendance of both types of films. A new hypothesis suggests that high sensation seekers are interested in stimuli that increase activity in central catecholamine systems. Past research has demonstrated that violent, fear-provoking and erotic films increase peripheral catecholamines.
... Zuckerman (2007) afirma que a busca de sensações envolve além da procura por sensações variadas e intensas, a disposição em expor-se a riscos para que uma experiência nova seja alcançada. De fato, pessoas com alta pontuação em busca de sensações são mais agressivas , mais curiosas sobre os eventos mórbidos (Zuckerman & Litle, 1986), mais atraídas por comportamentos perigosos (Roberti, 2004) e mais propensas a cometer um crime não violento (Horvath & Zuckerman, 1993). Pode-se conjecturar então que a curiosidade por eventos mórbidos, por estar relacionada ao traço de busca de sensações, até mesmo em sua definição, também se encontre relacionada com a maior probabilidade de engajamento em comportamentos de risco ou antissociais. ...
... No caso de abertura a mudanças, extroversão e neuroticismo a correlação foi positiva, indicando assim uma preferência pelo gênero. Ademais, um aspecto interessante a ser observado é que o construto parece manter-se estável em pesquisas transculturais (Agnieszka, 2018;Weaver III et al., 1993;Zuckerman & Litle, 1986). ...
... Como destacado, as correlações significativas e positivas foram percebidas em todos os fatores, salvo a "Aversão a Eventos Mórbidos", onde se encontrou uma correlação significativa e negativa. Ambos os resultados corroboram com estudos prévios (Zuckerman & Litle, 1986;Lynch & Martins, 2015). ...
Objetivo. Este estudo buscou construir e validar a Escala Multifatorial de Atração por Eventos Mórbidos (AMAEM). Método. Do primeiro estudo participaram 252 pessoas da população geral, as quais responderam à EMAEM e a perguntas sociodemográficas. A análise de componentes principais indicou uma estrutura de cinco fatores. No segundo estudo, a amostra foi de 609 pessoas da população geral, as quais responderam a EMAEM, escala de personalidade e busca de sensações. Resultado. A análise fatorial confirmatória apoaiou a adequação do modelo de cinco fatores. Adicionalmente, demonstrou ainda que os fatores da EMAEM podem contribuir com a compreensão de características da personalidade e sua associação com o engajamento em comportamentos antissociais.
... While psychologists have extensively explored how the mind deals with death (e.g., Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2015) and curiosity has been investigated in a variety of research programs (e.g., Kidd & Hayden, 2015;Loewenstein, 1994), they have largely overlooked morbid curiosity as a topic of study. In what appears to be the first psychological paper on morbid curiosity, Zuckerman and Litle (1986) developed the Curiosity About Morbid Events (CAME) scale, which is composed of items that reflect an interest or enjoyment in watching violence and death. Zuckerman and Litle (1986) reasoned that the driving factor behind curiosity about morbid events was an individual's need for novel stimulation and arousal. ...
... In what appears to be the first psychological paper on morbid curiosity, Zuckerman and Litle (1986) developed the Curiosity About Morbid Events (CAME) scale, which is composed of items that reflect an interest or enjoyment in watching violence and death. Zuckerman and Litle (1986) reasoned that the driving factor behind curiosity about morbid events was an individual's need for novel stimulation and arousal. They found that males scored higher on the CAME scale and that scores on the CAME scale positively correlated with sensation seeking. ...
... While seeking out dangerous information is probably influenced by sensation seeking as Zuckerman and Litle (1986) suggest, it seems unlikely that sensation seeking is the core of morbid curiosity. A sensationseeking account of morbid curiosity would predict that more intense images would capture more curiosity. ...
The success of horror films, popularity of true crime, and prevalence of violence in the news implies that morbid curiosity is a common psychological trait. However, research on morbid curiosity is largely absent from the psychological literature. In this paper, I present a psychometric tool for assessing morbid curiosity, defined as a motivation to seek out information about dangerous phenomena, and use it to investigate the psychological nature of morbid curiosity. In studies 1 and 2 (ntotal = 1370), the Morbid Curiosity Scale was developed and its relationship to personality was assessed. Morbidly curious individuals were rebellious, socially curious, and low in animal reminder disgust. Study 3 (n = 317) demonstrated that trait morbid curiosity is stable over 4–6 weeks and that morbidly curious individuals prefer movies where threat is a central theme. In Study 4 (n = 137), participants were presented with a choice between morbid information and non-morbid information (image and text). Morbid curiosity predicted over half the variance (r² = 0.53) in decisions to further investigate morbid information. These four studies provide evidence that morbid curiosity is a normally occurring psychological trait that can be assessed using the new 24-item Morbid Curiosity Scale.
... As such, it is important to stress that if protective vigilance is the ultimate reason for paying attention to horrid events, humans would likely not be able to pinpoint and express this as a conscious reason for becoming a purposeful and interested consumer of horror and true crime. Zuckerman and Litle (1986) found that morbid curiosity exists across a wide variety of individuals, lending evidence to it being an evolved mechanism. Interestingly, although Kidd and Hayden (2015) argued that we might think of curiosity is seeking and engaging in activities not directly related to reproduction, eating, and survival, morbid curiosity might serve as protective vigilance to increase the likelihood of survival and thus reproduction. ...
... Therefore, there may be a positive relation between sensation-seekers and morbid curiosity and consumption of morbid media. Zuckerman and Litle (1986) documented the association between morbid curiosity and sensation seeking. However, they felt that the term morbid curiosity had negative connotations to it. ...
... They documented that more morbidly curious individuals (i.e., those high in CAME) are high in sensation seeking. Unsurprisingly, because men are typically higher in sensation seeking, they also documented that men were higher than women for CAME (Zuckerman and Litle 1986). Aluja-Fabregat (2000) slightly modified the CAME scale to observe for sensation seeking and morbid curiosity in young teens who spoke Catalan (a language used in eastern Spain). ...
A plethora of movies, television programs, podcasts, and online videos are dedicated to horror and terror, with fictional (e.g., zombies) and nonfictional (e.g., serial killing) themes. Morbid curiosity is a phenomenon where individuals attend to, or seek information about, horrid subjects, such as terror and death. Moreover, morbid curiosity has been tied with sexual curiosity and sensation seeking in past research, with men typically demonstrating more of each phenomenon. We hypothesized that interest in the topic of serial killers and other morbid academic and entertainment topics would be positively associated with morbid curiosity, sexual curiosity, and sensation seeking. Data supported these hypotheses with some notable gender differences. Viewed through the lens of evolutionary psychology, interest in horrific events, such as serial killing, may be a product of protective vigilance. We discuss these results, limitations, and future directions for research.
... One factor that may complicate the use of oculomotor avoidance as a measure of disgust is the phenomenon of "morbid curiosity" (Zuckerman and Litle 1986). There is a small body of research suggesting that some potentially disgusting images (e.g., grotesque art, wounds) can elicit interest (Turner and Silvia 2006). ...
... Increased initial viewing of the disgusting US may reflect what is colloquially referred to as "rubbernecking"; that is, the tendency to stare at certain negatively-valenced stimuli out of fascination (i.e., "morbid curiosity"; Oosterwijk 2017; Oosterwijk et al. 2015;Turner and Silvia 2006;Zuckerman and Litle 1986). Turner and Silvia argue that such rubbernecking is motivated by the emotion of interest, which is elicited by novel stimuli that hold the potential for expanding our understanding of the world. ...
... The finding that disgusting stimuli elicit competing approach and avoidance tendencies is consistent with a small body of research on the phenomenon of morbid curiosity (Oosterwijk et al. 2015;Turner and Silvia 2006;Zuckerman and Litle 1986). Turner and Silvia (2006) found that participants rated disgusting paintings (e.g., Francisco Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son) as unpleasant, yet highly interesting. ...
During human development, disgust is acquired to a broad range of stimuli, from rotting food to moral transgressions. Disgust’s expansion surely involves associative learning, yet little is known about Pavlovian disgust conditioning. The present study examined conditioned disgust responding as revealed by oculomotor avoidance, the tendency to look away from offensive stimuli. In two experiments, oculomotor avoidance was acquired to a neutral image associated with a disgusting image. However, to our surprise, participants initially dwelled on disgusting images, avoiding them only after multiple exposures. In Experiment 1, this “rubbernecking” response delayed oculomotor avoidance of the associated neutral image. In Experiment 2, we exhausted rubbernecking prior to conditioning by repeatedly exposing participants to the disgusting images. This procedure elicited earlier oculomotor avoidance of the associated neutral stimulus, essentially fast-forwarding conditioning. These findings reveal competing motivational tendencies elicited by disgust stimuli that complicate associative disgust learning.
... People are curious of highly intense negative information. This phenomenon, often referred to as morbid curiosity [1], can be inferred from the popularity of horror movies and crime shows; the observation that people seek out coverage of violence in the news and on the internet; and the existence of phenomena such as "disaster-tourism" and "rubbernecking". In this paper, the term morbid curiosity is used to specify curiosity for information involving death, violence or harm, but not an "unhealthy" or "abnormal" form of curiosity. ...
... Although most studies investigating curiosity have focused on curiosity for positive stimuli or knowledge-oriented stimuli, such as trivia (e.g., [12,[15][16][17] see for an overview [11]), there are some studies that specifically targeted whether negative stimuli give rise to interest or curiosity. For example, Zuckerman and Litle [1] demonstrated a positive relationship between the personality trait of sensation seeking (i.e., the need to subject yourself to arousing and novel experiences) and self-reported curiosity for morbid events (e.g., enjoyment in watching violence or death in films, sport or news). A more recent example is the work of Turner and Silvia [18] who presented participants with images of calming art and disturbing art and asked participants for ratings of interest and pleasantness. ...
... The focus on behavior is important, because so far, most studies that explicitly targeted interest or curiosity for negative information examined subjective ratings (e.g., [3,18]; see for exceptions [19,21]) or studied the relationship between self-reported behavior and personality measures [1,22,23]. However, self-report and behavior do not always align [24], and it is therefore important to utilize a behavioral paradigm when testing the prevalence of curiosity for negative information. ...
This paper examined, with a behavioral paradigm, to what extent people choose to view stimuli that portray death, violence or harm. Based on briefly presented visual cues, participants made choices between highly arousing, negative images and positive or negative alternatives. The negative images displayed social scenes that involved death, violence or harm (e.g., war scene), or decontextualized, close-ups of physical harm (e.g., mutilated face) or natural threat (e.g., attacking shark). The results demonstrated that social negative images were chosen significantly more often than other negative categories. Furthermore, participants preferred social negative images over neutral images. Physical harm images and natural threat images were not preferred over neutral images, but were chosen in about thirty-five percent of the trials. These results were replicated across three different studies, including a study that presented verbal descriptions of images as pre-choice cues. Together, these results show that people deliberately subject themselves to negative images. With this, the present paper demonstrates a dynamic relationship between negative information and behavior and advances new insights into the phenomenon of morbid curiosity.
... Smith, Perlstein, Davidson, and Michael (1986) found that high sensation seekers had stronger orienting responses to novel and trait-relevant stimuli (i.e., high-intensity sexual, violent, and drug-related words). High sensation seekers have been shown to exhibit a high level of interest in sexual and violent themes in the media (Zuckerman & Litle, 1986) and use drugs more than low sensation seekers (Zuckerman, 1983). Several dichotic listening studies have examined the effects of presenting self-relevant stimuli in the attended or nonattended ear channel of subjects with particular personality traits or forms of psychopathology. ...
... Eight of the words were randomly placed animal names (duck, ant, fly, steer, horse, bear, dove, and whale) and were used as a target category in the divided-attention task (Johnston & Heinz, 1979). Another8 of the words were randomly placed words found to be relevant to the sensationseeking trait based on the research of and Zuckerman and Litle (1986;kill, slap, drug, sex, stab, touch, speed, and blood). Half of the animal words and half of the sensation-seeking words were presented in the right channel, and the other half were presented in the left channel on each of the dichotic word lists. ...
Differences in selective attention as a function of sensation seeking, extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism were examined in 108 undergraduates using a dichotic listening task. Dependent measures included shadowing performance, reaction times to a secondary light task, target detection, and recall. The results suggested that high sensation seekers have better focused attention than low sensation seekers, and these effects were strongest on the 1st trials of the shadowing tasks. High sensation seekers did not attend differently than low sensation seekers to words related to their interests (sexual, violent, or drug related). Extraversion was associated with greater recall of these kinds of words, although there were no overall differences in selective attention as a function of Eysenck's dimensions. The role of arousal in personality and attention is discussed, particularly in regard to the response of sensation seekers to task novelty.
... Past studies suggest that sensation-seeking relates to the liking of various media that share some characteristics with grotesque art. For instance, sensation-seeking is associated with greater liking of horror movies (Edwards, 1991;Zuckerman & Litle, 1986), "unpleasant" paintings and photographs (Rawlings, 2003), paintings with aggressive themes (Tobacyk et al., 1981), and grotesque textual art (Ruch & Malcherek, 2009). Sensation-seeking also relates positively to liking of complex (but not simple) abstract art (Furnham & Bunyan, 1988), liking of futuristic cubist and abstract impressionist paintings (Tobacyk et al., 1981), and liking of surreal art (Furnham & Avison, 1997), and negatively to liking of complex and simple representational art (Furnham & Bunyan, 1988). ...
... Sensation seeking related to liking of grotesque art, but not to liking of non-grotesque art. Past studies have linked sensation seeking with liking of negatively valenced stimuli that can evoke strong emotions, such as horror movies and "unpleasant" paintings and photographs (Edwards, 1991;Rawlings, 2003;Zuckerman & Litle, 1986). Similarly, as grotesque art can induce strong emotions, and includes complex, weird, and unpredictable elements, such art can cater to sensation seekers' desire for novel, thrilling, and intense stimuli. ...
... Preferring negative stimuli such as "haunted" attractions and horror films are prime examples. In fact, people sometimes voluntarily engage with the known negative stimuli (Zuckerman & Litle, 1986). For instance, previous studies have revealed that, when feeling curious, individuals expose themselves to unwanted/unpleasant information (Kruger & Evans, 2009); moreover, even in a research context, they will subject themselves to electric shocks to satisfy their curiosity for trivial knowledge and resolve uncertainty (Hsee & Ruan, 2016;Lau et al., 2020). ...
... Novelty/curiosity. People's voluntary engagement with negative stimuli is often referred to as "morbid curiosity" (Oosterwijk, 2017;Scrivner, 2021;Zuckerman & Litle, 1986). As the name indicates, morbid curiosity is often considered to be one manifestation of curiosity. ...
The hedonism principle assumes that people pursue pleasure and positive experiences; however, we often observe that people voluntarily seek negative experiences in various daily settings—sometimes interpreted as the manifestation of “morbid curiosity.” This study attempted to test three hypotheses on novelty/curiosity, metacognitive miscalibration, and emotional arousal, explaining people’s voluntary viewing of negative images. The participants chose whether to view an image that was positively or negatively valenced. The results revealed that the rate of choosing to see positive and negative images decreased when the participants had already seen the images previously. This result supports the novelty/curiosity hypothesis. However, contrary to the metacognitive miscalibration and the emotional arousal hypothesis, participants overestimated their negative feelings prior to viewing the negative images; individual differences in sensation-seeking did not predict people’s choice of viewing negative images, and emotional arousal did not have an inverted-U relationship with choice behavior. These findings indicate a potential mechanism underlying people’s behavior to voluntarily seek negative information; nevertheless, participants’ voluntary choice of negative images did not seem to be explained by these factors.
... According to Zuckerman (1994), sensation-seekers strive for complex, novel, and intense experiences. Trait sensation-seeking has been shown to predict horror movie enjoyment (Cantor and Sparks, 1984;Edwards, 1984;Tamborini & Stiff, 1987), frequency of horror film attendance (Zuckerman & Litle, 1986), and enjoyment of scary video games (Lynch & Martins, 2015). However, some facets of sensation-seeking are more strongly correlated with interest in horror than others. ...
... These results are compatible with several studies on horror fandom reporting a positive, albeit small, correlation with sensation-seeking (e.g., Clasen et al., 2020;Hoffner & Levine, 2005;Lynch & Martins, 2015;Tamborini & Stiff, 1987;Zuckerman & Litle, 1986). Individuals who score high in sensation-seeking experience positive emotions in response to high arousal, including arousal stemming from negative stimulation due to fear (Zaleski, 1984;Zuckerman, 1979). ...
Why do people seek out frightening leisure activities such as horror films and haunted attractions, and does the experience benefit them in any way? In this article, we address these questions through two separate studies. In Study 1, we asked American horror fans ( n = 256) why they like horror and identified three overall types of horror fans, which we term “Adrenaline Junkies,” “White Knucklers,” and “Dark Copers.” In Study 2, we collected data from Danish visitors at a haunted house attraction ( n = 258) and replicated the findings from Study 1 by finding the same three types of horror fans. Furthermore, we show that these three types of horror fans report distinct benefits from horror experiences. Adrenaline Junkies reported immediate enjoyment, White Knucklers reported personal growth, and Dark Copers reported both. These results suggest that frightening leisure activities are not only an outlet for sensation-seeking, and that the allure of horror may have as much to do with learning and personal growth as it has with high-arousal fun.
... found a positive correlation between liking for horror and a combination of the sensation-seeking factors. Zuckerman and Litle (1986) found that frequency of horror film attendance correlated with disinhibition, thrill and adventure seeking, and boredom susceptibility, but in men only. The sex difference in this study highlights an important constraint on the model, and that is, individual differences (such as sex) may interact with sensationseeking type to predict viewing, preference for, or enjoyment of horror film (see below). ...
... The most consistent individual difference predicting individuals' response to horror film is biological sex: men and boys enjoy frightening and violent visual material more than do women and girls (Zuckerman and Litle, 1986;Harris et al., 2000;Hoffner and Levine, 2005). Correlations between intensity of "scary media" or horror and the enjoyment of horror in men are consistently positive (Hoffner and Levine, 2005). ...
Why do we watch and like horror films? Despite a century of horror film making and entertainment, little research has examined the human motivation to watch fictional horror and how horror film influences individuals’ behavioral, cognitive, and emotional responses. This review provides the first synthesis of the empirical literature on the psychology of horror film using multi-disciplinary research from psychology, psychotherapy, communication studies, development studies, clinical psychology, and media studies. The paper considers the motivations for people’s decision to watch horror, why people enjoy horror, how individual differences influence responses to, and preference for, horror film, how exposure to horror film changes behavior, how horror film is designed to achieve its effects, why we fear and why we fear specific classes of stimuli, and how liking for horror develops during childhood and adolescence. The literature suggests that (1) low empathy and fearfulness are associated with more enjoyment and desire to watch horror film but that specific dimensions of empathy are better predictors of people’s responses than are others; (2) there is a positive relationship between sensation-seeking and horror enjoyment/preference, but this relationship is not consistent; (3) men and boys prefer to watch, enjoy, and seek our horror more than do women and girls; (4) women are more prone to disgust sensitivity or anxiety than are men, and this may mediate the sex difference in the enjoyment of horror; (5) younger children are afraid of symbolic stimuli, whereas older children become afraid of concrete or realistic stimuli; and (6) in terms of coping with horror, physical coping strategies are more successful in younger children; priming with information about the feared object reduces fear and increases children’s enjoyment of frightening television and film. A number of limitations in the literature is identified, including the multifarious range of horror stimuli used in studies, disparities in methods, small sample sizes, and a lack of research on cross-cultural differences and similarities. Ideas for future research are explored.
... Also, the more people know the information and the more sources that spread it, the higher the likelihood of accepting that information. The curiosity is psychologically defined as the desire of knowledge and experiences that lead to exploratory behavior and the acquisition of new information [10]- [12]. It is also associated with the reward of two kind of triggers, the cognitive curiosity and sensory curiosity [10]. ...
... The curiosity is psychologically defined as the desire of knowledge and experiences that lead to exploratory behavior and the acquisition of new information [10]- [12]. It is also associated with the reward of two kind of triggers, the cognitive curiosity and sensory curiosity [10]. A person often gets curious about some behaviors of his/her friends; a phenomenon known as the social curiosity in psychology [12]. ...
Most information spreading models consider that all individuals are identical psychologically. They ignore, for instance, the curiosity level of people, which may indicate that they can be influenced to seek for information given their interest. For example, the game Pok\'emon GO spread rapidly because of the aroused curiosity among users. This paper proposes an information propagation model considering the curiosity level of each individual, which is a dynamical parameter that evolves over time. We evaluate the efficiency of our model in contrast to traditional information propagation models, like SIR or IC, and perform analysis on different types of artificial and real-world networks, like Google+, Facebook, and the United States roads map. We present a mean-field approach that reproduces with a good accuracy the evolution of macroscopic quantities, such as the density of stiflers, for the system's behavior with the curiosity. We also obtain an analytical solution of the mean-field equations that allows to predicts a transition from a phase where the information remains confined to a small number of users to a phase where it spreads over a large fraction of the population. The results indicate that the curiosity increases the information spreading in all networks as compared with the spreading without curiosity, and that this increase is larger in spatial networks than in social networks. When the curiosity is taken into account, the maximum number of informed individuals is reached close to the transition point. Since curious people are more open to a new product, concepts, and ideas, this is an important factor to be considered in propagation modeling. Our results contribute to the understanding of the interplay between diffusion process and dynamical heterogeneous transmission in social networks.
... Trends in media preferences generalize to moving pictures. Zuckerman and Litle (1986) measured several personality traits, including sensation seeking, and asked about frequency of viewing X-rated and horror movies. Sensation seeking correlated with two newly created measures: one for curiosity about sexual events, and one for curiosity about morbid events (CASE and CAME, respectively, though perhaps the acronyms should have been reversed). ...
... Similarly, Litle (1986) found that only low sensation seekers experienced an increase in general arousal near the end of a horror movie, when the main villain was killed. Again, high sensation seekers were the ones who failed to react emotionally. ...
I sought to explain why many people willingly expose themselves to apparently unpleasant media, such as horror movies. Participants (N = 133) completed a modified version of the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP; Payne et al., 2005), which assessed initial affective reactions to screenshots from movies that were either frightening or neutral. The time between exposure to the screenshots and assessment of affect was either short (100 ms) or long (1000 ms). Explicit attitudes about the movies and about the horror genre were also assessed, in addition to the following personality variables: The Big Five, Machiavellianism (from the Supernumerary Personality Inventory), Sensation Seeking, and Psychopathy. There was little evidence for a direct connection between implicit reactions and explicit attitudes, but I found overall support for an aftermath- based model of horror enjoyment, in which affect gets increasingly positive after a horrific stimulus has been removed from the screen. However, this relief-like pattern was moderated by Agreeableness and Sensation Seeking. Personality correlates of horror liking (both explicit and implicit) were examined. Furthermore, gender differences supported a gender socialization theory of reactions to frightening media. Theoretical implications and practical applications are discussed.
... These results are in accord with other research where gender or biological sex was consistently identified in predicting responses to horror films. Here, as a general rule, both in childhood and adulthood, males endorsed higher levels of appreciation for frightening material than females of comparable ages (Harris et al., 2000;Hoffner & Levine, 2005;Zuckerman & Litle, 1986). Further, the relationship between the enjoyment of horror and the intensity of horror within the content is consistently positive (Hoffner & Levine, 2005). ...
... Of all the curiosity measures used, 226 (92%) articles relied solely on a Likert scale response format. Twelve articles (5%) investigated curiosity using only binary questions (e.g., Curiosity about Sexual Events scale using a True/False response format; singleitem curiosity measure using Yes/No) [48,49]. Four articles (2%) used a mix of Likert and binary scales, such as in Reio et al.'s work [50]. ...
The study of curiosity as a construct has led to many conceptualisations, comprising of different dimensions. Due to this, various scales of curiosity have also been developed. Moreover, some researchers have conceived of curiosity as a general trait-like, while others have included contexts, such as the workplace, or education when investigating curiosity. This scoping review aims to scope the extant psychological literature on curiosity in order to better understand how it has been studied, specifically with regard to its dimensions, measures, and contexts. A total of 1194 records were identified, with 245 articles meeting the inclusion criteria. Results suggest that the majority of curiosity research examined curiosity as having multiple dimensions and analysed the dimensions individually, with a deprivation-type curiosity playing the biggest role. The measure most commonly used was the Epistemic Curiosity Scale, which also consisted of a deprivation-type curiosity as one of the dimensions. Findings also implied that curiosity was most studied in the context of the workplace. Supplementary findings included a lack of representation of non-Western countries, as well as needing to cross-validate a recently developed curiosity scale. This scoping review represents a consolidation of the curiosity literature and how it can further prosper.
... This emotional arousal in itself may be part of the appeal of counterfactual information [79]. Zuckerman & Litle [80] showed that morbid and sexual curiosity were related to the personality trait of sensation seeking. Counterfactual curiosity may also serve as a way to produce novel and arousing sensations or to alleviate boredom. ...
Counterfactual information, information about what might have been, forms the content of counterfactual thoughts and emotions like regret and relief. Recent research suggests that human adults and children, as well as rhesus monkeys, demonstrate ‘counterfactual curiosity’: they are motivated to seek out counterfactual information after making decisions. Based on contemporary theories of curiosity and information seeking and a broad range of empirical literature, we suggest multiple heterogeneous psychological processes that contribute to people's motivation for counterfactual information. This includes processes that are identified in the curiosity literature more generally—the potential use of counterfactual information for adaptive decision making (its long-term instrumental value) and the drive to reduce uncertainty. Additionally, we suggest that counterfactual information may be particularly alluring because of its role in causal reasoning; its relationship with prediction and decision making; and its potential to fulfil emotion regulation and self-serving goals. Some future directions have been suggested, including investigating the role of individual differences in counterfactual curiosity on learning and wellbeing.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Thinking about possibilities: mechanisms, ontogeny, functions and phylogeny’.
... It is well-documented that people often strive to resolve ambiguities even if it is risky and without apparent instrumental benefit 8,24,25 . People are curious about high intensity negative information, being fascinated by media coverages of intense violence or by horror movies 7,26 , and neuroimaging studies showed that satisfaction of one's curiosity activates reward-related circuitries in the brain, even when the information search exposes the individual to unpleasant stimuli 27,28 . The present studies are in line with this research, highlighting that people are willing to leave their comfort zone for a new experience. ...
Previous research suggested that people prefer to administer unpleasant electric shocks to themselves rather than being left alone with their thoughts because engagement in thinking is an unpleasant activity. The present research examined this negative reinforcement hypothesis by giving participants a choice of distracting themselves with the generation of electric shock causing no to intense pain. Four experiments (N = 254) replicated the result that a large proportion of participants opted to administer painful shocks to themselves during the thinking period. However, they administered strong electric shocks to themselves even when an innocuous response option generating no or a mild shock was available. Furthermore, participants inflicted pain to themselves when they were assisted in the generation of pleasant thoughts during the waiting period, with no difference between pleasant versus unpleasant thought conditions. Overall, these results question that the primary motivation for the self-administration of painful shocks is avoidance of thinking. Instead, it seems that the self-infliction of pain was attractive for many participants, because they were curious about the shocks, their intensities, and the effects they would have on them.
... Az egyéni különbségekre irányuló korábbi kutatások elsősorban pszichológiai és nem neurofiziológiai vizsgálatok voltak, mindazonáltal ezek néhány esetben a pszichológiai tényezők mögött neurális különbségeket találtak. Az egyik legtöbbször említett pszichológiai tényező, amely összefüggésbe hozható a horror kedvelésével, a szenzáció vagy újdonságkereső személyiségvonás, és ez különösen jellemző a horrorkedvelő közönség tagjaira (Cantor et al. 1984;Zuckerman et al. 1986;Tamborini et al. 1987). Ugyanakkor más kutatások egyértelmű kapcsolatot fedeztek fel a jutalmazó rendszer túlműködése -a dopaminerg sejtek alacsony autoreceptor kontrollja -és a szenzációkereső személyiségvonás között (Zald et al. 2008;Norbury et al. 2015). ...
Az elmúlt negyven évben számos filozófus, pszichológus, film- és irodalomkutató foglalkozott azzal a kérdéssel, hogy miért élvezi a közönség a negatív érzelmeket olyan szórakozási formák esetében, mint a horrorfilm. A legtöbb elmélet úgy próbálja megmagyarázni a horror-paradoxont, hogy a félelmet mint az élvezet forrását kiemeli a magyarázatból és azt állítja, hogy a közönség valami mást élvez ezekben a filmekben. Kutatások bizonyítják, hogy a közönség valójában a félelmet élvezi és nem valami mást. A félelem nem csupán egyetlen „negatív érzelem”, hanem különféle viszonylag független fiziológiai, viselkedési és élményállapotok komplexuma, amelyen belül a félelem érzése és az ettől az érzéstől való szenvedés különválasztható. Egyetlen horrorfilmre sem jellemző, hogy folyamatosan stresszkeltő lenne az elejétől a végéig. A stresszkeltő ingerek hullámokban érkeznek és a hullámok között megnyugtató szekvenciák találhatók. Az enyhe és rövid ideig tartó félelemkeltő stressz, valamint ennek a stressznek a feloldása dopamin-aktivitást vált ki, amely a test számára jutalomérzést nyújt. A horror műfaj az izgalmat keltő szórakoztatás egy extrém formája, amely így két fázisban is testi jutalmazással jár. A horrorfilmek közönsége azonban csak 5-6 százalékát teszi ki a mozibajáróknak, amíg az izgalmat keltő szórakoztatás enyhébb formái nagyon népszerűek. A horror kedvelői egy szűkebb réteget képviselnek, amelyet magas szenzációkeresés és bizonytalanságtűrés, valamint alacsony szorongás- és undorérzékenység jellemez.
... Some measures of behavior, such as horror film attendance, are only weakly correlated with sensation seeking (Tamborini & Stiff, 1987). Moreover, the relationship between overall sensation seeking and horror attendance may not be significant for women, and different subscales predict horror film attendance differently for men and women (Cantor & Sparks, 1984;Zuckerman & Litle, 1986). ...
From scary stories to horror films and haunted houses, the horror genre is wildly popular. Although horror aims to elicit fear and anxiety in its audience, many people with anxiety are horror fans and some report using horror to cope with their anxiety. In this article, we provide a theoretical rationale for why people with anxiety might find relief in horror films. First, we discuss aspects of horror that could make it particularly alluring to people with anxiety and how some features of horror films have the potential to reduce anxiety in the moment. Next, we examine how engagement with horror could build skills for resilience in more generalized situations. We build on processes from evidence- based therapies (i.e., cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy) to explain how horror media has the potential to be used as a therapeutic tool. Finally, we discuss steps for future research on horror as a therapeutic tool for anxiety-related disorders.
... Decisions regarding intrinsically rewarding stimuli are targeted less frequently 2 and even less is known about the neural representation of seeking negative information that, at first glance, does not seem to have reward value at all 3 . Similarly, in the field of curiosity-defined as an intrinsically motivated drive state for information 4-6 -research on curiosity for negative information is scarce 2 (see for exceptions [7][8][9][10]. A handful of neuroscience studies have demonstrated that curiosity engages similar neural circuits as extrinsic reward, but only when examining positive or neutral material, such as trivia questions (e.g., 11,12 ). ...
People often seek out stories, videos or images that detail death, violence or harm. Considering the ubiquity of this behavior, it is surprising that we know very little about the neural circuits involved in choosing negative information. Using fMRI, the present study shows that choosing intensely negative stimuli engages similar brain regions as those that support extrinsic incentives and "regular" curiosity. Participants made choices to view negative and positive images, based on negative (e.g., a soldier kicks a civilian against his head) and positive (e.g., children throw flower petals at a wedding) verbal cues. We hypothesized that the conflicting, but relatively informative act of choosing to view a negative image, resulted in stronger activation of reward circuitry as opposed to the relatively uncomplicated act of choosing to view a positive stimulus. Indeed, as preregistered, we found that choosing negative cues was associated with activation of the striatum, inferior frontal gyrus, anterior insula, and anterior cingulate cortex, both when contrasting against a passive viewing condition, and when contrasting against positive cues. These findings nuance models of decision-making, valuation and curiosity, and are an important starting point when considering the value of seeking out negative content.
... First, people may value the arousal evoked by aversive information. Research on the personality dimension of sensation seeking has indeed identified a positive relationship between the desire for thrill and adventure and curiosity for negative content ( [41,42]; see also Ref. ...
In recent years, empirical work has documented a curiosity for negative content – people deliberately view images detailing death, violence or harm or engage with other aversive stimuli. The question that emerges from this work is why people are curious about aversive information. Our central premise is that curiosity for negative content can be valuable – it may serve fundamental psychological functions and have beneficial outcomes. In terms of benefits, negative content may provide an individual with an opportunity to acquire knowledge, reduce uncertainty, experience valued emotions, or engage with the experiences of others. At the same time, the exploration of negative information may be costly. In this article, we discuss which factors may motivate or discourage the exploration of negative content.
... Curiosity may also override regret aversion [46] and lead to behaviors such as watching horrendous movie scenes, engaging in substance use and unsafe sex, or exploring dangerous terrains (e.g. in Refs. [47][48][49]). Curious people were also found to be more likely to violate social norms [6] and spend scarce resources in order to obtain answers to various questions [36]. ...
In the current review, we propose to look at curiosity from the goal systemic perspective and differentiate between curiosity as a motive/goal, which engenders various activities (means) aimed at satisfying it, and information-seeking behaviors which can, but do not have to be, driven by the curiosity motivation as such. We thus assume that people can adopt various behaviors in order to satisfy their curiosity. On the other hand, they can behave in a curious and inquisitive manner in order to satisfy 'incurious' motives (e.g. to obtain a reward or attain cognitive closure). We also analyze a special case in which the mere activity of information gathering and exploration becomes the goal in itself. Then, mere performance of this activity can be rewarding.
... One account for the observed phenomenon is sensation seeking theory (Zuckerman, 1979;Zuckerman & Litle, 1986), which suggests that individual differences in the need for novel and arousing experience leads to the motivation to seek "sensational" events. According to a sensation-seeking account, children would choose negative images more than older participants because of an increased desire for the arousal or intense sensations they provoke. ...
Although common sense suggests that we are motivated to pursue positive and avoid negative experiences, previous research shows that people regularly seek out negative experiences. In the current study, we characterized this tendency from childhood to young adulthood. Due to the known increases in risky behavior and sensation seeking in adolescence, we hypothesized that adolescents would show an increased engagement with negatively valenced stimuli compared to children and adults. Participants aged 4‐25 (N =192) completed a behavioral task assessing motivation to engage with negative, positive, and neutral images. On each trial, participants viewed two small images and selected one to view at a larger size for up to 10s. Trials were organized into three valence conditions: negative versus positive images (matched on arousal), negative versus neutral images, and positive versus neutral images. Although participants chose positive images more than neutral or negative images, participants selected negative images frequently, even when given a positive (28% of trials) or neutral (42% of trials) alternative. Contrary to expectations, the tendency to choose negative images was highest in early childhood and decreased linearly with increasing age, and the tendency to choose positive images increased linearly with age. These results provide insight into how motivation to engage with emotional stimuli varies across age. It is possible that the novelty and rarity of negative experiences drives children to pursue these stimuli. Alternatively, children may find negative images less aversive, which would caution against assuming that these stimuli elicit the same motivational states in individuals of all ages.
... Disagreement among scholars about whether pornography use is associated with condomless sex stems in part from a debate about whether the relationship is confounded by sensation seeking (Eaton et al., 2012;Hertlein, Emmers-Sommer, & Kennedy, 2014;Koletic, Stulhofer, Tomic & Cuca, 2019;Luder et al., 2011;Martyniuk, Briken, Sehner, Richter-Appelt, & Dekker, 2016;Peter & Valkenburg, 2011b;Rosser et al., 2013;Sinkovic et al., 2013). High sensation seekers prefer novel, concentrated, and intense feelings and experiences (Zuckerman, 1994), and sexually explicit media provide these feelings (Schierman & Rowland, 1985;Zuckerman & Litle, 1986). ...
This paper presents meta-analytic findings on the association between pornography consumption and condomless sex. Results were based on 45 reports spanning two decades. Data from 18 countries, with a participant total of over 35,000, were located. Higher levels of pornography consumption were associated with an elevated likelihood of engaging in condomless sex. A model-based meta-analysis did not support the viewpoint that the pornography use–condomless sex association is spurious and confounded by sensation seeking. Instead, a path analysis suggested that pornography use energizes consumers' sensation seeking desires, in turn making them more likely to engage in condomless sex. Although the results indicated homogeneity of effect sizes across most contexts tested, the type of pornography content consumed moderated the pornography use–condomless sex relationship. Viewing pornography that does not show condoms was associated with an increased risk for having sex without condoms, whereas consuming pornography showing condoms was unrelated to sexual risk.
... For example, in the countermessage campaign "Think again, turn away" launched by the United States Department of State, the viewers are exposed to blown-up mosques, suicide bombing, and other wanton acts of cruelty (Labott, 2014). This is troubling because this is the type of visual content that is highly attractive to sensation seekers (Zaleski, 1984;Zuckerman & Litle, 1986). Given the appeal of violent content to high sensation seekers, it is likely that the very messages aimed to deter young men from joining militant groups are the very messages that attract them. ...
Adventure and excitement have often been invoked to explain why people engage in political violence, yet empirical evidence on the topic has thus far been anecdotal. The present research sought to fill this gap in knowledge by examining the role of sensation seeking in political violence and integrating this concept with Significance Quest Theory (Kruglanski, Chen, Dechesne, Fishman, & Orehek, 2009; Kruglanski et al., 2013). Extending prior research on violent extremism, Study 1 found that sensation seeking mediated the relation between meaning in life and willingness to self-sacrifice and support for political violence. Study 2 established temporal precedence of the variables in the mediation model, using a longitudinal design. Studies 3 and 4 experimentally replicated findings of Studies 1 and 2. In Studies 5a and 5b, we found that sensation seeking predicts support for a real life violent activist group. In Studies 6a and 6b, the positive evaluation of a violent activist group by individuals high in sensation seeking was explained by how exciting they perceived the group to be. Finally, Study 7 introduced an intervention targeting the sensation seeking motive by presenting participants with a peaceful (less exciting vs. exciting) activism group. As hypothesized, providing individuals high in sensation seeking with a peaceful yet exciting group mitigated their support for extreme behavior.
... One study found that reducers (those who experience a lower level of sensory stimulation) were more likely to choose to watch an intensely negative film than to choose to complete questionnaires of common events after a boredom induction (Larsen & Zarate, 1991). Another individual difference of promise might be morbid curiosity (Litman, 2005;Oosterwijk, 2017;Zuckerman & Litle, 1986). At times, the desire to acquire new knowledge may outweigh the anticipated pleasure of gaining that knowledge (e.g., looking closely at a car accident; Oosterwijk, 2017). ...
Building on functional models of emotion, we propose that boredom creates a seeking state that prompts people to explore new experiences, even if those experiences are hedonically negative. Specifically, as emotional responses fade, boredom motivates the pursuit of alternative experiences that differ from the experience that resulted in boredom. Participants who reported a higher degree of boredom after a neutral task were more likely to choose negative experiences (Study 1). Compared with a low-boredom condition, participants in a high-boredom condition desired novel experiences and, as a result of this desire, were more likely to choose novel negative experiences (Study 2). In Study 3, participants were made bored by positive or negative stimuli. Participants in the positive-boredom conditions were more likely to choose a novel experience that was more negative; participants in the negative-boredom conditions were more likely to choose a novel experience that was more positive. These findings reveal that boredom motivates people to seek out novel experiences that elicit different (even more negative) feelings. (PsycINFO Database Record
... Por outro lado, de acordo com o modelo geral da agressão, a exposição repetida à violência na mídia pode levar a uma personalidade agressiva (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). Nesta perspectiva, que foca nas características pessoais e situacionais, sugere-se que os traços de personalidade, como os cinco fatores, devem ser estudados (Anderson, Carnagey, Flanagan, Benjamin, Eubanks & Valentine, 2004 Já se verificou, por exemplo, correlação da preferência por filmes de terror e eróticos com o traço de busca de sensações (Zuckerman & Litle, 1986). Weaver (1991), por sua vez, corroborou a importância dos traços de personalidade, usando o modelo de Eysenck, para se entender a preferência midiática. ...
Theoretically, our media preference is in line with our personality traits, but many studies are needed to advance in this area. The objective of this study was to determine whether there are differences in the five personality factors in groups with a movie preference as well as to test a brief personality inventory. Two studies were conducted with high school and university students, using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI). The results showed more Agreeableness for those students who reported a preference for horror movies than for those who prefer suspense. Those who prefer suspense showed less Conscientiousness than those who prefer horror, action, romance and drama. Those who preferred romantic movies, when compared to those who prefer comedies, presented more Conscientiousness. These results are maintained by controlling the sex and the age. We conclude that the TIPI is a measure that can be used in research to understand group differences in the five personality factors.
... As a disposition that trigger students' desire to learn (Topliff, 2013), inquisitiveness is an effective variable in predicting student achievement (Arnone, Grabowski, & Rynd, 1994;Von Stumm, Hell, & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2011). On the other hand, based on empirical findings, inquisitiveness disposition being related to characteristics such as emotional intelligence (Leonard & Harvey, 2007), personality traits (Zuckerman & Litle, 1986;Reio & Callahan, 2004), self-efficacy (Çağırgan-Gülten, Yaman, Deringöl, & Özsarı, 2011), and success and goal orientation (Eren, 2009) show that inquisitiveness disposition has positive effects on cognitive performance (Alberti & Witryol, 1994). Therefore, inquisitiveness is one of the prominent characteristics that enable individuals to think over a subject. ...
The aim of this study is to examine the causal relationships between high school students' inquisitiveness, open-mindedness, causal thinking, and rational and intuitive decision-making dispositions through an assumed model based on research data. This study was designed in correlational model. Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis, which are structural equation modelling applications, were used to explain these relationships. The participants were 404 students studying in five high schools in Usak province. Critical Thinking Dispositions Scale developed by Yücel and Uluçinar (2013) was used to identify the high school students' inquisitiveness, open-mindedness and causal thinking dispositions. As for identifying rational and intuitive decision-making dispositions, an adaptation of the decision-making inventories by Scott and Bruce (1995) and Bachard (2001) was employed. The findings of the study show that inquisitiveness and open-mindedness dispositions directly affected casual thinking. In addition, causal thinking was found to have an effect on rational decision- making and intuitive decision making dispositions.
... Extant literature shows that curiosity can drive people to seek miserable experiences, such as watching horrendous scenes (Zuckerman & Litle, 1986), exploring dangerous terrains (Kashdan, Rose, & Fincham, 2004;Loewenstein, 1999), and trying ruinous drugs (Green, 1990). However, such evidence comes largely from noncontrolled research. ...
Curiosity-the desire for information-underlies many human activities, from reading celebrity gossip to developing nuclear science. Curiosity is well recognized as a human blessing. Is it also a human curse? Tales about such things as Pandora's box suggest that it is, but scientific evidence is lacking. In four controlled experiments, we demonstrated that curiosity could lead humans to expose themselves to aversive stimuli (even electric shocks) for no apparent benefits. The research suggests that humans possess an inherent desire, independent of consequentialist considerations, to resolve uncertainty; when facing something uncertain and feeling curious, they will act to resolve the uncertainty even if they expect negative consequences. This research reveals the potential perverse side of curiosity, and is particularly relevant to the current epoch, the epoch of information, and to the scientific community, a community with high curiosity.
Háttér és célkitűzések
Az erőszakos, kellemetlen vagy halálhoz köthető tartalmak iránti érdeklődés a morbid kíváncsiság mértékével jellemezhető. Az ilyen tartalmak általában félelmet, undort, illetve elkerülő viselkedést váltanak ki, ugyanakkor egyes embereket a kiváltott arousal emelkedés miatt mégis vonzanak. A jelenség részletesebb feltárásával pontosabb képet kaphatunk arról, milyen tényezők játszanak szerepet olyan specifikus fóbiák esetén, ahol mind az undor, mind pedig a félelem releváns érzelmi reakció. A jelen tanulmány célja a Morbid Kíváncsiság Skála pszichometriai elemzése egy megfelelően nagy és az életkor szempontjából diverz magyar anyanyelvű mintán.
Módszer
A kutatás során összesen 592 fő (442 nő, 150 férfi) töltötte ki a kérdőívcsomagot. A kitöltők átlagéletkora 34,2 év (SD: 10,64; terjedelem: 18–73 év). A Morbid Kíváncsiság Skála mellett a résztvevők a Szenzoros Élménykereséses Skálát és az Undorérzékenység Skálát töltötték ki. A Morbid Kíváncsiság Skála pszichometriai mutatóit klasszikus és modern tesztelméleti eljárásokkal is ellenőriztük.
Eredmények
A Morbid Kíváncsiság Skála megfelelő pszichometriai mutatókkal rendelkezik a vizsgált magyar mintán. A kérdőív tételei megfelelően diszkriminálnak a látens változó különböző szintjeivel rendelkező kitöltők között, és a kérdőív megbízhatóan mér az átlaghoz viszonyított kétszeres szórástartományban. A kérdőív összpontszáma és alskáláinak pontszámai pozitív irányú összefüggést mutattak a szenzoros élménykereséssel, míg az összpontszám, az Erőszak és a Test megsértése alksálák pedig az undorérzékenységgel mutattak negatív irányú kapcsolatot.
Következtetések
Mindent összevetve eredményeink alapján a Morbid Kíváncsiság Skála magyar mintán is megbízható és érvényes kérdőív. A kérdőív releváns eszköz lehet kellemetlen vagy undorító tartalmakhoz való viszonyulás mérésére, a megközelítő-elkerülő viselkedéses rendszer vizsgálatára; mind kutatások, mind pedig terápiák során utánkövetésre.
This Element explores the factors that lead the public to pay attention to and mobilize in support of victims of officer-involved killings. The author argues that race is the most important factor shaping both attention and mobilization. Black victims are statistically significantly more likely to trend on Google and get protested than victims of other races. Deaths of low threat Black victims are more likely to affect political interest, voter turnout, and protest rates, and only among young Black observers. This Element attributes this pattern to the fact that mobilization around officer-involved killings is responding to anti-Black discrimination, rather than general sentiments about police violence. It also finds that the local density of social justice organizations increases political mobilization.
The physical effects of media content are understood as the direct influence of the media on the organism. This includes mainly processes of physiological arousal as well as emotional effects evoking joy or fear, a pleasant mood or stress.
We conducted an empirical test of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s, 1990 A General Theory of Crime in this exploratory study to introduce the concept of curiosity to criminological theory. Specifically, we tested whether self-control was significantly associated with curiosity and whether curiosity significantly predicted a crime/deviance index beyond the effects of self-control. An original eight item curiosity scale was created that measured both an attitudinal curiosity dimension and a behavioral curiosity component and compared the ability of this new measure with the capability of the most commonly used self-control scale in predicting a crime/deviance index. Data was derived from a convenience sample of college students. As theoretically predicted, self-control was significantly correlated with curiosity, and the curiosity scale significantly predicted the crime/deviance index, beyond the effects of the self-control scale. More conservative tests demonstrated that curiosity also significantly predicted involvement in more specific illegal/deviance measures, including those involving somewhat serious delinquent/criminal conduct. The findings led us to conclude that curiosity may be another additional cause of crime/deviance beyond the effects of self-control, curiosity explains more than just involvement in exploratory types of illegal/deviant behavior, and that curiosity has been an overlooked concept in the crime/deviance decision-making process.
You've heard of Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. But have you heard of Amy Archer-Gilligan? Or Belle Gunness? Or Nannie Doss? Women have committed some of the most disturbing serial killings ever seen in the United States. Yet scientific inquiry, criminal profiling, and public interest have focused more on their better-known male counterparts. As a result, female serial killers have been misunderstood, overlooked, and underestimated. In this riveting account, Dr. Marissa A. Harrison draws on original scientific research, various psychological perspectives, and richly detailed case studies to illuminate the stark differences between female and male serial killers' backgrounds, motives, and crimes. She also emphasizes the countless victims of this grisly phenomenon to capture the complexity and tragedy of serial murder. Meticulously weaving data-based evidence and insight with intimate storytelling, Just as Deadly reveals how and why these women murder—and why they often get away with it.
We present a user study developed to explore the use of psychological frameworks for the personalisation of narratives. Further, we explore using interactive narratives to understand the user’s personality and narrative preferences. The study consists of three sections: an interactive narrative, a personality test, and a personalised short story. Whilst it would appear that at least this interactive narrative could not be used as a personality test per se, it was able to capture some traits. The personalisation appeared to work well, especially regarding relating with the protagonist. It was also found that extraverted people appear to prefer reading narratives with less formal language, and introverts prefer narratives with more formal language
.KeywordsPersonalisationPersonalityNarrative
Purpose
Crowdsourcing communities enable companies to post challenges that are completed by solvers (workers); their success depends on engagement, requiring both creativity and effort. This study explores solver engagement in online crowdsourcing communities, advancing the theory of trait engagement by investigating the mediating roles of: (a) task-related self-efficacy in linking conscientiousness, neuroticism and extraversion, with solver engagement, and (b) task complexity in influencing the mediation.
Design/methodology/approach
215 valid responses were obtained from solvers engaged in the popular Chinese crowdsourcing community, Epwk.com, using an online questionnaire. PLS was then used to analyze the data.
Findings
Results show that self-efficacy mediates the relationships for conscientiousness, neuroticism and extraversion, with solver engagement. Moderated mediation analysis revealed that self-efficacy mediates the relationships for: (a) conscientiousness and extraversion, for only solvers with high task complexity; and (b) neuroticism, for only solvers with low task complexity.
Originality/value
The authors’ findings underscore the importance of accounting for solvers' situational contexts when examining the relationships between personality, self-efficacy and solver engagement in online crowdsourcing communities.
The purpose of this article is to investigate whether competition hypothesis (Anderson and Carnagey, 2009) contributes to the General Aggression Model when video game genre is entered into the relationship between video game use and self-reported physical aggression. A pre-test (n=93) taken randomly from the research sample employed categorized the game genres as violent and/or competitive. 1,170 adolescents (ages 12–18) completed the written survey. Online shooter games and fight’em up games, categorized as both violent and competitive, were positively related to self-reported physical aggression, while simulation games manifested a negative relationship. Video game genres such as strategy, sports, offline shooter, racing, adventure, puzzle, and platform games were not significantly related to physical aggression. The results support the hypothesis that the presence of both competition and violence in games increases the probability of physical aggression. This study shows that (1) video game genres can be used to predict physical aggression in a non-causal way and (2) that there is support for an interaction effect of the competition hypothesis and the violence hypothesis.
A current topic of Human-Computer Interaction focuses on understanding and assessing user-centered design taking into account certain psychological factors related to users’ thought processes, feelings and behavior into account. In particular, personality is an idiosyncratic psychological construct that captures many of such aspects from a user. It allows designers to provide a better user experience by adapting a user interface to individual characteristics. This review presents the impact of design and aesthetics on user preferences, namely considering whether certain personality traits have a preference for specific interface design features. This review also discusses the implications of personality-based user interface design, before moving on to the presentation of several research projects focused on adapted design for personality types. Finally, the review highlights trends and future directions in this domain, with particular emphasis on brain-computer interfaces.
The increasing violence broadcasted by the media is subject of concern and social interest. Hard emissions frequently raise the accusation toward the mass media of fostering a morbid curiosity in the audience just to raise audience ratings. But the concept of morbid curiosity includes wide and imprecise meanings. The object of this paper is to (re)construct the meaning of morbidity and morbid curiosity in relation to the watching of serious violence in TV News programs. 16 focus groups have been object of discourse analysis after the viewing 4 videos of a violent piece of TV news. The analysis shows that the dimension of curiosity and interest vs. illness and evil is structuring the discourse; and the participants highlight the positive and legitimate effects that can be attributed to the “gaze” on violence as much as to the scenes. “Watching” with interest is necessary to get the positive effects of the broadcasting of violent images.
To date, the use of taboos in advertising has produced mixed results. Such discrepancies require explanation. Relying on construal-level theory and the concept of psychological distance, this research focuses on taboo ads' effects on consumers' responses. The findings from three studies show that for different product categories (Study 1: perfume; Studies 2 and 3: alcohol) and across different taboo types (sex, violence, and a mixture of sex and violence), different distance dimensions (Study 1: spatial; Study 2: social), and different construal-level manipulations (low, high), an increase in the psychological distance (or construal) level attenuates consumers' unfavorable attitudinal and behavioral reactions while a decrease in the psychological distance (or construal) level intensifies consumers' responses. Furthermore, response intensity varies depending on the taboo type used, such that both violent and mixed taboo types produce more negative responses. Finally, gender has an impact, such that women react more negatively than men to different taboos, both across distance dimensions and across distance (construal) levels. A discussion of these findings and their implications, as well as suggestions for future research, concludes the article.
Findings on gender differences and different relationship between film preferences and personality factors among women and man are pretty consistent. Disputes appear within results interpretation: Whether „the woman films“ consist of preferred content or they consider female point of view. The purpose of the conducted study is to analyse relationship between personality traits and film preferences at women. Five personality factors and sensation seeking subdimensions impact on certain film genre preferences was considered. Sample consisted of 165 women between 20 and 32 years old (M=23.67; SD= 1.85). Basic personality traits were assessed with 50-item version of Goldberg’s IPIP Big-Five questionnaire (International Personality Item Pool; IPIP50, 2001). Five scales provided measures of: extraversion (EXT), agreeableness (PRI), conscientiousness (SAV), emotional stability (EMS) i culture (KUL). IPIP
scales reliability coefficients are in a range between α=.74 and α=.84. Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS; Zuckerman, 1994) was used for dimensions: sensation seeking (TAS), experience seeking (ES), desinhibition (DIS) and boringness sensitivity (BS). Besides separate dimension scores, the SSS scale provides overall sensation seeking measure. In film genre preferences (comedy, romantic, drama, action, horror, documentary i science-fiction) respondents were asked to estimate how much they love certain movie genre. Answers were in a range between 1 (not at all) do 7 (totally). Responses were analysed for each separately or in the frame of the first
Hotelling principal component, which was considered as overall measure of film preferences. Film preferences were analysed first. In the inspection of relationship between personality traits and film preferences regression model was tested. Personality factors and sensation seeking subdimensions were defined as predictors in the simple multiple regression model. In the mediation model, personality factors were mediation variables while overall measure of sensation seeking was independent variable. Film preferences were represented through first principal component was dependent variable and in both models. Results show that comedy and romantic movies are most favorite. Nor results of multiple regression analysis (R=.21, F(9,158)=.77=.21, p=.64) nor mediation analysis (R=.04, F(6,158)=.57, p=.64) indicate any relations between personality traits and different film genre preferences. Study provides no contribution to the question of „female movies“ personality basis. Beside control study on male and addition female samples, need for reconsideration of operationalization of variables related to different movie preferences was noticed.
Key words: personality traits, sensation seeking, movie genre preferences, female.
This document reports on a rapid evidence assessment (REA) of the evidence of harm to adults relating to exposure to extreme pornographic materials.<br /
This document reports on a rapid evidence assessment (REA) of the evidence of harm to adults relating to exposure to extreme pornographic materials<br /
Advertising is ubiquitous in the modern world. Indeed, individuals get bombarded with myriads of ad messages on a daily basis. In order to overcome the cluttered environment, ad practitioners often employ techniques grounded on controversial topics such as violence (e.g., Manceau and Tissier-Desbordes, 2006). At the same time, ad professionals intensify the use of rhetorical devices as an additional means to persuade (e.g., Phillips and McQuarrie, 2002). Nonetheless, the psychological determinants of viewers’ responses to such ad practices are still elusive. For example, despite the relevance of fundamental cognitive and affective constructs such as values and emotions within advertising (e.g., Holbrook and Batra, 1987; Homer and Kahle, 1988), no previous study has investigated their effects on controversial ad contexts employing rhetoric as a means to persuade.
This study explored the relationships among methamphetamine use and violent behavior, methamphetamine use and risky sexual conduct, as well as the role of personality traits as moderating variables. The sample was comprised of 339 respondents, aged 16–30 years old and included comparison groups of alcohol only users, methamphetamine users, and non-substance users. The results indicated that during the 6 months prior to data collection, individuals who used alcohol or methamphetamines were more likely to be involved in violence and high-risk sex than non-substance users. Perhaps most important, methamphetamine users were more likely to be involved in assault and unprotected sex than alcohol-only users. In addition, the results suggest that personality trait differences, specifically volatile temper, accounted for the overwhelming majority of explained variance in the prevalence of assault. In fact, when controlling for personality traits, substance use ceased to be a significant predictor of the prevalence of assault. While volatile temper was the key predictor of the prevalence of violence, it was not associated significantly with the co-occurrence of substance use and violence. However, the co-occurrence of substance use and assault was significantly greater for respondents who used methamphetamines as compared to alcohol-only users. With regard to risky sexual behavior, the findings indicate that substance use, alcohol-only, and methamphetamines heightened the risk for unprotected sexual intercourse even when controlling for demographics and personality traits.
Purpose: Music video viewing is a very popular pastime among adolescents. The publiccriticism of music videos has encouraged researchers to examine the effects of music videoexposure. Although an association between music video exposure and several health riskbehaviors (e.g. drinking) has been found, the relationship between music video viewing andrisky driving has remained largely unexamined. In this study the relationship betweenadolescents' music video viewing and risky driving such as driving after consuming alcoholand joy riding is explored.Methods: Participants were 354 adolescent males and females who participated in a panelstudy (2 - year interval). Respondents were 17 or 18 years old during the first wave of datacollection and did not have their driver's license yet. They completed a questionnaire onmusic video viewing, sensation seeking, aggression, attitudes towards joy riding and drivingafter the consumption of alcohol, and the intention to perform these behaviors in the future.Two years later the respondents had obtained their driver's license and were questioned ontheir actual risky driving behavior. The relationships between these constructs were analyzedusing structural equation models.Results: The results indicate that music video viewing is indirectly associated with joy ridingand driving after the consumption of alcohol through the attitudes towards these behaviors andthe intention to perform these behaviors in the future. More music video viewing resulted in amore positive attitude towards risky driving, even after controlling for sensation seeking andaggression. These attitudes are positively related to the intention to perform these recklessbehaviors in the future and these intentions are, in turn, a good predictor of the actual riskydriving behavior two years later. Conclusions: The results indicate that music video viewing during adolescence is animportant and significant predictor of risky driving two years later.
Compared the factor structure of the Sensation-Seeking Scale (SSS) in English and American samples, and constructed a new form of the SSS, applicable to both groups. The English Ss consisted of 254 males and 639 females from the Maudsley Twin Register, ages 15–70 yrs. The American sample included 97 male and female undergraduates. Three of the 4 factors showed good cross-national and cross-sex reliability (i.e., significant and reasonably high resemblance between the 4 national and sex symbols). English and American males did not differ on the total SSS score, but American females scored higher than English females. Males in both countries scored higher than females on the total SSS score and on the Thrill and Adventure-Seeking and Disinhibition subscales. Significant age declines occurred for both sexes, particularly on Thrill and Adventure Seeking and Disinhibition. (24 ref)
Tested 63 new items for the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS) in an attempt to develop new scales representative of hypothesized dimensions of sensation seeking. An experimental form was given to 332 and 92 undergraduates at 2 universities. Data from the 1st university was factor analyzed separately for males and females. Besides the general factor running through diverse items, 4 factors were extracted from the rotated factor loadings: thrill and adventure seeking, experience seeking, disinhibition, and boredom susceptibility. The 1st 3 factors showed good factor and internal scale reliability in both sexes and samples. Since boredom susceptibility was not well defined in females and was of minimal reliability, it was retained as a subscale for males only. (24 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Reviews the trait of sensation seeking and the biological phenomena associated with it: strength of the initial orienting reflex, augmenting vs reducing of the average evoked potential, MAO, and gonadal hormones (both androgen and estrogens). Both psychological and biological measures have retest reliabilities that are characteristic of stable traits. Twin studies show moderate to strong genetic control of the personality and of several biological measures. Several behavioral characteristics that are associated with the trait in humans are also related to the biological traits in animals, including sociability and social dominance, reactivity to novel situations, and play. In humans, sexual experience, interest in new situations, experiences with drugs, manic-depressive tendencies, and psychopathy are associated with both sensation seeking and its biological correlates. Age and sex differences show some parallels and some differences between sensation seeking and its biological correlates. (6 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A review of field studies on the possible relation of exposure to TV violence to subsequent aggressive behaviors indicates that such studies have produced mixed results and that there is little evidence of causality. Correlational research has established a small but significant association between viewing TV violence and aggressiveness, but evidence for a causal relationship is again minimal. There is no substantial evidence for a cumulative effect of TV viewing, nor has it been demonstrated that the effect of TV viewing depends on a crucial period or is delayed. In addition, correlations between viewing violence on TV and aggression do not consistently increase with age. It is concluded that although exposure to and preference for violent programming on TV is correlated with aggressive behavior, there is no evidence that viewing violence in natural settings causes an increase in subsequent aggressiveness. (48 ref)
This article reports the development of a Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS) designed to quantify the construct: "optimal stimulation level." Items were written, using the construct as a guide, and given to undergraduates. The items were factor analyzed. A general factor was found and the item-factor correlation pattern was similar in males and females. In another sample, satisfactory reliability for the SSS was obtained and it was found to be positively correlated with field independence as measured by the Embedded Figures Test. In a third sample, nonsignificant correlations between SSS and Howard's Stimulus Seeking Maze tests were found. A significant negative correlation between SSS and anxiety, as measured by the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List was obtained.
An experiment was carried out to investigate relationships between individuals' personality characteristics and their perceptions of violent TV portrayals. A panel of 40 viewers rated brief violent episodes from five categories of programming, contemporary British crime-detective series, American police series, westerns, science-fiction series and cartoons on eight scales. These responses were then related to viewers' scores on the N, E and P dimensions of the EPQ. Results showed that violent scores from contemporary settings were rated as more serious than scores from non-contemporary and fantastic settings. In addition, viewers exhibited individual differences in ratings of TV violence which were related to certain of their EPQ scores. In particular, high N scorers tended to perceive violence generally, but especially that from contemporary British drama, as more serious than did low N scorers. This study indicates the need to include personality measures in the analysis of audience reactions to TV violence.
A study was carried out to examine viewers' perceptions of violent TV portrayals characterized by different degrees of observable harm to victims and by different programme settings. These perceptions were also related to viewers' personality scores on the EPQ. A panel of 40 individuals rated 18 brief TV scenes depicting violence in American crime-detective or science-fiction settings which resulted in fatal or non-fatal injury, or no observable harm to victims. Results showed that harmful violence was rated as significantly more serious than harmless violence in American crime-detective settings, but that the perceived consequences of violence were less salient discriminating attributes of content in science-fiction settings. There were also individual differences in ratings in that older people and lower P scores tended to perceive harmful violence as more violent, frightening and likely to disturb others than were younger people with higher P scores.
Theory and common correlates suggest a relationship between dimensions of personality measured by the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and the Sensation-Seeking Scale. In order to examine these relationships, the 2 tests were given to 219 American and 879 English adults of both sexes. Sensation-seeking was positively correlated with the traits of extraversion and psychoticism as measured by the EPQ, but there was no relationship between sensation-seeking and the trait dimension of neuroticism. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A comparative method of studying the biological bases of personality compares human trait dimensions with likely animal models in terms of genetic determination and common biological correlates. The approach is applied to the trait of sensation seeking, which is defined on the human level by a questionnaire, reports of experience, and observations of behavior, and on the animal level by general activity, behavior in novel situations, and certain types of naturalistic behavior in animal colonies. Moderately high genetic determination has been found for human sensation seeking, and marked strain differences in rodents have been found in open-field behavior that may be related to basic differences in brain neurochemistry. Agonistic and sociable behaviors in both animals and humans and the trait measure of sensation seeking in humans have been related to certain common biological correlates such as gonadal hormones, monoamine oxidase (MAO), and augmenting of the cortical evoked potential.The monoamine systems in the rodent brain are involved in general activity, exploratory behavior, emotionality, socialization, dominance, sexual and consummately behaviors, and intracranial self-stimulation. Preliminary studies have related norepinephrine and enzymes involved in its production and degradation to human sensation seeking. A model is suggested that relates mood, behavioral activity, sociability, and clinical states to activity of the central catecholamine neurotransmitters and to neuroregulators and other transmitters that act in opposite ways on behavior or stabilize activity in the arousal systems. Stimulation and behavioral activity act on the catecholamine systems in a brain–behavior feedback loop. At optimal levels of catecholamine systems activity (CSA) mood is positive and activity and sociability are adaptive. At very low or very high levels of CSA mood is dysphoric, activity is restricted or stereotyped, and the organism is unsocial or aggressively antisocial. Novelty, in the absence of threat, may be rewarding through activation of noradrenergic neurons.
The genetic and environmental contributions to the trait of sensation seeking were analyzed using the responses of 422 pairs of twins to the Sensation Seeking Scale (Form IV). The biometrical method of Jinks and Fulker was applied to the data. The data fit the model indicating the likelihood of a predominantly additive gene action controlling the general trait. The heritability figure of 58% (69% of the reliable variance) was quite high for a personality trait. Data from other studies suggest that the heritability of the personality trait rests upon specific inherited biological traits, such as the biochemicals of the brain and gonadal hormones which affect arousability of the central nervous system and relevant traits, such as mood, impulsivity, risk taking, and sociability.
Compared the factor structure of the Sensation-Seeking Scale (SSS) in English and American samples, and constructed a new form of the SSS, applicable to both groups. The English Ss consisted of 254 males and 639 females from the Maudsley Twin Register, ages 15–70 yrs. The American sample included 97 male and female undergraduates. Three of the 4 factors showed good cross-national and cross-sex reliability (i.e., significant and reasonably high resemblance between the 4 national and sex symbols). English and American males did not differ on the total SSS score, but American females scored higher than English females. Males in both countries scored higher than females on the total SSS score and on the Thrill and Adventure-Seeking and Disinhibition subscales. Significant age declines occurred for both sexes, particularly on Thrill and Adventure Seeking and Disinhibition. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
: A total of 53 female and 50 male students were shown a 11/2-hr film program preceded and followed by control periods of equal duration. Adrenaline and noradrenaline excretion increased significantly in both groups during the film period in relation to control levels before and after. During the film period, sexual arousal was the main emotional reaction reported by both sexes, the self-rating scores as well as their increases, however, being significantly higher in the male group. This difference in reported subjective reactions was paralleled by a corresponding difference in the urinary excretion of adrenaline, both the excretion levels and the increases over the control levels being significantly higher in the males. Possible explanations for the sex differences are discussed. Changes that occurred in the urine flow, specific gravity, and creatinine excretion during and after this type of psychosexual stimulation are reported, as are some psychoendocrine relations. Their possible significance is discussed against the background of the Kinsey hypothesis that men are more prone than women to sexual arousal from visual stimuli. Copyright (C) 1969 by American Psychosomatic Society
Sexual attitudes and experiemce: attitude and personality correlations and changes produced by a course in sexuality
- Zuckerman
The genetics of sensation seeking
- Fulker
Research on pornography
- Zuckerman
A correlational test in humans of the biological models of sensation seeking, impulsivity, and anxiety
- Zuckerman