Annotated Bibliography

Patoine, B. (2009). “Desperately Seeking Sensation: Fear, Reward, and the Human Need for Novelty Neuroscience Begins to Shine Light on the Neural Basis of Sensation-Seeking.” The Dana Foundation.

Retrieved from http://www.dana.org/News/Details.aspx?id=43484

The author of the article explored the new findings about thrill- and sensation seeking and discussed some of the differences between people who seek out thrill and risk and those who avid it. The author reported about four types of sensation-seeking behavior developed by psychologist M. Zuckerman: thrill & adventure seeking, experience seeking, disinhibition, and boredom susceptibility. The author also stated that sensation-seeking behavior has a normal bell-curve distribution. The author stated that there is a diminishing positive correlation between dopamine levels and risk-seeking. The author quoted research that showed an existence of a common area of the brain processing fear and reward. The author concluded that thrill-seeking behavior is a personal preference for different levels of fear vs. reward.