Y PsYCHOLOGY Curiosity and Exploration Loewenstein points four central issues of curiosity: + Definition e Cause * Voluntary exposure to curiosity © Situational determinants ‘A fifth issue of superficiality and intensity was added later. Zuckerman’s Sensation Seeking ‘Sensation seeking is a personality trait defined by the degree o which an individual ‘seeks novel and highly stimulating activities and experiences. People who are high in sensation seeking are attracted to the unknown and consistently seek new, varied and unpredictable. + People who are high in sensation seeking are individuals who have low level nervous system activation and therefore seek arousal from the external environment by looking for navel stimuli and engaging in varied experiences. ‘Individuals with low in sensation seeking are individuals who have higher level internal activation and do not tend to seek sensation from external sources. Zuckerman first created the sensation seeking scale in 1964 to measure an individuals ‘overall level of susceptibility to excitement or boredom in the context of sensory deprivation experiments. Current versions of the sef- report measure include 4 subscales: 1. Thrill and Adventure Seeking: the extent to which individuals engage in or are interested in participating in risky activities such as parachuting or skilling. 2. Experience Seeking: the degree to which one seeks excitement through the mind, such as from music, art and travel. 3. Disinhibition: seeking sensations through social stimulation and disinhibitory behaviors such as drinking and sex. 4. Boredom Susceptibility: avoiding monotonous, repetitive and boring situations, people and activities. McClelland’s Human Motivation Theory In the early 1940s, Abraham Maslow created his theory of needs . This identified the basic needs that human beings have, in order of their importance: physiological needs, safety needs, and the needs for belonging, self-esteem and “self-actualization”.