In modern day psychology, personality is often evaluated through trait assessments. As you can imagine, many of these personality tests exist. In 1979, Marvin Zuckerman studied sensation seeking behaviors, and developed a personality assessment called the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS), to measure the following traits:

• Boredom susceptibility
  distaste for monotonous tasks or people


• Disinhibition
  pursuit of social behaviors like alcohol or partying


• Experience seeking
  seeking an unconventional lifestyle through unplanned activities and/or drugs


• Thrill and adventure seeking
  wanting to participate in exciting and risky sporting activities

Using the Sensation Seeking Scale, you are going to identify your boredom susceptibility. Before you begin, determine whether you think you will score high or low on this assessment, and why you are making this prediction.

 

Although Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale contains forty items, you will only encounter the ten items that deal with boredom susceptibility. Take a moment to complete this portion of Zuckerman's assessment by answering the Boredom Susceptibility Questionnaire. For each item in the scale, you will see choice A and choice B. Circle the answer that most describes your likes, or the way you currently feel. After you complete the scale, follow the instructions on how to score it.

Based on the information you have gathered about assessing personality, through Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale, and through Cohen's research, create a three-to-five minute podcast that address the following questions:

• Can researchers from different fields come to similar conclusions about personality? How do you know?
• Based on how you scored in the measure, do you think the Sensation Seeking Scale is reliable? Why or why not?
• Are modern day personality assessments more or less reliable than ones used in the past? Why?
• How can understanding your own personality prove helpful to your present or future life?

Your podcast should be well-organized, creative, and interesting. Instead of just presenting information, your podcast should weave the facts together in order to explain the value of assessing personality. In addition to your audio file, you should submit a transcript of your podcast. Use the audio recording information in the Developmental Module to help you create your podcast.

Before you begin, access the Personality Podcast Rubric to see how you will be graded on this assignment. You may need to use resources outside of this course to complete this assignment. If so, please submit a Works Cited document. If you need assistance, visit the Developmental Module for more information on citing any resources that you use.

 

Once you have completed your podcast, please submit the questionnaire, audio file, and transcript to the dropbox.