Children And Adolescents Sensation Seeking And Mental Health

Sensation seeking is a conception in the field of personality, which was first put forward by Zuckerman under the illumination of sensation deprivation experiments according to the best level of stimulated and aroused states. Sensation seeking is a trait defined by the seeking of varied, novel, complex, and intense sensation and experiences, and the willingness to take physical, social, legal, and financial risks for the sake of such experience. Foreign researchers have comprehensively explored the personality trait of sensation seeking, and discovered that it is a good predictor of human activities and mental health. This research is divided into two sections. The first section introduced the process of making Chinese version sensation seeking scale for children and adolescent based on our cultural background, and explored the character of children and adolescent sensation seeking in our country. The second section explored the relationship between sensation seeking and mental health level in adolescent, using the new Chinese version sensation seeking scale.The results of the first section showed that:(1) there are two factors in the Chinese Adolescent version sensation seeking scale and they are Thrill and Adventure Seeking (TAS) factor and Disinhibition (Dis) factor. Both the split-half and the Alpha reliability coefficients are higher than .78, implying the high consistency within the scale.(2) Both the construct and the index validity are statistically significant, showing the scientific nature of this scale.(3) The sensation seeking traits of Chinese adolescents are basically the same as those of foreign countries. The sensation seeking level of boys is higher than that of girls. And the level of sensation seeking in adolescents increases with ages.(4) The level of sensation seeking is influenced by both the congenital gene factors and the post-congenital social culture factors.The results of the second section suggested that: (1) the level of sensation seeking is closely related to the parenthood in adolescent. Proper family education style can reduce adolescent'santi-society behaviors.(2) Sensation seeking and parenthood are two important predictive indexes of the mental health in adolescent.(3) There are gender differences in the predictive values of sensation seeking and parenthood on mental health in adolescent. Sensation seeking has no effect on the mental health level of girls, while both sensation seeking and parenthood can influence the mental health level of boys.