An assessment of the Efficiency of the Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale in indicating substance abuse tendencies among early adolescents.

Abstract

Individuals involved in the assessment of drug abuse with preadolescents need to have a test that can be used for screening. Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale could be such a test. Prior to its use as an appropriate measure for possible drug abuse with preadolescents, its validity must be established with this population. The present study was designed to establish the construct validity of the Sensation Seeking Scale-V (SSS-V) by looking at the characteristics of preadolescents scoring very high or very low on the SSS-V. Preadolescents with high scores are hypothesized to be at-risk for involvement in drug experimentation, while those obtaining low scores were hypothesized to be not-at-risk. The children participating in the study were labeled at-risk or not-atrisk by their school counselors using a list of operant descriptors of youth who are at-risk of becoming involved in alcohol/substance abuse. An established database with a sample of 1169 preadolescents was used. The SSs-v yielded four subscale scores (Experience Seeking, Thrill and Adventure Seeking, Boredom Susceptibility, and Disinhibition). However, the researcher was only interested in the ES and Dis subscales. For both risk and not-at-risk groups the mean scores obtained were higher for males than females. Two 2 X 2 analyses of variance were conducted to examine differences in gender (male, female), risk (at-risk, not-at-risk) and subscale scores (ES, Dis). Significant main effects were found on the ES subscale for both sex and risk. Risk was the only significant main effect on the Dis subscale. Due to the representative and large sample this study can be widely generalized.