Marvin Zuckerman (March 21, 1928, in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

– November 8, 2018) was Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially known as UD, UDel, or Delaware) is a Statutory college#Delaware, privately governed, state-assisted Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Newark, Delaware, United States. UD offers f ...

. Zuckerman is best known for his research into the psychobiological basis of human personality,Zuckerman, M. (2011). ''Personality Science: Three Approaches and Their Applications to the Causes and Treatment of Depression''. Washington, DC:

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychologists in the United States, and the largest psychological association in the world. It has over 170,000 members, including scientists, educators, clin ...

. sensory deprivation, mood state measurement, and

sensation seeking Sensation seeking is a trait theory, personality trait defined by the search for experiences and feelings, that are "varied, novel, rich and intense", and by the readiness to "take physical, social, legal, and financial risks for the sake of such ...

.Zuckerman, M. (2008). Personality and sensation seeking. In Boyle, G.J., Matthews, G., & Saklofske, D.H. (Eds.), ''The SAGE Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment: Vol. 1 - Personality Theories and Models'' (pp. 379–398). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE. His work was particularly inspired by eminent research psychologists,

Hans Eysenck Hans Jürgen Eysenck ( ; 4 March 1916 – 4 September 1997) was a German-born British psychologist. He is best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality psychology, personality, although he worked on other issues in psychology. At t ...

(''3rd most highly cited psychologist'') and Arnold Buss.

Academic career

Zuckerman earned his Ph.D. at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

in 1954 in clinical psychology. He then took up a position at Norwich State Hospital in Connecticut where subsequently he was hired at the ''Institute for Psychiatric Research'' undertaking

personality assessments A personality test is a method of assessing human personality constructs. Most personality assessment instruments (despite being loosely referred to as "personality tests") are in fact introspective (i.e., subjective) self-report questionnaire ( ...

and where he constructed the ''Multiple Affect Adjective Check List'' (a state-trait self-report measure of anxiety, depression, and hostility). At the Institute, Zuckerman undertook research into anxiety and sensory deprivation (funded by NIMH grants) which ultimately led him to develop his well known

Sensation Seeking Scale The Sensation Seeking Scale is one of the most common psychological instruments for measuring sensation seeking. It was created in 1964 by Marvin Zuckerman, at the University of Delaware.Zuckerman, Marvin, et al. "Development of a sensation-seekin ...

. Subsequently, in 1969, he accepted an academic position in the Department of Psychology at the

, where he spent more than 30 years teaching and undertaking research into sensation seeking and personality. His biochemical, psychophysiological and genetic studies demonstrated that sensation seeking was a major biologically-based trait construct.Zuckerman, M. (2005). ''The biological basis of personality'' (2nd edn.). New York: Cambridge. Online

/ref> Also, his research into augmenting/reducing of the cortical evoked potential provided a reliable model of brain functioning in high and low sensation seekers. Zuckerman spent sabbaticals with eminent colleagues Hans Eysenck, Jeffrey Gray, and Robert Plomin, in England, where factor analytic studies showed that a combination of impulsivity and sensation seeking formed a reliable personality dimension. In 1975, Zuckerman commenced a series of presentations at international meetings in Europe. Zuckerman credits Hans Eysenck's work into the biological approach to personality as being inspirational, before spending a year with Hans Eysenck at the

Maudsley Hospital The Maudsley Hospital is a British psychiatric hospital in south London. The Maudsley is the largest mental health training institution in the UK. It is part of South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and works in partnership with the I ...

in London. He also credits Eysenck for giving him the opportunity to work with

David Fulker David William Fulker (8 March 1937 – 9 July 1998) was a British behavioural geneticist at the University of Colorado's Institute for Behavioral Genetics. Among positions of esteem, he was elected president of the Behavior Genetics Associatio ...

, and Sybil Eysenck on the genetics of sensation seeking at the Maudsley Institute in London. Zuckerman has written hundreds of highly influential research articles, book chapters, and many prominent books. He also serves on the editorial board of ''

Personality and Individual Differences ''Personality and Individual Differences'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published 16 times per year by Elsevier. It was established in 1980 by Pergamon Press and is the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Individ ...

'', which was founded by Hans Eysenck (Editor-in-Chief).

Life

Zuckerman retired in September 2002, aged 74 years and resided in Philadelphia where he wrote journal articles and invited book chapters for international handbooks until shortly before his death.Zuckerman, M., & Aluja, A. (2015). Measures of sensation seeking. In Boyle, G.J., Saklofske, D.H., & Matthews, G. (Eds.), ''Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Constructs (pp. 352–380)''. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Academic Press.

/ref> as well as having revised his 1991 book the ''Psychobiology of Personality'', and writing new books on sensation seeking and personality science, respectively.

Sensation seeking

Sensation seeking is described as a personality trait construct that is defined by the search for feelings and experiences that are "varied, novel, complex and intense." Zuckerman developed the sensation seeking construct during his tenure at the University of Delaware. His sensation seeking research led him to create a personality instrument called the

(SSS) which purports to measure individual differences in terms of their sensory preferences. The Sensation Seeking Scale was designed to measure how much stimulation a person requires and the excitement that is admitted. Zuckerman hypothesized that people who are high sensation seekers require a lot of stimulation to reach their Optimal arousal, Optimal Level of Arousal. When the stimulation or sensory input is not met, the person finds the experience unpleasant. Zuckerman argues that sensation seeking is one of many "core traits" that describe human personality, and is independent of other major dimensions of personality (e.g., Extraversion-Introversion, Neuroticism-Stability, and Psychoticism - as measured in the

Eysenck Personality Questionnaire In psychology, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) is a questionnaire to assess the personality traits of a person. It was devised by psychologists Hans Jürgen Eysenck and Sybil B. G. Eysenck. Hans Eysenck's theory is based primarily on ...

or EPQ-R).Eysenck, H.J., & Eysenck, S.B.G. (1991). ''Eysenck Personality Questionnaire - Revised''. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Selected bibliography

* Zuckerman, M. (1979). ''Sensation Seeking: Beyond the Optimal Level of Arousal''. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. * Zuckerman, M. (1994). ''Behavioral Expressions and Biosocial Bases of Sensation Seeking''. New York: Cambridge University Press. * Zuckerman, M. (1999). ''Vulnerability to Psychopathology: A Biosocial Model''. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. * Zuckerman, M. (2005). ''Psychobiology of Personality'' (2nd edn.). New York: Cambridge University Press. * Zuckerman, M. (2007). ''Sensation Seeking and Risky Behavior''. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. * Zuckerman, M. (2011). ''Personality Science: Three Approaches and their Applications to the Causes and Treatment of Depression''. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. *Aluja, A., Kuhlman, M., Aluja, A. (2010).

References

External links

Marvin Zuckerman
at

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Zuckerman, Marvin 2018 deaths 1928 births Health professionals from Chicago 20th-century American psychologists New York University alumni University of Delaware faculty Personality trait theorists 21st-century American psychologists American textbook writers