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Marvin Zuckerman

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Books
  
Psychobiology of personality, Sensation Seeking And Risk, Sensation Seeking: Beyond t, Behavioral Expressions and Bios, Vulnerability to psychopathology

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Marvin Zuckerman (born March 21, 1928 in Chicago) is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Delaware. His work was inspired by various psychologists including Hans Eysenck and Arnold Buss. Zuckerman is known for his many works in personality research which has brought him to his biological approach regarding sensation seeking. Zuckerman started developing his research on sensation seeking when he arrived as a Professor of Psychology at the University of Delaware in 1969. Sensation seeking is still growing and being developed by many research psychologists and is a very well known finding. Zuckerman started his career at New York University and gained his Ph.D in clinical psychology. He then took his career to Norwich State Hospital in Connecticut, where he was hired at a psychiatric institute and studied numerous developments pertaining to anxiety, which was developed through the work of studying personality assessments. At the psychiatric institute, Zuckerman exhibited research on sensory deprivation. This lead him to develop his very well known experimental research on the Sensation Seeking Scale.

Contents

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Professional career

Marvin Zuckerman is best known for his research in personality, which ultimately brought him to the development of his most famous contribution to psychology, his biological approach regarding sensation seeking. He began his professional career following his graduation from New York University where he received his Bachelor's Degree and eventually his Ph.D in clinical psychology in 1954. After receiving his Ph.D. with the help of Arnold Buss, Zuckerman was able to clarify his career goals in psychology. Zuckerman then took his career to Norwich State Hospital in Connecticut. There, he was hired at a psychiatric institute where he studied developments pertaining to anxiety. Most of his studies at the institute were done through personality assessments. Zuckerman then arrived in Newark, Delaware where he accepted a job at the University of Delaware in 1969. The University of Delaware is where Zuckerman spent more than 20 years teaching and researching his theory of sensation seeking with the help of many dedicated students. During the year of 1975, Zuckerman started a series of presentations at international meetings in Europe. Zuckerman credits Hans Eysenck as the inspiration to the biological approach to personality before he spent a year with both him and Sybil Eysenck at the Maudsley Institute in London. He also credits Eysenck for giving him the opportunity to work with David Fulker, and Sybil Eysenck on the genetics of sensation seeking. This also took place at the Maudsley Institute in London. Overall, Zuckerman has written more than 200 articles, book chapters, and several books. He also serves on the editorial board of Personality and Individual Differences, which was founded by Hans Eysenck.

Life

Zuckerman is of Russian ancestry on his father's side and Romanian and English ancestry on his mother's side; both his grandfathers and grandmothers were born in Europe. Zuckerman has two children and four grandchildren. His father emigrated Russia before World War I to England, where he met his wife and became the president of his synagogue.

Zuckerman retired in September of 2002, at the age of 74 and now lives in Philadelphia where he spends much of his time writing journal articles and invited book chapters for international handbooks as well as having revised his 1991 book Psychobiology of Personality.

Sensation seeking

Sensation seeking is described as a personality trait that is defined by the search for feelings and experiences that are "varied, novel, complex and intense." Zuckerman developed the concept at the University of Delaware. The research of sensation seeking led him to create a personality test called the sensation seeking scale which measures individual differences in terms of 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 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 can be used to describe human personality. Zuckerman also has argued that sensation seeking is independent of other major dimensions of personality. Zuckerman's sensation seeking and Hans Eysenck's big five extroversion have been related to Optimal Level. "Both have been correlated with sensation-seeking in sexual experience."

Books

  • Personality Science: Three Approaches and Their Applications to the Causes and Treatment of Depression (2011)
  • Sensation Seeking And Risky Behavior (2007)
  • On the Psychobiology of Personality: Essays in Honor of Marvin Zuckerman (2004)
  • Vulnerability to psychopathology (1999)
  • Behavioral Expressions and Biosocial Bases of Sensation Seeking (1994)
  • Psychobiology of personality (1991)
  • Sensation Seeking: Beyond the Optimal Level of arousal (1979)
  • References

    Marvin Zuckerman Wikipedia