Sensation seeking and aggressiveness were hypothesised to contribute to the developmental basis of reckless behaviour in adolescence. This hypothesis was investigated in two studies, one on high school students and the other on college students. Sensation seeking was found to be related to every type of reckless behaviour, including five types of automobile driving, sex without contraception, sex with someone known only casually, number of sexual partners, alcohol and drug use, vandalism, and theft. Aggressiveness was related to several of the driving variables, as well as to vandalism and theft. For every type of reckless behaviour, frequencies of reckless behaviour were as high or higher for the college students than for the high school students. Findings are discussed in relation to socialisation in the culture of the American middle-class. (Author/publisher)
Abstract