The personality theory of Marvin Zuckerman

This model is used to classify our way of being and thinking into 5 personality factors.

The personality theory of Marvin Zuckerman is best known for his introduction of the "sensation seeking" factor, which has had a great influence in the field of personality psychology.

Beyond the relevance of the sensation-seeking dimensionThe model itself is an interesting alternative to the Big Five, the prevailing theory, because it is based on the Biological factors of personality described by Hans Eysenck.

Life and work of Marvin Zuckerman

Marvin Zuckerman was born in Chicago in 1928. After earning his doctorate in Clinical Psychology at New York University, he conducted research on anxiety through the analysis of personality, mainly through psychological tests.

During his studies on sensory deprivation at the at the University of Delaware, where he worked for more than 20 years, Zuckerman found that some subjects tolerated the experimental situation very well, while others showed very negative reactions to the lack of environmental stimulation.

From these results Zuckerman began to hypothesize about the existence of a basic personality factor related to sensation-seekingThe latter would depend on each individual's optimal level of arousal. Thus, people who need a lot of stimulation to feel at ease will have a greater tendency to seek sensations.

Zuckerman retired in 2002. He is now 79 years old and continues to write articles and book chapters. He also continues to constantly revise and expand his theories on personality.

An alternative theory to the Big Five

Zuckerman's personality theory emerged as an alternative to the Big Five model. alternative to the Big Five model of personality factors, also known as the "Big Five".also known as "Big Five" and "Ocean", which was originally developed by McCrae and Costa. This author's main criticism of the Big Five is the presence of cultural factors, in particular the Openness to Experience dimension.

In contrast, Zuckerman's theory focuses on the biological dimensions of personality.. The influence of Hans Eysenck's PEN model, which defines three main personality factors with a clear biological basis: Psychoticism, Extraversion and Neuroticism, is very notable in this regard.

Zuckerman and his collaborators developed this theory using several psychobiological tests, including the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and Zuckerman's own Sensation Seeking Scale, and subjecting the results to a factor analysis. a factor analysis in order to identify higher-order personality higher-order personality dimensions.

The 5 personality factors

The Zuckerman team's work concluded with the detection of a variable number of personality factors, ranging from 3 to 7. They decided that the grouping into 5 dimensions was the most balanced in terms of specificity and parsimoniousness.

The Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire is used to measure these traits.

1. Impulsivity-Sensation Seeking

Sensation seeking includes the need to experience new emotions and situations, as well as the tendency to take risks in different areas of life. Impulsivity and Eysenck's Psychoticism factor factor would also fall under this dimension, which has been linked to alterations in testosterone, dopamine and serotonin levels.

2. Sociability

The Sociability factor is very similar to Extraversion in Eysenck's model and the Big Five.. The items of the Zuckerman questionnaire that weigh in this dimension measure aspects such as the liking for interaction in large groups of people or the dislike for loneliness.

Neuroticism-Anxiety

Zuckerman's Neuroticism is equivalent to that described by Eysenck, which is related to sympathetic nervous system activity and fight or flight reactions that are triggered by stress. Neurotic people usually experience feelings of fear, obsessive ruminations, indecisiveness or sensitivity to criticism.

4. Aggression-Hostility

This factor is associated with anger, aggressiveness, impatience, rudeness and antisocial behavior, rudeness and antisocial behavior.. It correlates inversely with the Agreeableness dimension of the Big Five personality factors model.

5. Activity

People with high scores on Activity feel restless when they have nothing to do, have a lot of energy, and tend to be persistent. In addition, They tend to prefer to do activities that involve a challenge or require a high level of activity. or that require a high level of effort.

In Eysenck's model this factor is included in Extraversion, which depends on the level of cerebral alertness (or arousal). According to Eysenck extroverted people have chronically low levels of arousal, so they need a higher degree of environmental stimulation than extroverted people.They therefore need a higher degree of environmental stimulation than introverts to feel good.

Validity of Zuckerman's model

It is generally considered that personality models composed of five independent factors, which are common, are quite useful for exploring personalityThe Zuckerman model is generally considered to be quite useful for exploring personality, since it encompasses a number of different facets without going overboard in terms of the amount of information.

However, Zuckerman's model includes factors that overlap with each otheraccording to some reviews. This fact is especially marked in the Activity and Extraversion dimensions; however, the authors defend the separation between the two factors in order to account for sociability and activity level separately.

In any case, the work of Zuckerman's team has been replicated in different populations and has shown and has shown its ability to predict facets such as novelty seeking, psychopathy, reward dependence, self-direction, harm avoidance or cooperativeness.

On the other hand, factor analyses have clearly revealed the existence of the factor Openness to experience, the absence of which is the key difference between Zuckerman's proposal and the Big Five. In this model it would be diluted in the rest of the factors, especially Sensation Seeking.