One of the most prominent features of high sensation seekers, especially those on the thrill and adventure seeking and the disinhibition spectrum, is their seeming lack of fear. Now kmost of us would never consider intentionally jumping out of high places because our natural survival instinct might kick in. Also, the average person wouldn't intentionally eat deadly puffer fish or blurt out whatever we want in public just to see the reaction our words might provoke in other people. Anxiety, whether it's social anxiety or the very real fear of the threat of death keeps our behavior in check, and it's a good thing too. Indeed, fear was absolutely essential to the survival of our ancestors. Without it, we probably wouldn't have made it very far. Our fear response protected us from predators. Fear is so essential that it's almost hardwired into one of the deepest areas of our nervous system, the amygdala. The amygdala is a bit of grey matter in the temporal lobe. Neurons in the amygdala are linked to emotions such as fear. Fear is not only essential for humans, it's probably a crucial response in all animal life. If you want to survive, avoiding things that could end your existence is a good place to start. We know that high sensation seekers have a different response to those complex and intense experiences. They're often calm in the middle of those extremely terrifying experiences. In fact, sometimes they seek them out. Now, could this be a superpower. One of the very first people I interviewed for this project was a friend of mine named Andrew. Andrew is a high sensation seeker. He was in the military, went to Police Academy, became a deputy sheriff and finally, settled into the field of psychology. All because he has a deep desire to help people. What is perhaps most extraordinary about Andrew, is his ability to jump into dangerous situations to help others. Once, we were walking along in my neighborhood with a group of people during a local festival. It was a beautiful day and there were people everywhere. A car drove by with a huge dog with half of his body sticking out of the car window and, sort of, taking in the wind. Then something happened. The dog leapt out of the moving car and tore down the street after a squirrel. Was the dog okay? Where was it going? The people in the car pulled over. Everyone was shocked except Andrew. I looked around and he was gone. Without missing a beat, he raced down the street, through the crowd and was able to nab the dog and reunited him with his owners. All of this before any of us realized what was going on. When I asked him what happened, he said, he just acted. Just act. That's something I hear over and over again from high sensation seekers. In fact, some of them use a phrase such as analysis is paralysis. Instead of analyzing situations they jump right into danger and they trust their bodies and minds to respond as needed in the present moment. The goal is not to think about what to do too soon and of course, not too late. All in all, that's not such a bad thing. Many of us do the opposite and we analyze each and every worry that pops out of our mind. There's a classic study that demonstrates this. Researchers had people keep a daily log of all the things that worried them throughout the day. I'll run out of gas on the way to work. I'll forget my friend's birthday next week. They'll run out of bananas at the grocery store. You get the idea. They capture the rambling flow of worry that many of us subject ourselves to each and every day. Then the researchers followed up. Did they get to work on time? Did they remember their friend's birthday? Do they have bananas? A stunning 85 percent of the concerns never came to pass. And for the concerns that did, the participants report that they handled them much better than they anticipated. Nevertheless, most of us get stuck in our negative ruminations. A sort of recreational anxiety and self-doubt about our ability to handle what life might throw our away. High sensation seekers are different. During their high sensation seeking activities, most handle the task in the moment without too much analysis. The rest of us tend to over analyze situations that never arise and not act on the ones that do. Not such a great combo. We'd like to think we would act if the situation demanded it. Instead, many of us stand passively by hoping someone else will. It's called the bystander effect. It's been demonstrated over and over again, that in dangerous situations, in situations where someone is going to get hurt or worse, the more people watching a crime, the less likely that any of them are to intervene. This may be because we assume that other bystanders will act or maybe because we are paralyzed by fear. High sensation seekers tend to break the chain of passivity. Perhaps, if we weren't so trapped or anxious in our minds, the story would be different. For at least part of the population, it certainly seems to be true. Can acting without fear, even without thought be problematic? Of course it can. But it's my feeling that we need people like this when things really go south. What's more, new research is showing us that being a high sensation seeker may protect against anxiety related conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder. This is likely due to the difference in dopamine and cortisol response that I described earlier. With lower levels of stress hormones coursing through your body, it's possible that it's easier to integrate and untangle potentially traumatic situations. All in all, the high sensation seekers ability to be calm in chaotic environs, and to trust their abilities, makes them perfect for certain kinds of careers. You want a high sensation seeker as a pilot in an airplane during an emergency. And trust me, you don't want a low sensation seeker, like me, working in an emergency room or a firehouse. Sounds like a superpower to me.
