Sensation Seeking and the Use of the Internet A Confirmatory Analysis of the Brief Sensation Seeking Scale (BSSS) by Gender

Sensation seeking is a personality trait, which has been studied mainly from the perspective of behavior problems. The current study extends that research to consider the use of the Internet. The Brief Sensation Seeking Scale (BSSS), created by Hoyle, Stephenson, Palmgreen, Lurch, and Donohew, was used. This article examined the relationship between sensation seeking and the use of the Internet from the gender perspective. The BSSS is invariant when the population studied is separated between non-Internet users, Internet users, and online buyers. However, some significant differences between the four dimensions of the scale appear when the authors introduce the gender variable.