Clayton Richard R, Segress Melissa J H, Caudill Crystal A
University of Kentucky, College of Public Health, Lexington, KY, USA.
Addiction. 2007 Oct;102 Suppl 2:92-4. doi: 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2007.01959.x.
To discuss some of the conceptual and methodological issues about race/ethnicity and sensation seeking not discussed fully in the two empirical papers in this issue.
The authors of this commentary examined critically the papers in this issue by Vallone et al. and Stephenson et al. and asked if there were underlying or foundational issues that were ignored or not discussed adequately regarding the sensation seeking construct. After reviewing an initial list of those issues, a decision was made to discuss four of them.
There is inadequate attention paid to: (i) the developmental aspects of sensation seeking and the almost exclusive focus on youth; (ii) the possibility that sensation seeking is relevant primarily for initial events and not continuation, progression within and across drug classes, progression to dependence, regression, cessation and relapse; (iii) the putative multi-dimensionality of sensation seeking and the pervasive tendency of researchers to ignore the dimensions; and (iv) possible lack of validity of the construct within and across racial and ethnic groups.
The two papers in this issue by Vallone et al. and Stephenson et al., each of which is focused on racial/ethnic differences in the relationship of sensation seeking to tobacco attitudes, intentions and tobacco use, suggest that it is time for more foundational research on the relevance of the multi-dimensional definition of the construct. The relationship of the putative dimensions to each other and to other variables, and the utility of the construct for segmenting audiences and predicting public health outcomes, is an area where more foundational research is needed.
讨论本期两篇实证论文中未充分探讨的一些关于种族/民族与寻求刺激的概念和方法问题。
本评论的作者批判性地审视了本期瓦隆等人和斯蒂芬森等人的论文，并询问关于寻求刺激这一概念是否存在被忽视或未充分讨论的潜在或基础性问题。在审查了这些问题的初始清单后，决定讨论其中四个问题。
存在以下未得到充分关注的方面：（i）寻求刺激的发展方面以及几乎只关注年轻人；（ii）寻求刺激可能主要与初始事件相关，而与药物类别内和药物类别间的持续、进展、发展成依赖、消退、戒断和复发无关；（iii）寻求刺激假定的多维度性以及研究人员普遍忽视这些维度的倾向；（iv）该概念在不同种族和民族群体内部及之间可能缺乏有效性。
本期瓦隆等人和斯蒂芬森等人的两篇论文均聚焦于寻求刺激与烟草态度、意图及烟草使用关系中的种族/民族差异，这表明现在是时候对该概念的多维度定义的相关性进行更多基础性研究了。假定维度之间及其与其他变量的关系，以及该概念在划分受众和预测公共卫生结果方面的效用，是一个需要更多基础性研究的领域。
