[Sensation seeking and anhedonia in risk taking. Study of a population of bungy jumpers].

This study presents the investigation of the relations between sensation seeking (41) and anhedonia in 80 subjects who practice a risk taking sport, bengy jump. These relations were examined according to different variables which characterize the practice of bengy jump: the total number of previous jumps and the motivations to jump (1. personal motivation, 2. professional motivation--working in the jumping organization, and 3. group motivation--for example being leaded to jump by friends). We also assessed the use of psychoactive substances. All jumpers (men and women) have higher scores than control subjects in Thrill and adventure seeking dimension. In men, the more the subjects score on this dimension, the less they score on the physical anhedonia scale (8). In women, Experience Seeking and Boredom Susceptibility dimensions are positively correlated with physical anhedonia and with the number of jumps. Moreover, women with personal motivation are those who score the highest on Thrill and Adventure Seeking and Boredom Susceptibility dimensions. These results suggest that in women, sensation seeking through bengy jumping may be linked to a boredom tendency and driven by a need to compensate for a difficulty in experiencing emotions and sensations from common and mundane stimuli. In men, high frequency of bengy jumping was negatively related to the use of psychoactive substances, suggesting that bengy jump, in a compulsive form recalling an addictive behavior, is a specific and preferential way of stimulation seeking.