SENSATION SEEKING AND DEPRESSIVE MOOD

Abstract This study presents the investigation of the relations between dimensions of depressive mood and sensation seeking in 108 hospitalized depressed subjects. Globally, depressed subjects have lower scores of sensation seeking than normal subjects (paired by age and sex); but the weakness of sensation seeking is not proportional to the intensity of depression (Hamilton Depressive Scale) and to the intensity of anxiety (Covi Brief Anxiety Scale). Interesting relations appear with the emotional dimensions of depressive mood, which are consistent with previous studies of sensation seeking in psychology and psychopathology. On the general sample of depressed subjects, the more the subjects stand on the emotional deficit side, behavioural (affective observed monotony, lack of affective expressiveness and responsiveness) and subjective (anhedonia, affective global indifference for pleasant and unpleasant events), the lower is sensation seeking. Conversely, emotionally hyperexpressive subjects, on the side of impulsivity and irritability, score high on sensation seeking. These relations show specificities when age and sex of the patients are taken into consideration: in men, the more the subjects are anhedonic and global affectively indifferent, the higher they score on the Disinhibition Scale. This result confirms the early hypothesis of the seeking of intense and varied stimulations driven by the need to fill a lack of affective reactivity with common and mundane stimulations. These specific relations emphasize the pluridimensionality of sensation seeking whose scales seem to correspond to different behavioral, physiological, and biological processes.