Sensation seeking in homosexual and heterosexual males

Abstract

The study was designed to test the relationship between the personality trait of sensation seeking and homosexuality. Previous studies had shown a relationship between the trait and variety of heterosexual activity but had not shown a relationship to homosexual behavior. This study compared 19 male homosexuals associated with a gay club in a university, 16 control students belonging to a social club at the same university, 13 members of a gay church group, and 19 members of a nongay church group on conservative vs. liberal attitudes toward religion and politics, attitudes toward homosexuality, heterosexual and homosexual experience scales, and the sensation seeking scales. The control (nongay) church group had more conservative attitudes, less heterosexual experience, and lower sensation scores than the other groups. But the control university group did not differ from the gay university group on any of the sensation seeking scales and differed from the gay church group on only one of the subscales. However, the gay university group was also higher than the gay church group on this subscale, so the difference was probably a function of the younger ages of the university groups than the gay church group. It is concluded that male homosexuals, as a general group, do not differ from heterosexuals on the sensation seeking trait, although the trait might be related to variety of homosexual behavior and partners, just as it is to variety of heterosexual experience.