A study related sensation-seeking scores recorded during adolescence to drug responses in young adulthood. Higher sensation seekers showed larger effects on several outcomes, but the direction depended on whether the drug was a stimulant or a sedative.
Kelly and colleagues recruited young adults aged 18–21 who had consistently scored in the upper or lower third of their school-grade cohort on sensation-seeking assessments between ages ten and fourteen.
Participants completed repeated laboratory sessions with placebo and several doses of oral d-amphetamine or diazepam under double-blind conditions. These were separate drug conditions, not an experiment combining the two medications.
The experiment produced typical stimulant effects with d-amphetamine and sedative effects with diazepam. Several performance, cardiovascular and positive-subjective effects were larger among high sensation seekers, while negative subjective effects were more prominent among low sensation seekers.
The discussion described amphetamine-related performance gains on selected measures among high sensation seekers and diazepam-related performance impairment in that group. Greater sensitivity therefore was not inherently beneficial; its meaning depended on the drug and outcome.
Because sensation seeking had been measured years earlier, it was not merely a rating obtained immediately after the drug experience. That strengthens the temporal ordering of the trait information.
It does not establish that sensation seeking itself caused the response differences. Other characteristics associated with the trait or with selection into the extreme groups could contribute.
The investigators emphasized sample-size, statistical-power and dose-range limits. Extreme-group comparisons also do not necessarily describe people with intermediate scores or older adults.
The findings support studying stable individual differences in pharmacological response. They do not validate childhood sensation-seeking scores as a test for future addiction, safe medication dosing or acute impairment. A group association remains different from a reliable prediction about a particular person.
Related reading: Why faster responses can accompany more errors.