The Intermingling of Pain and Pleasure: The Stress-seeking Personality in Its Social Context

Stress-seeking is defined as behavior designed to increase the intensity of emotion or level of activation of the organism. The term is retained to draw attention to people who seek arousal in ways that expose them to fear and to disabilities. Evidence is presented to show that both fearful and pleasant emotions draw upon the same energic reservoir. The degree of arousal, activation, or emotional intensity may be assessed from behavioral measures of gross movement and task engagement, or by physiological measures such as those based on the Galvanic Skin Response or electroencephalogram. (Author).