Marvin Zuckerman

Professor
Ph.D., New York University, 1954
zuckerma@udel.edu

Department of Psychology
Phone: Office (302) 831-8197: Lab 831-4621: Fax (302) 831-3645

Home (410) 398-8190

Office: Room 214 Wolf Hall

Research Interests

Sensation seeking trait: Its role in risk-taking behaviors, alcohol and drug use, sexual behavior, sports, marital and premarital relationships, media and art preferences, humor, fantasy, creativity, and social attitudes, and its biological bases. Personality trait structure and assessment and the psychobiological bases of personality. Psychopathology: The roles of genetic and biological diatheses, stress and personality.

Laboratory News:

Robert Breen (B.A., Stockton State College) has completed a thesis project on the role of impulsive sensation seeking and gambling attitudes and beliefs on gambling behavior in the laboratory with a decreasing pay-off schedule.

Michael Kraft (B.A., University of Delaware) has successfully defended a thesis on "Perceived parental behavior of biological parents and step-parents reported by young adults and relationships between perceived parenting and personality."

Carolyn N. Johnson (M.A., University of Delaware) has successfully defended a dissertation on "Independent and interactive effects of personality and alcohol use on AIDs-related risky sexual behavior."

Marvin Zuckerman and D. Michael Kuhlman have developed a new "Alternative Five Factor" model of personality and a test to measure these five factors (Sociability, Neuroticism-Anxiety, Impulsive Sensation Seeking, Aggression-Hostility, and Activity): Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire (ZKPQ) (Zuckerman, M., Kuhlman, D. M., Joireman, J., Teta, P., & Kraft, M. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 757-768). The test has been given to large normative samples of American and Japanese students and to special samples: Drug abusers, prostitutes, students engaged in various college team sports, and others. Copies of the questionnaire are available for interested researchers.

Recent Books and Articles

• Zuckerman, M. (1991). Psychobiology of Personality. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
• Zuckerman, M. (1994). Behavioral expressions and biosocial bases of personality. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Zuckerman, M. (1995). Good and bad humors: Biochemical bases of personality and its disorders. Psychological Science, 6, 325-332.

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