Adaptation of the brief sensation seeking scale in Spanish young adults: Psychometric properties and validity evidence

Abstract

Sensation seeking is a bio-psychological construct characterized by the willingness to pursue new, exciting and intense experiences. Previous research has shown that sensation seeking is strongly related to a range of risky and disruptive behaviors, especially among the young. The Brief Sensation Seeking Scale (BSSS) is an eight-item scale that has shown promising results and given evidence of its validity and reliability in North-American, Italian, Chinese, Peruvian, and Portuguese samples. The aim of the current study is to provide a concise, reliable and valid version of the BSSS in a sample of young Spanish adults and adolescents. To this end, two samples of 600 young adults and a third sample of 584 adolescents and young adults were recruited through online sampling. The results showed that: 1) the psychometric properties of the BSSS were adequate, 2) a strict factorial invariance level can be established across gender, with no structural differences between men and women, and 3) the BSSS is strongly related to alcohol use and the search for meaning. Taken together, our findings provide strong validity evidence, in line with previous research, showing that the BSSS is a psychometrically sound instrument for assessing sensation seeking in Spanish adolescents and young adults.