To Sit Quietly in a Room Alone: The Psychology of Social, Material, and Sensation Seeking Input

Abstract

External input is any kind of physical stimulation created by an individual’s surroundings that can be detected by the senses. The present research established a novel conceptualization of this construct by investigating it from the perspective of three research areas that tap into its different aspects but have so far been disconnected—materialism, social motives, and sensation seeking. Studies 1-5 focused on individual differences regarding external input (i.e., the needs for material, social, and sensation seeking input). It was established that the three needs are positively related and constitute different dimensions of the overarching construct of external input, that the needs for social and sensation seeking input have negative consequences for how people experience long-term input deprivation (i.e., COVID-19 restrictions), and that the need for material input has negative consequences for people’s experiences of short-term input deprivation (i.e., sitting in a chair without doing anything else but thinking). Finally, Study 6 focused on external input as a situational characteristic and showed that the degree of sensation seeking input constituting various situations is a more important predictor, relative to social and material input, of how enjoyable and meaningful people perceive the situations and of their willingness to engage in them. Overall, the present research established a novel construct that has fundamental implications for people’s experiences and actions in a range of different contexts.