Hans Eysenck's personality model and the constructs of sensation seeking and impulsivity

Fifty years ago, in their first meeting, Hans Eysenck and Marvin Zuckerman agreed that research was needed to clarify the relationships between Eysenck's Big Three (E = Extraversion, N = Neuroticism, and P = Psychoticism) and both impulsivity and sensation seeking. In later years, both Eysenck and Zuckerman agreed in their various publications, that sensation seeking correlates with both E and P, though more with P than with E. In fact, impulsivity and sensation seeking, might well occupy overlapping areas within the P + E + N + octant. In this paper, we discuss the similarities and differences among these various traits of extraversion, psychoticism, sensation seeking and impulsivity. We further present our position regarding the relationship of the constructs of arousal and arousability to these traits, suggesting that impulsivity is related to arousal, while sensation seeking is related to arousability.