Developing a personality profile of the bomb-disposal expert: the role of sensation seeking and field dependence-independence

The high-risk, prosocial professional should score highly on sensation seek ing, particularly on the thrill-and-adventure-seeking subscale (TAS). Howev er, the TAS subscale will not permit differential prediction of who will pr efer which high-risk job. The cognitive style of field dependence-independe nce (FDI) could have predictive faculty. We compared a group of bomb-dispos al experts to one comprising anti-terror operatives, examining both persona lity (sensation seeking and the Eysenckian Big Three) and cognitive style. Our prediction was that while both groups would score high on TAS, they wou ld differ on FDI. For comparison, we provide relevant data taken from recen tly published norms [Glicksohn, J., & Abulafia, J. (1998). Embedding sensat ion seeking within the big three. Personality and Individual Differences, 2 4, 1-15]. The personality profile of the high-risk, prosocial, professional was found to conform to that of the nonimpulsive sensation seeker who is e motionally stable. As hypothesized, bomb-disposal experts were found to be markedly more field independent than were anti-terror operatives. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.