Personality and curiosity about TV and films violence in adolescents

The present study was designed to adapt Zuckerman and Litle's Curiosity Abo ut Morbid Events scale (CAME) [Zuckerman, M., & Litle, P. (1986). Personali ty and curiosity about morbid and sexual events. Personality and Individual Differences, 7, 49-56] for Catalan-speaking adolescents, and to assess its relation with the junior personality scales, Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS/ J) and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ/J) within the framework of Zu ckerman's theory [Zuckerman, M. (1979). Sensation seeking; beyond the optim al level of arousal. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, N.J.]. The adapted and modified ve rsion of CAME, which we have called CAME-M/J, and the cited personality sca les were completed by a sample of 470 8th grade Basic General Education stu dents of both genders, with a mean age of 13.64 years (sd: 0.67). Prior to this, teacher-tutor perception of their students' aggressivity and excitabi lity traits was assessed using a Likert-style scale. The results show good convergent validity, internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The P scale of the EPQ/J and the subscales Dis and TAS of the SSS/J relate to t he consumption of violent films in boys, and E and TAS in girls. Boys who w atch more violent films are rated as being more aggressive and excitable by their teachers. Multiple regression analyses show the personality variable s P and Dis' to be the best predictors of the CAME-M/J scale in boys, and i n girls Dis, P and TAS. The results are compared with those obtained by Zuc kerman and Litle (1986). (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved .