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 seeking, particularly on the thrill-and-adventure-seeking subscale (TAS). However, the TAS subscale will not permit differential prediction of who will prefer which high-risk job. The cognitive style of field dependence–independence (FDI) could have predictive faculty. We compared a group of bomb-disposal experts to one comprising anti-terror operatives, examining both personality (sensation seeking and the Eysenckian Big Three) and cognitive style. Our prediction was that while both groups would score high on TAS, they would differ on FDI. For comparison, we provide relevant data taken from recently published norms [Glicksohn, J., & Abulafia, J. (1998). Embedding sensation seeking within the big three. Personality and Individual Differences, 24, 1–15]. The personality profile of the high-risk, prosocial, professional was found to conform to that of the nonimpulsive sensation seeker who is emotionally stable. As hypothesized, bomb-disposal experts were found to be markedly more field independent than were anti-terror operatives.