Being Highly Sensitive to the World Around You

Are you someone who feels like the world can be a bit too much for you? Do loud noises or bright lights leave you feeling overwhelmed? If so, you may be on the high end of a personality dimension known as "sensory processing sensitivity." This means that you may be more in tune with your surroundings, which surprisingly can impact your well-being and quality of life.

What Exactly is Sensory Processing Sensitivity and Why Are Some People More Sensitive?

It's about how your environment impacts you. Highly sensitive individuals (roughly 15-20% of the population) are more emotionally reactive and more likely to think deeply about what's happening around them. Studies have found that this trait may have evolutionary roots in both humans and animals. Here are a few of the items from the Highly Sensitive Person Scale:

• Are you easily overwhelmed by things like bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics, or sirens close by?
• Do you seem to be aware of subtleties in your environment?
• Do you notice and enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, works of art?
• Do you get rattled when you have a lot to do in a short amount of time?

How Does Being Highly Sensitive Affect Your Well-being?

Different theories have been proposed to explain why and how some people are more sensitive to their environment than others. And research has found mixed support for these theories. One theory suggests that highly sensitive people experience more disadvantages regardless of whether their environments are positive or negative. For example, studies have found that highly sensitive persons who had a tougher childhood were more likely to experience negative emotions, depression, and have lower life satisfaction than their less sensitive counterparts. But, when highly sensitive persons had a happier childhood, they still reported more feelings of anxiety and depression.

In contrast, a different theory views being highly sensitive as advantageous for positive events/environments. This was supported by studies showing that children high in sensory processing sensitivity benefited more from school-based resilience and anti-bullying interventions, and sensitive adolescents benefited more from positive school transitions than their less sensitive peers.

Finally, according to yet another theory, being highly sensitive confers greater advantages for positive events/environments and more disadvantages in response to negative events/environments. In line with this view, when people were put in a brain scanner and shown pictures of strangers and their loved ones expressing happy and sad emotions, highly sensitive individuals showed more activation across all conditions in brain regions responsible for awareness, sensory information integration, and empathy. Also, when highly sensitive individuals had to report their weekly life events, they experienced higher well-being after a good week compared to those less sensitive.

What Does All of This Mean for Highly Sensitive People in Daily Life?

We conducted a study to find out. We asked 239 people, with different levels of sensory processing sensitivity, to keep a diary for 21 days. They recorded how satisfied they were with their life, how they experienced positive and negative emotions, and how they felt about the best and worst things that happened to them that day.

Our study found that people who were more highly sensitive were more strongly affected by negative events, but did not react differently to positive events, compared to low-scorers.

This means that for the most negative events that happened those days, highly sensitive people felt less satisfied with life, less able to cope with those events, had lower self-esteem, experienced less positive emotions (such as happy and relaxation), and had more negative emotions (such as anger and sadness) than less sensitive individuals. Yet, they did not experience more self-esteem, more life satisfaction, or more positive emotions when encountering positive events compared to less sensitive people. It seems that being highly sensitive may influence daily well-being in a different way than on a weekly basis or longer-term (e.g., childhood experiences).

Although more research on sensory processing sensitivity is needed, our findings provide insight into how sensory processing sensitivity can affect people's emotional responses to daily hassles and uplifts.

For Further Reading

Aron, E. N., Aron, A., & Jagiellowicz, J. (2012). Sensory processing sensitivity: A review in the light of the evolution of biological responsivity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(3), 262–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868311434213

Pluess, M. (2015). Individual differences in environmental sensitivity. Child Development Perspectives, 9(3), 138–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12120

Van Reyn, C., Koval, P., & Bastian, B. (2022). Sensory processing sensitivity and reactivity to daily events. Social Psychological and Personality Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506221119357
 

Chiara Van Reyn obtained a research and clinical master of psychology at KU Leuven. She is currently doing clinical work at a psychiatric hospital.

Peter Koval is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne. His research interests lie at the intersection of social, personality, and clinical psychology with a focus on everyday emotional processes and their links with well-being and psychopathology.

Brock Bastian is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne. He is a social psychologist with research interests in the areas of culture, moral psychology, and well-being.