Research
The research on sensory-processing sensitivity, however, builds on Eysenck's views on introversion and arousal and Gray's work on the inhibition system. This research in turn builds on Pavlov's work on sensory response to both physical and mental over-stimulation, and work by Jung and his contemporaries differentiating extroverted and introverted cognitive sensitivity types. This research shows that about 15-20% of humans and higher animals have a nervous system that is more sensitive to subtleties. This means that regular sensory information is processed and analyzed to a greater extent, which contributes to creativity, intuition, sensing implications and attention to detail, but which may also cause quick over-stimulation and over-arousal.
This temperament may also have some correlation with continuously high cortisol levels, which may cause hypervigilance and susceptibility to trauma, or the same traumas may encourage hypervigilance, which in turn may contribute to high cortisol. Being highly sensitive may amplify or create psychological issues when over-arousal occurs. The ability to unconsciously or semi-consciously process environmental subtleties often contributes to an HSP seeming "gifted" or possessing a "sixth sense". Sensitivity is often confused with shyness, but 30% of HSPs have extroverted personalities. Another common misconception is that only females can be HSPs; there are roughly the same number of male HSPs as female. The percentage appears to hold true for all animals possessing this trait.
Recent research in developmental psychology provides further evidence that individuals differ in their sensitivity. According to the differential susceptibility hypothesis by Belsky (1997b; 1997a; 2005) individuals vary in the degree they are affected by experiences or qualities of the environment they are exposed to. Some individuals are more susceptible (or sensitive) to such influences than others however, not only to negative but also to positive ones. For example, research by Pluess & Belsky has shown that children with difficult temperaments in infancy are more susceptible to the effects of parenting and child care quality in the first 5 years of life. Intriguingly, these children not only had more behavioral problems in response to low quality care, they also had the least problems of all children when having a history of high quality care suggesting that children with difficult temperament are highly susceptible rather than difficult and therefore able to benefit significantly more from positive experiences compared to other less susceptible children.
Read more about this topic: Highly Sensitive Person
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