Psychometric Properties and Validation of a German High Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS-G)

Abstract

Abstract. High sensitivity is an individual disposition to perceive and process external and internal stimuli more intensely than the average population. For measuring high sensitivity, Aron and Aron (1997) developed a unidimensional self-report questionnaire. However, Smolewska, McCabe, and Woody (2006) fitted a model with three correlated factors: ease of excitation, aesthetic sensitivity, and low sensory threshold. Both models were questioned by Evans and Rothbart (2008) who postulated a two-factor structure: negative affect and orienting sensitivity. Nonetheless, the studies presented so far are based on small samples and did not address the issues of the ordinal data and measurement invariance. We presented the first study that compared all postulated models, thereby taking the ordinal data into account, and evaluated the measurement invariance. We adopted the High Sensitive Person (HSP)-Scale for German-speaking populations and found that a three-factor model provided the best fit. However, we excluded 13 items because of their low factor loadings or high intercorrelations. The revised HSP-Scale fit a three-factor model. Furthermore, we could establish a high level of measurement invariance (strict invariance), indicating equality of loadings, thresholds, and residual variances across sex. The scale showed good psychometric properties and high test-retest reliability. Finally, relationships with psychological symptoms were presented.

A psychometric evaluation of the highly sensitive person scale: the components of sensory-processing sensitivity

“…The variation in the factor solutions of the sensitivity construct can be explained by: 1) inherent limits of factor analysis as a procedure which is based on excluding 'weak' factor load data, and 2) the quality of the method (scale of sensitivity). In (10,16,19,20) the models that were used as baseline were not fully valid statistically; rather they fit better than the one-factor model suggested by Aron (16) stress that their choice of a sensitivity model was based on a conceptual criterion. According to Aron and Aron (1) the popular three-component solution for the SPS structure cannot be considered final.…”

Measuring Environmental Sensitivity in Educational Contexts: A Validation Study With German-Speaking Students

“…While reliability measures of the scale were supported in numerous studies (e.g., Konrad & Herzberg, 2017;Pluess et al, 2018), results of the scale's validity, particularly with regard to the factorial structure, revealed different solutions. The majority of findings range from a unidimensional (e.g., Aron & Aron, 1997) or a two-factorial structure (e.g., first suggested by Evans & Rothbart, 2008, factors Temperamental Negative Affect and Orienting Sensitivity) to three factors (Smolewska et al, 2006; factor Ease of Excitation, factor Aesthetic Sensitivity and factor Low Sensory Threshold; see also Konrad & Herzberg, 2017).…”

“…Additionally, the scale has been translated into different languages, including Chinese (Jagiellowicz et al, 2011), Dutch (Evers, Rasche & Schabracq, 2008), and German (Konrad & Herzberg, 2017). All three translated versions, however, have been designed to be applied to adult samples.…”

“…For its measurement, Aron and Aron (1997) developed the Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSP Scale) for application with adults. However, despite some adaption into German (Konrad & Herzberg, 2017) and a first English version for children , no suitable measures of SPS for children exist in German. The presented two studies aimed at developing and validating a short, 10-item German version of the scale, which can be administered efficiently in educational field studies with German-speaking secondary school students.…”

Operationalization of the Russian Version of Highly Sensitive Person Scale

“…Причины много-образия факторных решений конструкта чувствительности, могут быть связаны, во-первых, c ограничениями самой процедуры факторного анализа, основанно-го на исключении данных со «слабыми» факторными нагрузками, во-вторых, c качеством самого измерительного инструмента (шкалы чувствительности). Как следует из большинства работ (Smolewska et al, 2006;Evans, Rothbart, 2008;Listou Grimen, Diseth, 2016;Konrad, Herzberg, 2017), взятые за основу модели чувстви-тельности не являются статистически безупречными, а лишь более подходящими, чем предложенная авторами опросника (Aron, Aron, 1997) однофакторная модель: три компонента в исследовании К.А. Smolewska (2006) Необходимость дальнейших исследований конструкта чувствительности об-работки сенсорной информации базируется на следующих аргументах: во-первых, не существует русскоязычной версии опросника HSPS, во-вторых, окончательно не решен вопрос о внутренней структуре конструкта (одномерности/многомер-ности) (Aron et al, 2012), что требует, вероятно, использования иных методов статистического анализа данных, в третьих, большая часть исследований (за ис-ключением Smolewska, 2006;Cheek et al, 2009;Konrad, Herzberg, 2017) были вы-полнены на небольшой выборке, а состав выборки зачастую был гомогенным (студенты вузов, женщины примерно одного возраста), что может рассматривать-ся как ограничивающий фактор.…”