Psychometric properties of the Highly Sensitive Child scale across developmental stage, gender, and country

Abstract

We would like to express our gratitude to all the participating children and adolescents from the primary and secondary schools in Belgium and the UK as well as their parents and teachers.

Experiences of Adults High in the Personality Trait Sensory Processing Sensitivity: A Qualitative Study

“…Given that SPS is a trait emerging early in life [ 7 , 13 , 30 , 31 ], the participants found out relatively late that they were high in SPS. Some participants expressed that if they had known earlier, some of their stress-related problems might have been prevented.…”

“…Cultural aspects may influence the expression and experience of SPS, and future studies could therefore study SPS in other countries or cultures. Second, since SPS is a heritable trait and is expressed from early childhood [ 2 , 7 , 13 , 30 , 31 ], knowledge on developmental aspects of SPS could improve early awareness of SPS. Furthermore, future research could also involve triangulation (perspective of others).…”

“…The first two subscales correlate with negative outcomes such as increased stress, depression, and anxiety, and the latter subscale with positive outcomes such as enhanced response to psychological intervention and positive mood induction [ 10 ]. The HSP scale items were later repeatedly shown to load onto an overarching “sensitivity”-factor that reflects variance common to all HSP scale items in addition to three orthogonal factors that capture variance specific to EOE, LST, and AES items [ 4 , 7 , 13 ]. This may reconcile the seemingly contradictory views of a unitary construct and different subscales.…”

“…The results from the HSP questionnaire differ from current theorising in that there is an overemphasis on overstimulation in the HSP scale, whereas depth of processing is only indirectly captured in the aesthetic sensitivity component [ 10 ]. Furthermore, the few items in the HSP scale referring to positive aspects of SPS (AES) appear to be measured less reliably [ 13 ]. Lastly, although SPS theory has been updated based on empirical evidence, certain hypothesised central characteristics are not theoretically fleshed out fully yet.…”

Normierung der deutschen Fassung der Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS-G) – Selbstbeurteilungsskala an einer deutschsprachigen Stichprobe

“…[19][20][21]) widerlegen die von Aron präferierte unidimensionale Struktur und schlagen eine dreifaktorielle Struktur des Konstrukts mit den Faktoren 1) Leichte Erregbarkeit (Ease of Excitation, EOE), 2) Ästhetische Sensitivität (Aesthetic Sensitivity, AES) und 3) Niedrige sensorische Reizschwelle (Low Sensory Threshold, LST) vor. Auch für eine Version für Kinder wurde die dreifaktorielle Lösung mit einem Gesamtfaktor bestätigt [14]. Während AES Reflektion und Bewusstsein als Indikator für die Tiefe der Verarbeitung beschreibt, erfasst EOE die emotionale Reaktivität auf physiologische Reize.…”