Relationships
“No one likes me or wants to play with me!” Do highly sensitive adolescents feel peer acceptance and rejection more intensely?
Peers play a crucial role in the social lives of adolescents, but peer experiences may affect some adolescents more strongly than others.
In a study involving 1,207 adolescents, we revealed that adolescents who scored high on sensitivity felt better after imagining acceptance by peers but worse after imagining rejection by peers compared to their less sensitive counterparts.
Genetic Sensitivity to the Positive Effects of Relationship Education
Sensitive people are more affected by their experiences and sensitivity has a genetic basis. We tested whether genetic sensitivity predicts the response to a relationship education programme. We found that individuals with high genetic sensitivity improved more strongly regarding several aspects of relationship quality even two years after attending a relationship programme.