Measures of Environmental Sensitivity
Observer-Rated Environmental Sensitivity Moderates Children’s Response to Parenting Quality in Early Childhood
This empirical paper introduces the first observational measure of sensitivity for three-year-old children, the Highly Sensitive Child-Rating System (HSC-RS). Overcoming limitations of questionnaires, the HSC-RS assesses sensitivity objectively with trained experts rating children’s behaviour in a series of standardised situations. After describing the development of the measure, the authors test whether sensitivity measured with the…
Environmental sensitivity in children: Development of the Highly Sensitive Child Scale and identification of sensitivity groups.
This empirical paper describes the development of the Highly Sensitive Child (HSC) scale, a self-report measure of Environmental Sensitivity for children aged eight years and older. The paper features five studies based on four different UK-based samples with a total of 3581 children and adolescents. The psychometric properties of the new measure are reported as…
Dandelions, tulips and orchids: evidence for the existence of low-sensitive, medium-sensitive and high-sensitive individuals
This empirical paper provides evidence for the bi-factor structure of the 27-item HSP scale and tests for the existence of sensitivity groups in a series of adult samples. Contrary to the widely held notion that 20% of the population fall into a highly sensitive group while the remaining 80% are characterised by lower sensitivity, the…
Sensory-processing sensitivity and its relation to introversion and emotionality
This is the first academic paper on the concept of Sensory Processing Sensitivity. It is based on seven separate empirical studies on sensitivity. The main aim of the paper was to examine the relation between sensitivity and introversion as well as emotionality. However, the main contribution of the reported work is the development of a…