Sensory Processing Sensitivity and Reactivity to Daily Events

• Published in: Social psychological & personality science Vol. 14; no. 6; pp. 772 - 783
• Main Authors: Van Reyn, Chiara, Koval, Peter, Bastian, Brock
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-08-2023; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Activities of daily living; Affective experiences; Cognition; Everyday life; Individual differences; Negative events; Positive life events; Reactivity; Self esteem; Sensory processes; multilevel modeling; emotional reactivity; daily diary; sensory processing sensitivity; appraisals
• ISSN: 1948-5506; 1948-5514
• DOI: 10.1177/19485506221119357

Sensory processing sensitivity is an individual difference that captures the extent to which people show heightened emotional reactivity to, and increased cognitive processing of, their environment. Although central to its definition, there has been no research examining whether highly sensitive individuals display stronger reactivity to naturally occurring negative and positive events in everyday life. We addressed this gap by carrying out a 21-day online diary study with 239 participants, varying in sensory processing sensitivity, who reported their daily life-satisfaction, affective experiences, and self-esteem along with appraisals of the most negative and positive events of the day. Multilevel analyses demonstrated that individuals higher in sensory processing sensitivity showed greater reactivity to more subjectively intense negative events, but no difference in their reactivity to positive events. These findings provide initial insights into how sensory processing sensitivity manifests in daily emotional reactivity with greater reactivity to negative events in our study.