Highly sensitive people react to social cues over physical environments

Environmental sensitivity may be a misleading name for a personality trait that appears to have less to do with how people respond to their physical environments and more to do with how they are affected by social experiences and perceived threats.

A new Washington State University study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that people who score highly on measures of environmental sensitivity – often called highly sensitive people – are no more emotionally reactive to everyday conditions such as uncomfortable temperatures, unpleasant smells or noisy streets than their less sensitive counterparts.

Instead, the research suggests that highly sensitive people are particularly attuned to social cues and signs of safety or potential threats. For example, a street littered with trash or covered in graffiti might trigger a greater sense of unease, while a neighborhood where people interact warmly could provide a stronger emotional boost.

For people who identify as highly sensitive, the findings could be reassuring, said Kim Meidenbauer, an assistant professor of psychology at WSU and lead author of the study. Having the trait doesn't necessarily mean reacting more strongly to every aspect of one's surroundings.

For people who do identify as highly sensitive, it's actually kind of nice to know that you're not necessarily going to have a stronger emotional response to all parts of your environment. It seems like it's more about social environments than the physical environment." 

Kim Meidenbauer, assistant professor of psychology, WSU and lead author of the study

Environmental sensitivity is a personality trait associated with feeling the effects of positive and negative experiences more intensely than others. Highly sensitive people tend to react more strongly to stress and adversity but may also benefit more from supportive relationships and positive experiences.

Research has also linked the trait to genetics. A previous study of nearly 2,900 teenage twins found that genetics may explain nearly half of the differences in how sensitive people are to their surroundings.

Most previous research has focused on how highly sensitive people respond to childhood experiences, trauma and other major life events. Meidenbauer and her colleagues wanted to know whether heightened sensitivity also extends to ordinary physical surroundings.

To find out, they analyzed more than 3,800 surveys completed by Chicago residents who used a smartphone app to record their emotions and rate conditions in outdoor neighborhoods and parks.

The researchers found that perceived safety, orderliness and friendly interactions among nearby people were more strongly associated with positive emotions in highly sensitive participants. But they found no evidence that the personality trait amplified emotional responses to physical conditions such as air quality, temperature or noise.

That distinction raises questions about what being highly sensitive actually means. The standard questionnaire used to identify the trait may be telling researchers more about how people handle emotional and social experiences than how they respond to the physical world. In other words, scientists may have been measuring a different kind of sensitivity than the name implies.

Meidenbauer cautioned that the results don't rule out stronger reactions to extreme conditions, such as dangerous heat or severe air pollution. Her laboratory is now investigating whether other personality traits and individual preferences for hot or cold weather can better explain why people respond differently to the same environmental conditions.

For now, the research raises a more fundamental question about what it really means to be highly sensitive. Rather than experiencing everything around them more intensely, highly sensitive people may simply be more affected by the human experiences that make a place feel welcoming or threatening.