Environmental Sensitivity: A Transdiagnostic Trait? |
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Environmental sensitivity is a trait whereby individuals show highetened reactivity to contextual stimuli.
Environmental sensitivity appears to be a biologically-based, evolved trait.
Environmental sensitivity has been linked to mental health problems.
Environmental sensitivity is best regarded and treated as a transdiagnostic risk factor for mental health.
Are you more than others affected by the moods of other people?
Do you become unpleasantly aroused when a lot is going on around you?
Are you deeply moved by the arts or music?
What does it measure, and why does it matter? Well, read on…
Research has amply documented the relationship between Big Five personality traits and psychopathology. For example, high trait neuroticism is associated with greater depression and anxiety, while low neuroticism coupled with higher levels of extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness is linked to better overall mental health adjustment.
More recently, research has honed in on a less-discussed but no less potent trait: environmental sensitivity (ES), characterized by a heightened degree of sensitivity to physical, emotional, and social stimuli. In other words, some people are highly attuned and reactive to their environment, while others are much more oblivious to it.
Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung was perhaps the first to point out this “innate sensitiveness,” but the empirical basis has been established via converging lines of evidence since the mid-1990s, labeling the phenomenon variably as differential........