Talk:Sensory processing sensitivity

Under the existing title "Attributes, Characteristics, and Prevalence," there was a brief mention about how SPS has been distinguished from disorders, and how research has included and/or distinguished SPS from other labels. Perhaps this page would benefit from a new section/heading that specifically provides info on studies regarding SPS versus disorders (differences and false similarities that would cause confusion). In Aron's book Psychotherapy and the Highly Sensitive Person... Aron states that the interpretation of the definition of "disorder" and the seemingly similar traits of SPS clients to those of many DSM disorders may have caused misdiagnosis in the past, and goes on to analyze why (or identifies the source) of this confusion^[1].

From reading peer-review articles, it seems that much research has been centered around SPS in relation to personalities and other characteristics. Because relationships between SPS to other traits/characteristics are so important to the context of SPS in psychology, this Wikipedia article could benefit from additional studies that prove these associations, while keeping a balance between the positive and negative. Since there are both advantages and disadvantages for SPS, as already mentioned and cited in this Wikipedia article, it would benefit to show this with a correct positive/negative balance of specific data that allow readers to see for themselves that this is true. One example of an association can be found in the peer-review article "The Highly Sensitive Person: Stress and Physical Symptom Reports," in which SPS has been correlated to physical health symptoms, though this study did not show a causation. The article also noted that the relationship between SPS and physical symptoms was not dependent on self-rated stress levels^[2]. I find it important to add these correlations onto the Wikipedia page (while emphasizing that correlations don't imply causations) because of all seemingly multiplicity of studies that have gone into trying to link or distinguish SPS from other traits, characteristics, disorders, or other areas of life. In other words, adding studies/results that show the relationship between SPS and specific (dis)advantages would more strongly reinforce the idea that the scientific world recognizes both advantages and disadvantages to this trait.

To expand on the description of SPS, we could emphasize and elaborate that SPS is a trait subdivided into 3 parts: 1)Aesthetic Sensitivity, 2) Low Sensory Threshold 3) Ease of Excitation, using the peer-review article "A psychometric evaluation of the Highly Sensitive Person Scale...." This article describes the study that led to these subfactors within the HSP scale^[3].

Other areas we could improve on include reorganizing information under new headings. For example, the mention of brain function and genetics studies under the heading "Prevalence" could be moved to a different section titled "HSP in Various Research Areas." The body of information under "Prevalence" could instead expand on its current topic sentence that SPS is found in an abundance of non-human species. This way, the information listed under headings would be more relevant to the title of the heading.

In addition, Aron's book "Psychotherapy and the Highly Sensitive Person..." offers details about how Aron conducted her original research, including the demographics of her sample and how she polled volunteers for her research^[4]. This could be used to add more specifics under the heading "Origin and Development of the Terms" MissAndrea (talk) 08:20, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

MissAndrea, thank you for your many thoughtful comments. I agree with most of what you say, but this article has had a long history. Some Wikipedia editors raised issues in 2016 that caused this article to be shorter, such as by consolidating content or moving content from the body to footnotes. Also, some primary sources were removed, in favor of (preferable) secondary sources. The article was shortened, to avoid giving readers the impression that the concept has more mainstream scientific approval than some editors perceive that it does (though the Arons' 1997 scientific paper has been cited by over >300 scientific papers). Also, because of their sales of books and courses, the works of Drs. Aron are not considered by some to be adequately objective for Wikipedia purposes, and their statements must be put in context and not simply cited as authoritative. For these reasons (not all of which I agree with), many of your helpful suggestions would probably not fit community consensus here. However, when I have time I will consider your thoughtful suggestions and new citations. Thanks, and good luck on your project. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:13, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

After a 26 July 2019 tool-based edit, many links in footnotes were eliminated or changed. I'm not saying the changes are wrong (too massively labor-intensive to verify), but FYI the earlier citations are preserved in this version. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:47, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Dear Wikipedia Team, I suggest addition of below section to <Introduction>. Please let me know if this makes sense. Thanks.

Albert Einstein, Nicole Kidman, Jim Hallowes, Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Judy Garland and Martin Luther King Jr are some famous personalities that are highly sensitive (HSP). "Highly Sensitive and Creative". Retrieved 2020-09-15.

I appreciate the intent. However, after discussions in (mainly) 2016, the content of this article has been rather strictly limited to what's asserted in technical or medical papers. Whether historical figures and celebrities meet the HSP definition is conjectural or anecdotal, even if it's from Dr. Aron's website, so it's probably not appropriate here. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:23, 15 September 2020 (UTC)