A new study has found that some people have a greater emotional
sensitivity and are programmed to better recognize and understand what
others are going through.
If you can’t help but cry every time you go to a wedding, or if you think that handling so many emotions all the time is really hard work, you may belong to the 20 percent of the population that has high sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), an innate trait associated with greater empathy.
Dr Elaine Aron from Stony Brook University in the US has created the highly sensitive people (HSP) concept to describe those who are emotionally reactive, pay very close attention to little things and process information more thoroughly. Along with social psychologist Dr Arthur Aron and a team of researchers, she developed a test to see if indeed HSP have a more intense reaction to others’ emotions.
The researchers recruited 18 married persons with either high or low SPS, and scanned their brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while the volunteers saw pictures of sad or smiling strangers and/or family members.
When the HSP subjects viewed these images, their brain activity increased, particularly in areas associated with awareness, action planning and processing sensory information. The mirror neuron system, which is strongly associated with empathetic response, showed increased activity as well. The brains of non-HSP didn’t show increased activity in these areas.
"We found that areas of the brain involved with awareness and emotion, particularly those areas connected with empathetic feelings, in the highly sensitive people showed substantially greater blood flow to relevant brain areas than was seen in individuals with low sensitivity during the 12-second period when they viewed the photos," said Dr Arthur Aron in a news release. "This is physical evidence within the brain that highly sensitive individuals respond especially strongly to social situations that trigger emotions, in this case of faces being happy or sad."
If you can’t help but cry every time you go to a wedding, or if you think that handling so many emotions all the time is really hard work, you may belong to the 20 percent of the population that has high sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), an innate trait associated with greater empathy.
Dr Elaine Aron from Stony Brook University in the US has created the highly sensitive people (HSP) concept to describe those who are emotionally reactive, pay very close attention to little things and process information more thoroughly. Along with social psychologist Dr Arthur Aron and a team of researchers, she developed a test to see if indeed HSP have a more intense reaction to others’ emotions.
The researchers recruited 18 married persons with either high or low SPS, and scanned their brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while the volunteers saw pictures of sad or smiling strangers and/or family members.
When the HSP subjects viewed these images, their brain activity increased, particularly in areas associated with awareness, action planning and processing sensory information. The mirror neuron system, which is strongly associated with empathetic response, showed increased activity as well. The brains of non-HSP didn’t show increased activity in these areas.
"We found that areas of the brain involved with awareness and emotion, particularly those areas connected with empathetic feelings, in the highly sensitive people showed substantially greater blood flow to relevant brain areas than was seen in individuals with low sensitivity during the 12-second period when they viewed the photos," said Dr Arthur Aron in a news release. "This is physical evidence within the brain that highly sensitive individuals respond especially strongly to social situations that trigger emotions, in this case of faces being happy or sad."
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