Human sensitivity and empathy can be studied, measured, and shared. The psychologist and biologist Kamila Jankowiak-Siuda, PhD, DSc, an Associate Professor at SWPS University in Warsaw, Poland, discusses what modern science knows about these phenomena in an interview with Dagny Kurdwanowska.
CT scans of the brain are useful not only in medicine but also in the study of human emotions and behavior. Although emotions and behavior largely depend on cultural conditioning, they nevertheless rest on a foundation of pure biology.
Dagny Kurdwanowska: “Sensitivity” is a very broad term—it can be a synonym for empathy, for example, or sometimes even for sadness. But what is it really?
Kamila Jankowiak-Siuda: Sensitivity is indeed a broad concept that turns up in a variety of scientific fields: psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience, as well as evolutionary biology. It also has certain colloquial meanings, as you mentioned. But from a purely scientific point of view, the definition that seems the most on-target to me states that sensitivity is an increased reactivity to stimuli—stimuli reaching us both from outside, such as a sound, an image, a friend’s anger, or the joy of someone close, and from within: everything we feel, think, interpret, or imagine. Based on how our body reacts to these stimuli, how it processes them, and how it is influenced by them, we can talk about differing degrees of sensitivity.
Does there exist a scale on which a normal or average level of sensitivity can be identified as a kind of reference point, or are our subjective perceptions sufficient here?
Psychology has produced a variety of tools for measuring sensitivity. There are also quite a number of concepts trying to elucidate the phenomenon.
One approach to sensitivity that’s currently very popular was introduced by the psychologists Elaine and Arthur Aron. The discussion we are having today, about what it means to be highly sensitive, has its roots in their theory. The Arons noticed that certain people among us are highly sensitive, characterized by heightened sensory processing. Greater sensitivity to stimuli can come with more intense reactions to taste, smell, noise intensity, or light, as well as stronger physiological reactions—for example, to stimuli coming from inside our body, to emotions. Elaine and Arthur Aron used the acronym DOES to describe this phenomenon: D stands for “depth of processing,” O for “overstimulation,” E for “emotional reactivity,” and S for “sensing subtleties.”
Are four letters really enough to characterize a person’s degree of sensitivity?
Although it may seem oversimplified, this model does give us a certain cross-sectional idea of a person’s degree of sensitivity. Depth of processing (D), for example, tells us the extent to which someone sees or imagines what someone else is experiencing. This often manifests itself in wandering thoughts, which can lead to over-analysis or fixation on a particular topic. Overstimulation (O), in turn, is very significantly related to the biological view of sensitivity. It indicates whether the autonomic nervous system is excessively stimulated. That system should become activated when there is some kind of threat in our environment, but in people with heightened sensitivity this can happen even due to ordinary stimuli. This overstimulation sometimes leads to exhaustion or burnout—in other words, we then have another reaction: the feeling that enough is enough, that “I simply can’t take it anymore.” Strong emotional reactivity (E), on the other hand, encompasses a whole range of reactions in the realm of emotions, which show how strongly someone experiences what others are feeling.
High sensitivity is a very popular topic today; one can find plenty of articles on the internet and online tests to measure it. “Dr. Google” easily provides a diagnosis: you, too, are highly sensitive. But how do psychologists determine a person’s level of sensitivity?
The main evaluation tool is a questionnaire for measuring hypersensitivity known as the Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS), developed by Elaine and Arthur Aron. It consists of twenty-seven questions, the answers to which allow us to determine how intensely a person reacts, for instance, to harsh light or noise, or how sensitive they are to tastes.
In this sense, therefore, sommeliers (expert wine stewards) and perfumers who create fragrance compositions (colloquially known as “professional noses”) should be considered highly sensitive persons.
The Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS) questionnaire also informs us about how sensitive a person is to changes happening in their life; the intensity of their reactions to what happens, to emotions, and to threatening factors. There are questions about their internal experiences, about what disturbs their inner peace, what throws them off balance. In Poland, a study of this type has been conducted by my team at SWPS University on a sample of several thousand people, and our findings were similar to global ones: 15 to 20 percent of the population turn out to be highly sensitive individuals. In this context, we are particularly interested in empathy.
Intuition suggests that the more sensitive a person is, the more empathetic they are. Many people even equate empathy with sensitivity.
That’s true. For many people the two terms are virtually synonymous—but in my opinion, wrongly so. That’s why we decided to study highly sensitive individuals: to see if high sensitivity really does go hand-in-hand with high empathy. We wanted to check not only people’s subjective beliefs about their own empathy but also check if this corresponded to increased activity in different brain areas and neural networks that are associated with empathy. We looked at MRI images of the brain activity of highly sensitive and non-highly sensitive individuals as they witnessed someone else in pain. Our study did not find that highly sensitive people are more empathetic—only that they process such stimuli more easily and for a longer time, using more areas of their brain.
In more sensitive individuals, we found that the mirror neurons activated more quickly: they were visibly active even when only a weak stimulus was provided. For instance, seeing a slight grimace of pain on someone’s face was enough. Highly sensitive individuals were also found to assess the pain being experienced by someone else differently: it was much harder for them to judge whether that pain was weak, moderate, or severe. For them, it usually just seemed to be severe. In contrast, those in the second group of subjects were not only more accurate in determining the intensity of the pain they saw, but also generally tolerated the experience better.
Are highly sensitive people more inclined to take action and help when they see others suffering?
There is a psychological tool that can help us answer that question, known as Davis’s Interpersonal Reactivity Index. It gauges cognitive empathy as well as emotional empathy. One of the subtypes of emotional empathy—known as a high level of personal distress—is focused on the self. People experiencing this type of empathy are not inclined to help others. They will empathize with sadness, fear, pain, despair, suffering, but will not engage in prosocial behaviors. They perceive these emotions as unpleasant for themselves, rather than as a signal to help others. However, there is also a type of reaction called empathic concern. People in whom it is activated will indeed try to help constructively. This also applies to people who evidence a willingness to understand someone else’s situation, trying to put themselves in someone else’s shoes—this, in turn, is measured on the cognitive empathy subscale.
In our research, we have observed that highly sensitive individuals more often exhibited the type of empathy associated with personal distress.
In other words, experiencing another person’s emotions so intensely typically causes a reaction of trying to dissociate from them?
I am not aware of any studies explicitly examining whether highly sensitive individuals would be more or less willing to help, for example, flood victims or refugees. However, I would lean towards the idea that the intensity of what they feel and experience actually makes it very difficult for them to provide such help. Dealing with human suffering and tragedy requires significant psychological resilience. If someone can regulate their own sensitivity and knows their limits, they will be able to help others. Those who feel the need to help but are unaware of their own limitations may become burnt out, fall ill, experience mood swings, or lapse into depression. Such people may cope with stress and overload, simply by avoiding difficult situations.
The underlying principle being: if you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of others.
For me, high empathy is above all a combination of empathic concern and an ability to understand the perspective of someone needing help. Empathy, which is a kind of personal distress, occurs not only in highly sensitive individuals but also in narcissistic personalities, for example. One could say that a narcissist has high empathy, but that it is directed solely towards themselves. On the other hand, individuals on the autism spectrum can also be highly sensitive. In their case, their degree of empathy will be shaped in yet another way.
Differences in our empathic responses are also influenced by our life experiences, upbringing, emotional maturity, and even age, as our brain develops and transforms over the passing years. At the same time, I will immediately point out that there is no simple correlation between age and level of sensitivity, and we cannot simplify things along the lines of: the older someone is, the more sensitive and empathetic they are. To verify this, one would have to observe particular individuals over a longer period and analyze how they change with time. As we age, we become better at coping with certain situations. We will experience being highly sensitive differently as teenagers as compared to when we are in our thirties, when we are more self-aware and know that many issues can be resolved in different ways.
Does sex also matter? Women are said to be more sensitive, whereas men—as the saying goes—don’t cry. Does brain research confirm that women’s sensitivity is indeed different from men’s, or is this more of a social construct?
Questionnaire results do indeed indicate that women exhibit higher stimulus-response sensitivity more often than men. Hormones, which influence our mood, may play a role in this. Men are subject to a daily cycle, women a monthly one. Our emotional responses are also shaped differently due to this.
However, when we study areas related to emotional reactivity, I would say that the structure of the brain matters less than what it is “fed.” There are many studies on empathy, examining how men and women react when they see someone suffering. Neuroanatomically, things look the same for both genders. Differences arise when there is a kind of social manipulation involved. In a study by the German neurobiologist and psychologist Tania Singer and her team, it was shown that for women, it often does not matter whether a person is fair or not—they will still empathize with them. Men, on the other hand, stop being empathetic when they see that someone is not being fair to them: the level of reactivity in brain areas associated with empathy decreases. In our research, we also examined how people behave towards the suffering of individuals who are more attractive or less so. Many such factors can be examined in juxtaposition. But my point is that the more factors we take into account, the harder it is to give simple answers. It is the composition of individual traits that is key here, which also includes gender.
Can sensitivity be genetically inherited?
Research shows that there does exist a certain genetic component that can make us more predisposed to being sensitive individuals. Some are genes related to serotonin transport, for instance. But it is also critical whether we grow up in an environment that is accepting of our sensitivity and so reinforces this genetic predisposition, or vice versa, among people who consider sensitivity a weakness and so raise us to be tough.
Stereotypes probably have an impact, too?
The greater societal acceptance shown for high sensitivity in girls allows women to more easily express it. On the other hand, women are also expected to be caring, nurturing, empathetic. A boy who is highly sensitive—who cries, shows emotions—may become the butt of jokes and sometimes get called a “softie”—and that’s no compliment. Things are a bit different nowadays, but it is still much more challenging to convince a man who is sensitive, who can talk about his feelings, to participate in research compared to a sensitive woman. When using tests and questionnaire surveys, this can have another effect: people’s honest self-assessments may differ from the answers they enter on a form, which may be dictated by our knowledge of social expectations. A man who does allow himself to cry may not admit to it in a questionnaire, because he feels he shouldn’t. These are nuances, but from a research point of view they are very important.
Certain recent studies have indicated that high sensitivity can serve as a way to manipulate the environment—someone may use their sensitivity to position themselves as a victim, to arouse pity or guilt, and thus achieve certain benefits.
I think this is more likely to happen in the case of narcissistic individuals or those with psychopathic tendencies. These are people focused on themselves; they are empathetic towards themselves but not towards others. They sense the weak points in others, so they know precisely where to strike to achieve the desired effect. It is important to distinguish such manipulations from situations where someone is sensitive, has a high awareness of what is good for them and what is not, so they can set boundaries and, for example, point out that someone is being too noisy. Nowadays, there is a lot of talk about sensitivity and empathy, which makes highly sensitive people feel that they are more accepted, that others are more receptive to their needs. However, a certain share of such individuals expect everyone to adjust to suit them, leading to conflicts. Another phenomenon is the desire to be perceived as someone highly sensitive. By having such a label, one can benefit from various social rewards and privileges, such as care or interest. However, these behaviors require certain doses of other traits, not just high sensitivity.
The positive aspect here is that we want to know more about high sensitivity, to understand it better. Sensitivity is not a closed category about which we already know everything. We are still discovering it.
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