Episode #52: High Sensitivity, Childhood, and the Path to Resilience with Dr. Michael Pluess
How genetics, environment, and early life experiences shape highly sensitive people…and why sensitivity can become a powerful source of resilience.
Welcome back to The Happy HSP Podcast. I’m your host Kimberly Marshall, and today I’m joined by Dr. Michael Pluess. He’s a chartered psychologist and Professor in Developmental Psychology at the University of Surrey, and a leading researcher on environmental sensitivity.
We talk about the way genetic and environmental factors shape our sensitivity, and how resilience, mental health, and personal growth can shift throughout our lives. If you’ve ever wondered why some highly sensitive people seem to flourish while others struggle with anxiety, overwhelm, or self-doubt, this conversation is for you.
I hope you enjoy it!
Kim: Dr. Pluess, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s really an honor to have you.
Dr. Pluess: You’re welcome. Glad to be here.
Kim: Yeah, so my first question for you is about your own personal journey with high sensitivity and how you found out about this trait and what that was like for you.
Dr. Pluess: I started doing research as a PhD student, and it was in that kind of work that I was doing, which was back then focused really on infant temperament, so very early child development in the first few years. And then I was doing research on a related, one of the key theories called differential susceptibility, which is the idea that some children are more impacted by the quality of their environment compared to other children. And it was in that sort of area of research that I was thinking about, “How would this look like in adulthood or in older children?” And that’s how I got familiar with the highly sensitive person concept from Elaine Aron. So that’s how I really found out in relation to my research. And then I’ve started working with Elaine Aron and we’ve developed some of the measures together and yeah, that’s how I learned about it.
And, actually, the first time I heard about it was when a friend from the States alerted me to the book. I wanted to go and visit, and she mentioned The Highly Sensitive Person book. So that was my first encounter, which I thought, oh, that’s really interesting because I thought, oh, that might be relevant to some of the work I’ve been doing on differential susceptibility in children.
Kim: So, talk to me a little bit about differential susceptibility. What does that mean?
Dr. Pluess: So differential susceptibility is one of the earlier, recent theories that people differ in their sensitivity, and it basically uses the term susceptibility, which is not a very common term, I’d say, but basically it refers to some people being basically more sensitive to be more receptive of what they experience. And the idea is based on evolutionary reasoning.
It has been developed by Jay Belsky and a very eminent developmental psychologist and evolutionary psychologist. And he suggested it would make sense that people differ in how strongly they’re impacted by the environment. And that was sort of informed by some of his observations of what other people have been finding, that there are these individual differences that people found intriguing, showing that some people or some children are more impacted by the environment than others. And he took that further and then basically suggested that the more susceptible and more sensitive children are not just more impacted by negative experiences, but also more by positive experience.
Basically, they’re shaped more strongly by the quality of their environment compared to other children and that has evolutionary benefits. Those individual differences have an evolutionary benefit, particularly if a family has children that differ in their sensitivity. Some children will be more impacted by the environment that the parents provide and some children less. And that means if the environment changes, if the environment that they had during early childhood is very different from the environment they have in later stages of life, those that have not been shaped by the early environment, they might be better suited for the later environment. So that’s sort of the evolutionary rationale behind that.
The idea of sensitivity goes back way further though. It goes back to Jung in the early 1900s suggesting that some people are characterized by this innate sensitiveness and he already suggested about 20 to 30% of people around that would be characterized by this sensitivity.
Kim: It’s fascinating that you bring him up. He has more of a spiritual idea of the work that he does, right? Is that right? Or is it more psychological?
Dr. Pluess: I mean, yeah. So, his conceptualization of innate sensitiveness was the precursor of the concept of introversion that he developed as well. So, the earlier understanding of introversion was more closely linked to what we consider sensitivity. Then, over time, the concept of introversion has changed a little bit. So, I don’t think that concept in itself is necessarily linked to spirituality. He was a psychiatrist, a psychoanalyst, and certainly some of his work was more spiritual, but I don’t think innate sensitiveness was necessarily influenced very much by that. But there are several suggestions that sensitive people might be more interested in spirituality than less sensitive people. I think that’s certainly what we do find in some of our research as well. But in itself, it’s not necessarily a spiritual concept or not necessarily shaped by spiritual concentrations or things like that, but more in how people process how they perceive and process their experiences and that some people have a higher sensitivity.
They perceive more their process more deeply, and that’s why we think they get more impacted by their experiences. So, this is a relatively old idea in this sense, which hasn’t been followed up much in research since then. And then in the mid ’90s, different people came up with similarities that sort of captured those individual differences in sensitivity, and now it has become a much more popular topic and a concept that is considered by many as being quite relevant.
Kim: Right. Now, what I found fascinating is that you even studied environment and how that affects HSPs from the prenatal timeline. What does that look like when you’re talking about environment of babies that aren’t even born, and how that affects their lives, what did you find in that realm? I’m curious.
Dr. Pluess: So, we found, well, the environment is, we are contextual beings. We live in a world, we live in a specific context, and that context starts already before pregnancy, before conception. And there’s already research suggesting that the lifestyle, the living conditions that future parents have shortly a few months before conception has an impact on child development. So, the context that the parents experience, the context during pregnancy and the early years in childhood, they are fundamentally influential in shaping individual development. And there’s a lot of research under the term of fetal programming or prenatal programming that is based on the idea that environmental conditions during that time during the prenatal period shapes the developmental trajectory of individuals. And in the early days, this was more focused on health, physical health, and then people turned more towards how it has an impact on the behavioral outcomes of children finding associations.
So what we did, we did find in a large study from the US, an SDHD study of early childcare and youth development, that’s what I’ve used for some of the research looking at how early temperament in the first year of life is an indicator of sensitivity and how infants with a certain temperament profile seem to be more impacted by the quality of the parenting, the quality of the childcare that they receive. And we did find that this temperament trait was related to the birth weight and birth weight is an indicator of the intrauterine environment. So, lower birth weight is usually indicator of maybe a more stressful environment. Mothers that experience more psychological stress, mothers that are smoking where the placenta is not in the right place, but mothers that experience malnutrition or health issues often then relates to the fetus not getting as much nutrition as the fetus needs.
That then results into lower birth weight. Therefore, birth weight is an indicator of the quality of the environment in utero. And what we found is that birth weight was related to sensitivity as measured with temperament in infancy. And there’s various other studies using animal models that found the same thing that basically the quality during the prenatal period has an impact on the sensitivity level of the newborns.
Kim: Really? So, it’s not just genetic, you’re saying some of it is environment, but mostly before birth?
Dr. Pluess: No, I wouldn’t say mostly before birth. There’s going to be various differences, various inferences. So, we do know there’s a significant genetic component. So, we’ve run a twin study with a large sample in the UK. In adolescence, we measured, they all reported sensitivity using a highly sensitive child scale. And when we did that, when we ran traditional twin study analysis, we found that about 47% of the differences in sensitivity between people could be explained by genetic factors. So roughly 50% of the differences that we see in sensitivity do have a genetic component or a heritable component. That means the remaining 50% is shaped by environmental factors. So, environments or factors shape sensitivity.
My hypothesis, and this is still something we’re looking into, is that it’s particularly in those with a genetic predisposition for higher sensitivity that are more shaped by the environment regarding their sensitivity. So, both genetic factors play a role and environmental factors play a role, and environmental factors would be from the prenatal period onwards.
So, experiences during childhood will have an impact. Experiences during adulthood will still have an impact, but not to the same degree. The brain is the most plastic, is the most easily influenced during the prenatal period where the brain is being developing most rapidly, as well in the first few years of life.
Kim: Right. Because my understanding was that it’s genetic. You can’t turn it on or off. It’s the way that you are created, but your confidence and ability to function in life, and maybe this is what you’re saying with plasticity and being able to learn and grow, is affected by whether or not you are celebrated, your sensitivity is celebrated in your early childhood, or whether it’s tampered down. So, it just sounds like there’s a lot more factors than you’re born with it, you can’t turn it on or off. Our experiences are so varied depending on ...
Dr. Pluess: So you’re born with it, but then it’s also being made by your environment, right? So, depending on the quality of early childhood or childhood more generally, I would say sensitivity might develop in quite different ways and would be experienced differently. Sensitivity does not need to be celebrated. It’s not even something that we necessarily need to name or focus on, but I think if sensitive children have their needs met in childhood, they’re probably developing really well.
So, what they need is just the right environment. And even if parents naturally provide that environment without really understanding by having a conceptualization of sensitivity, then that’s great. I don’t think my parents knew much about sensitivity, but they provided an environment that was just very suitable to what I needed. There was the right level of setting boundaries and the right level of autonomy, and it felt like a safe place, and it was a place where I could explore, but in a safe way.
So, it allowed me to do what I wanted to and without being restricted without ... Looking back, I feel like I had a really good upbringing, but it was quite a normal upbringing in that sense. My parents weren’t like, “Oh, this is a sensitive child. Let’s do this. Let’s do that.” They were able to provide the environment that allowed me to flourish. And I think as a result of that, I experienced, to a large degree, the positive side, so the positive aspects of sensitivity, whereas I do know many other people that are highly sensitive, but they had a really challenging childhood and a really difficult upbringing and their sensitivity looks a little bit different. So, they experience maybe more the negative sides of that.
Kim: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And right, to your point, it’s not like our child’s sensitive, we have to celebrate them. They’re amazing. They’re wonderful. It’s more like you’re meeting their needs, they’re feeling free to explore who they are and grow in who they are without the fear of feeling so different or not good enough or something’s wrong with me, which is what I hear a lot of HSPs say.
So, how do you see that difference between someone who does grow up in a safe and loving and supportive environment versus an HSP who may feel the negative aspects that you were saying? What is the difference there, would you say?
Dr. Pluess: So, this is still something we need to investigate a bit more, but we’ve recently published a number of papers on different sensitivity types, which reflects that idea that sensitivity is a genetic predisposition multiplied by the quality of the childhood. The resulting sensitivity is a mix of both. So, it’s a complex interplay between genetics and the environment. And the idea is that someone that has a low genetic predisposition for sensitivity will generally be less impacted by their experiences growing up. So, their sensitivity is relatively low and probably will stay relatively low, but someone that has a genetic predisposition to be sensitive, their sensitivity will be shaped by their environment. If they grow up in an environment that has equal negative and positive experiences, they’ll probably end up with a sort of balanced profile of being sensitive to both the negative and the positive. But someone that grows up in a particularly supportive and positive environment, they might develop more of the positive side of sensitivity, that they’re sensitive to positive experiences.
We refer that as a more vantage sensitive type and sensitive people that have a genetic predisposition for sensitivity but grow up in more difficult environments, they might develop more of that sensitivity to threat vigilance because that would be adaptive. They grow up in an environment where they don’t feel safe, so their sensitivity is shaped by that and those people have a higher risk for the development of mental health problems. So, we did find in one study where we looked at actually the genetic predisposition, we had actual data from their DNA, and this was a life course study. So, we had data from birth until 50 years of life. And what we found is that those genetically sensitive growing up in better environments in childhood, they were more resilient in adulthood to stress, whereas those with the same genetic predisposition growing up in less supportive environments, they were more vulnerable to stress in adults.
So, then our interpretation of that is that if you’re sensitive, but you’re growing up in a supportive environment, that enables you then to acquire resilience, to develop emotion regulation, to build up capacities and competence to deal with stress. And then these people are very much able to function even in stressful environments. They will still experience stress as stress, and they might still feel it’s uncomfortable, but they’re able to deal with it and they’re able to do so because they have the opportunity to acquire these coping strategies and coping skills, or maybe it was modeled to them by role models or their parents, siblings and friends and so forth.
Kim: And did you find that people who did struggle with mental health in their earlier journey still were able to, with the plasticity in mind, find that transition into more of a grounded or secure place later on?
Dr. Pluess: So, we don’t have data on that yet. So that would require longitudinal studies where we assess sensitivity at different points in time. We only have very few studies with that, and all the longitudinal studies that we have at the moment is largely from in childhood, which is slightly different. But I do know anecdotally that some people are able to do that with some support. What’s very important to mention is that sensitive people generally have a higher risk for the development of psychological problems, particularly depression and anxiety, so the common effective disorders. So, they are higher risk for that, but they’re also more responsive to psychological intervention. So that’s what we’ve seen, particularly in children, that these individuals, and we’re doing more work on that at the moment in adults, but we generally do find that sensitive individuals benefit more from psychological interventions. And we did also find that more recently with a study where we looked at a genetic indicator of sensitivity and the response to a relationship intervention program.
So, this is a very short program that really focuses on how to communicate well with your partner. So, this is for young couples, and we have two randomized controlled trials conducted by colleagues in the States. We were able to collect genetic data on some of them and found that the genetically sensitive individuals, those with the genetic predisposition for sensitivity that had the intervention, they had the strongest positive effects of the intervention. Actually, in one of the studies when it came to communication skills, the only group that increased in communication skills over several years after the intervention were the genetically sensitive individuals that were part of the intervention.
And in various of the other studies, we do find often sustained effects, positive effects of the intervention. There’s another intervention we’ve been running in a primary school in London. This was with mostly girls. The intervention was resilience promoting intervention, and we found that the only children benefiting from the intervention and sustaining that positive effect over time were the highly sensitive ones. So, on one hand side, they have a higher risk to develop depression and anxiety, particularly in response to stressful experiences, because that makes sense that they’re more sensitive to what they experience. If they experience negatives, they’re more negatively impacted by that. They tend to reflect more on things. So, if they experience difficult situations and they reflect more on it, there’s a higher risk for rumination, there’s a higher risk that will have a negative impact on them. But at the same time, because of their heightened perception and the depth of processing, they really benefit from talking therapies, and they’re deep thinkers, they can reflect on things, and they are able to adapt some of those cognitive strategies that help with their mental health.
What’s also interesting, what we found, this was on a study in middle childhood, is that a permissive parenting style, so that’s where parents just let the children do whatever they want to do is actually not good for highly sensitive children. They are more likely to develop problems when they experienced a permissive parenting style, they benefit from structure. The structure helps them. So, the parenting style that is characterized by clear boundaries and emotional warmth and support, those two things are particularly helpful for sensitive children. And with the permissive parenting style, we found that for highly sensitive children, that sort of parenting style is associated with rumination, and rumination is associated with depression symptoms.
Kim: So funny. It made me think, too, as adults, you know how there’s this whole trend of reparenting your inner child. Just based on the work that I’ve been doing, it sounds similar even as an adult, giving yourself that emotional warmth and using boundaries, it comes from a more grounded and healthy space, I think than the forceful than the harsh.
So yeah, I could see where that would make sense, but I have a question about the genetic aspect of this. Are you finding there’s certain markers or ways that you can say this person is more likely to be highly sensitive? Is there a strong biological difference that you guys are finding?
Dr. Pluess: We do find genetic differences, but it’s not as straightforward. So, there are different ways to look at genetics. Obviously, we have thousands of different genes of about 20,000 different genes. Each of those genes is made up of many thousands of base pairs in the DNA, and you get different variations within these base pairs. So, everyone has the same genes. So, the differences that we see between each other is the slight variations within each gene, and those are measurable, and some research focuses on specific gene sections and also are able to then create animals that miss a certain gene section and are then able to look at the impact on that.
So, this is sort of the candidate gene approach where researchers had a very clear hypothesis of the biological relevance of a particular aspect of the gene. And this approach more recently has been rejected by many people because often findings haven’t replicated that well, and also, it’s not as simple as one gene is responsible for one specific behavior.
So, when we look at complex behaviors, which we usually look at in psychology, personality traits, mental health, even cognitive ability, all of those complex behaviors or outcomes are not the function of just one gene or just a few genes. But usually, what we find that they’re associated with different genetic variations across the whole genome. So, in the last 10, 15 years, the field has moved towards genome-wide approaches where you need to have data from lots of different people. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of different people, and you look at millions of different genetic variations. And then based on that, you’re able to summarize all of those into what they call polygenic scores. So, we do have a polygenic score or a range of polygenic scores for sensitivity. Those are still in the early stages because we don’t have the large samples with sensitivity data that we have for some of the other traits that people have been focusing on.
But basically, there is no sensitivity gene. There is not one gene that is sort of responsible for sensitivity. There are lots of different gene variants across the genome that all have a small contribution to sensitivity. So, it’s a multigenetic trait just rather than one gene. So, there is no sensitivity gene in that sense, but there are multiple genes with lots of different gene variants that make a contribution.
And we can summarize that. So we can measure that in different ways to create those polygenic scores, and that’s what we’ve done in some of our studies, but this is probably not something that you could use to identify an individual, but it’s something that you can use if you have a large sample of people that differ in that, but it would not be a good indicator yet for an individual. So, the best indicator, the strongest indicator is still the self-report questionnaires or yeah, that’s probably what I would recommend the most.
We do find more inconsistent findings when we look at physiological markers of sensitivity. There are some brain studies, so we find some differences regarding the structure and the function of the brain. So, that confirms that this is a difference that is situated in the central nervous system, but I’m not aware of anyone that would be able to scan someone’s brain and then predict whether this person is sensitive or not sensitive. I think we’re not there.
Kim: It’s just fascinating that it’s so complex. There’s no on and off switch. There’s no light that says code that says, yes, you have high sensitivity, but you do see trends is what you’re saying. You do see things that match up, but yeah, it’s complex. It’s not like black and white, and not something you can just say.
Dr. Pluess: It’s also a continuous trait. So, we have to really think of sensitivity as a spectrum. It’s not a yes or no, you’re either sensitive or not. Right.
Kim: You’re either lower or higher.
Dr. Pluess: People range on the spectrum from low to high. Everyone is sensitive, but they differ on the degree of sensitivity. So, most people are somewhere in the middle, and then some people are at the higher end and some people at the lower end. So, we’ve looked at this in various different studies and samples, and we usually find that about 40 to 50% are sort of in the middle and about 20, 30% of the lower end, and 20 to 30% are higher end. So, we can differentiate be between ... We can actually categorize people along this continuing those three different groups.
Kim: Right. But more so based on the questions and the observances, not so much the biological factors.
Dr. Pluess: No, the biology is a bit more difficult because the biological aspects or the physiological aspects, they may only manifest in certain situations. So, if I measure the cortisol levels, they vary throughout the day, they vary depending on what you experience. So that might not be a very good indicator. The variability might be a better indicator over time. But yeah, we generally do find the physiology is not a very reliable indicator of sensitivity. When you ask people to complete the questionnaire, they are usually asked to rate how they observe themselves or how they perceive themselves more generally.
And obviously this is a subjective assessment, so you don’t know how accurate that is. People might be biased completing their own assessment, but we do have a behavioral observation as well in children, a large sample of children in the US dystonic temperament study. So, we coded behaviors in standardized situations for sensitivity. And that’s where we found all those findings with the parenting style and that I mentioned before. So, this is not based on self-reported sensitivity. This is based on observation of behavior and rating of that behavior by trained experts, psychologists. And based on that data, we do find those different groups of children, and we do find that the sensitive ones are more impacted in positive ways than negative ways by the parenting that they experience.
Kim: Yeah. It sounds like a lot of your work is based in environment, which makes sense after this conversation because that’s huge. A highly sensitive person alone in her apartment is different than on Christmas with her entire family or friends that don’t jive well. There is such a range of experiences, and I’m sure that has the biggest effect than anything.
Dr. Pluess: Yeah, it’s a key factor also for the wellbeing of sensitive people because they’re so sensitive to the environment. It’s important that they are very, very intentional about what environments they expose themselves to and how to design an environment in their life that fits well. So, this is true for many people, but particularly for sensitive people.
Kim: Awesome. So, quick question about you. When you found out you were when you did learn about this trait, what shifted for you in your understanding of yourself? Is there something you can share?
Dr. Pluess: Well, some people experience challenges with their sensitivity but don’t know about sensitivity. They just feel that something’s wrong with them and then they find out they read a book or they come across the concept of sensitivity, and everything makes sense to them and they say, “Oh, I’m not just weird. This is something that other people experience too.” So, I didn’t really have that kind of experience because I didn’t necessarily experience those challenges. And also when I did the early self-test, I sort of was at the higher end and in the middle, but not at the extreme end. And I think it’s because the older scale captures more overstimulation and more negative experiences of sensitivity. So, I didn’t score very high on that, but it certainly makes sense. Looking back, many of my preferences and behaviors looking back, I can see that, oh, that makes sense.
And I think I was definitely a highly sensitive child, and I think I was challenging by my parents for that reason because they didn’t know back then. I think I was what you could consider a difficult temperament, which was more challenging for my parents, but they sort of found a good way to deal with that. So, looking back, I feel like I had a good childhood, and I was able to have a high degree of autonomy and decide what I want and rather than being pushed into lots of different activities. Also, I’m originally from Switzerland, that’s where I went to school and we go to school at the age of seven, so it’s fairly late compared to the UK where I’m living now and where children go to school at four. So that’s quite different. Also, I grew up with my two brothers at home rather than in a noisy childcare center with lots of different children. And so yeah, life was quite different back then than it is now.
Kim: Yeah. It sounds like you were much more secure in that. So, when you did find out, it maybe wasn’t like this huge moment because it wasn’t flipping anything for you. It sounds like you had just an idea of who you were and were comfortable in that, but it affected your work it sounds like more. It just added a layer.
Dr. Pluess: In affected, my work, I think it helps me to understand as a child I was quite shy. I would not raise my hand a lot in school. I didn’t find that uncomfortable, but it wasn’t a reflection of me not knowing stuff. It was just a preference. And the primary school teacher that I had wasn’t very experienced, and she thought I’m just not very able and thought I should go to a less challenging secondary school. Whereas my parents thought, no, he’s definitely able, but he’s not very outgoing in that sense. He’s not very ... Yeah. So, I had parents that saw that.
And looking back, I realized that, oh, I do see that. I do understand in new situations I do love new situations, but it takes a bit of time to adjust, whereas other people are able to jump right in. I think we have these beautiful videos where we rated the behaviors of the children in the study that I mentioned before, and we contrasted a low sensitive and a highly sensitive child. They’re both in the same situation and the situation is they’re introduced to a new room and in the room they’re different toys that they haven’t really seen before. And the less sensitive child comes into the room and straight jumps into and touches everything, but then it’s soon after that it’s sort of done with it. The highest sensitive child comes in, just first stands there, looks at everything from a distance and then starts looking at the first sort of toy, but really investigated in depth and spends quite a lot of time with it and then moves to the next thing and spent a lot more time and takes a lot more in, but also it’s a bit slower than in that regard.
So, it’s these things where I’m looking back as like, “Oh, I can see how the sensitivity manifested in my life.” But it also manifested in creativity. I did lots of music. I had lots of ideas. As a child, I had lots of concern for nature. Even though I was quite a shy child, I was really concerned about the world and nature. And even though I was shy, I would go and sell stamps for the Wildlife Fund to strangers. So, that was driven by these bigger topics by meaningful activities. So, there was this depth of processing. There was the creativity, the spiritual aspects as well, interested in faith, even though I didn’t grow up in a religious family, but there was this interest in that or I was intrigued by it. So, I think I look back and I see, it makes sense to me. I see, okay, I understand that I would have been overstimulated by certain things.
I did experience that. I did experience stressful situations as uncomfortable or maybe more easily uncomfortable as someone else had, but I did have the chance to develop coping strategies so that that wouldn’t prevent me from attempting anything or achieving anything.
But I also experienced the depth of processing, the appreciation of beauty, aesthetics, as I mentioned, the creativity, the demeaning, purpose, all of those things.
Kim: Gosh, you were taking me back with all of that. Even from when you were talking about the child going into the room, like birthday parties were so traumatic because you don’t know any of the kids, and it’s the same thing. You want to stand back and just kind of take it all in and slowly integrate. And, growing up caring about all the animals, and do you remember that green box? I don’t know if we’re around the same age, a green box with them, all the animal cards in it. I would just look through it for hours, and just that sense of just curiosity about everything.
Dr. Pluess: Yeah. So, I have a three-and-a-half-year-old son who is highly sensitive, and it’s very interesting to observe because he’s doing very well. And once I took him to a music class, which was very, very noisy, and there were maybe 20, 30 toddlers. It was total chaos, and I went with him and he didn’t want to go and he just wanted to be on the side and watch. So, he just was with me, he’s at my lap. And then I had to go, my wife came, and she took over and towards the end of the class, she sent me a photo where he’s in the middle of the room, in the middle of all the children banging a drum. I just thought this is such a wonderful sign of the sensitivity that he didn’t feel comfortable to be in the center at the beginning. He wanted first to watch, and he wanted process.
And at some point he was ready to, even though it was chaotic and it was loud and there were lots of other children and it was overstimulating, but at some point he was ready to go and then he was in the middle of it and buying the drums and running around and being wild himself. So it sometimes just takes that time to familiarize with a new situation because all the information that needs to be processed first, and I think highly sensitive people prefer in a new situation, just take it in first until they get to a stage where like, “Oh, now I really want to engage.” And then they may engage fully or maybe even more than other children that maybe would have lost interest already.
Kim: Awesome. So, question for you, even though you’ve done all this research and you’re so well-plugged into this industry and you know your stuff, what are some of the challenges that you still have when it comes to your sensitivity, would you say, if any?
Dr. Pluess: I think the common challenge is that I do experience stress as very unpleasant. It doesn’t keep me from doing things. So, I’m quite ambitious, and I’m able to do lots of things at the same time, but I do experience it maybe as quite unpleasant. I do experience stress physiologically. I do feel my heart rate going up. I’m very aware of that. And when I have lots of meetings or stimulating experiences usually involves other people, it just gets to me sort of like I realize my brain is getting tired from all of this input. So, I do experience that. So, it’s important for me to have some time during the day where I can just work without many distractions that is quite important.
I do love going for a walk. Just having some space in nature to reflect I think makes a huge difference. But yeah, I think I do experience the overstimulation. I do experience the response, the higher stress reactivity. I also really dislike negative expressed emotions when people, even if I’m not involved, if other people have a conflict with each other, I find that very unpleasant. And already as a child, when my brothers had a disagreement or a conflict with my parents, I find that very, very difficult, that tension. And I think all of that has to do with that sensitivity. So, I do experience all of those things. Yeah.
Kim: Great. Yeah. Just because we’re aware and know about these things doesn’t turn it off for us.
Dr. Pluess: No, and these are not things that are ... I wouldn’t specify those as problems. These are just comes with the trait at the same time being more aware of what happens around you or being processing things more deeply has many benefits. So, I think there’s a lot of good things just as having a lower degree of sensitivity also has pros and cons, and that’s why we have all those different levels of sensitivity in the population, because each variation of sensitivity has positive aspects and some more challenging aspects.
Kim: So, speaking of positive, what do you love about the trait? What would you celebrate and say that is your favorite thing?
Dr. Pluess: I think I like the depth that sensitive people can have, the creativity that they’re more likely to have the sense of purpose or the importance of purpose for them. There’s certain work. If I wanted something to look really well, let’s say I wanted an interior designer to design my house, I would probably want a highly sensitive person to do that who can really tune into what matters to me and might be able to get really quickly an understanding of what would be nice for me and to be able then to realize that. I think that’s the same if you go and see a therapist, you probably would want a sensitive one that really understands and also is able to process what you share in a way that’s then really going to be helpful. So, I think there’s lots of positives to sensitivity.
So, for me, I think I like the ability to enjoy the nice things of life, enjoying a good meal. I like to go enjoying fine dining, sort of like excellence. A friend of mine was renovating their house, her husband is highly sensitive, she is not. And she came once home and he was looking at six different tiles and was wondering which one to choose. For her, they were all just white tiles, but they’re all different white tiles. So, I think that’s like ... Yeah, I mean, if you don’t really perceive the differences between them, you don’t really get the joy that comes from selecting the one that you think would fit the best. And I think you will be able to enjoy the arts or music or food in just maybe in a different level.
Kim: Yes, a deeper level, more nuances that we see. It’s not just a white tile. This one has a different texture. That one has a different sheen. There’s just a slightly more aesthetic white. I love that example so much. What advice would you have for highly sensitive people who may be struggling with their trait or finding joy in their life?
Dr. Pluess: I think first of all is just to accept their sensitivity as something that’s not necessarily negative or positive. It’s just who they are. People differ. And, as I mentioned before, any level of sensitivity has pros and cons. If someone is struggling a lot with their sensitivity, they probably experience the more negative aspect of sensitivity. And I would recommend to very intentionally focus on the positive sides of it and seek those positive experiences, seek out those positive experience that might be really beneficial to them and to celebrate that and develop that. At the same time, if they’re struggling with a sensitivity, they might benefit from some counseling sessions or just to figure out what do they find specifically challenging and they likely will be able to do something about that. Maybe you need to change your work environment, maybe you need to not necessarily change your environment, but the approach to it, or maybe you need to have a different structure to the day, or you need to change your routine, or maybe you need to make sure that you spend sufficient time with people that are actually energizing and where you can recharge rather than spending time with people that do the opposite, finding out what helps you.
Is it going for walks in nature? Is it physical activity? Yeah. Is it having a decent amount of good-quality sleep? What is it? Find out what kind of environment is most important for you and then design your life accordingly.
Kim: I love that. Lean in more into that curiosity rather than focusing on what’s not working. Maybe be curious about what will, and explore that.
Dr. Pluess: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Kim: Amazing.
Dr. Pluess: To be empowered with your sensitivity and also, I mean, sensitivity is just one of many different traits. So, different people that are highly sensitive experience it as slightly different. It could be quite different. Some highly sensitive people are very extroverted, some are very introverted. So, it’s not just sensitivity, it’s sort of like figuring out your sensitivity in relation to other aspects of your personality and your life.
Kim: Right. Yeah. Learning more about what works for you specifically, not just as a general rule of thumb.
Dr. Pluess: Exactly. Yeah.
Kim: So, you were telling me before we started that you have resources on your website and trainings. Can you share more about what you guys are working on?
Dr. Pluess: Yeah, so we’ve put together a website about six years ago now. It’s called sensitivityresearch.com, one word. It’s in different languages and on that website, we provide lots of free resources. So these are online tests where people can complete questionnaires to find out whether they’re sensitive, whether they are the low, the medium, or the high level of sensitivity. And we also have an online training particularly for teachers to help them to equip them how to deal with highly sensitive children in the context of school that might also be relevant for parents of highly sensitive children. And we have a blog where we summarize research findings, and we will have a conference in June, June 19th in Italy. It’s a two-day event where lots of people doing research on sensitivity will present their research. And we also have a workshop on a more applied program for practitioners.
And there’s lots more to come. So, we are developing that website further, and if you want to keep up to date with the research, then have a look at our website. It’s run by all active researchers, so it’s all reliable, evidence-based information.
Kim: And where can people connect with you or follow along on your journey?
Dr. Pluess: With me specifically?
Kim: Are you on LinkedIn or can-
Dr. Pluess: I’m on LinkedIn, yes. I’m on LinkedIn. I’m on X, not very active on X, but probably LinkedIn is a good way. Yeah.
Kim: Amazing. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really enjoyed our conversation.
Dr. Pluess: You’re welcome. It was great.
Thank you so much for listening in on my conversation with Dr. Pluess. I hope it reminds you that high sensitivity isn’t just something you’re born with, but it’s also a trait that is shaped by so many of the relationships and environments that we experience throughout our lives. And though we can be more affected by the challenges we face, we are uniquely positioned to benefit from support, healing, and the positive experiences we encounter as well.
So be sure to take good care of yourself and honor your sensitivity in the way that’s right for you.
Until next time. Take care!
About Dr. Michael Pluess
Michael Pluess, PhD, is a chartered psychologist and Professor in Developmental Psychology at the School of Psychology, University of Surrey. Prof Pluess’ research focuses on the investigation of individual differences in the capacity for Environmental Sensitivity, the notion that some people are more affected by negative as well as positive experiences than other people. His research on Differential Susceptibility and Vantage Sensitivity has been published in the leading journals of the field.
Follow along on Dr. Pluess’ journey:
Website: sensitivityresearch.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/michael-pluess-90674752/
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Kimberly Marshall is an ICF-certified Energy and Intuition coach for highly sensitive people (HSPs) and host of The Happy HSP Podcast. After 20 years in the publishing industry working for companies like Time Inc., Monster.com, and W. W. Norton, she left her corporate career to pursue work that better suited her HSP needs. She now helps HSPs reconnect with their intuition, energy, and soul’s purpose so they can live gentle, heart-centered lives in alignment with who they truly are.
Through her work, Kimberly hopes to shed more light on the reality of living with high sensitivity and inspire more HSPs to embrace their empathetic, loving, and gentle natures.
Hosted/produced by Kimberly Marshall
Edited by Fonzie Try Media
Artwork by Tara Corola