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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1465407
This article is part of the Research Topic Sensory Processing Sensitivity Research: Recent Advances View all 13 articles

Relationships of Sensory Processing Sensitivity with Creativity and Empathy in an adult sample

Provisionally accepted
Britta Laros-van Gorkom Britta Laros-van Gorkom 1,2*Christienne G. Damatac Christienne G. Damatac 3,4Inez Stevelmans Inez Stevelmans 1Corina U Greven Corina U Greven 3,4,5
  • 1 Faculty of Psychology. Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, Netherlands
  • 2 Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands
  • 3 Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands
  • 4 Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, Netherlands
  • 5 Karakter Child and Adolescent Psychiatric University Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS) describes individual differences in sensitivity to environments, but there is little research on potential positive correlates of SPS. Hereby we investigate whether SPS and its Aesthetic Sensitivity (AES) component are associated with different facets of creativity and empathy. Questionnaires on SPS, creativity and empathy were administered to 296 participants and data were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression. Higher SPS total and AES scores were associated with more creative ideas (SPS: β=.294304, pfdr<.001=2.00x10-07; AES: β=.49843, pfdr=4.00×10 -16 <.001). Only AES was associated with more creative activities (AES: β=.2924, pfdr<.001=2.48x10 -07 ). Furthermore, higher SPS total and AES scores were associated with more overall empathy (SPS: β=.4298, pfdr=1.84x10 -14 <.001; AES: β=.3753, pfdr=3.91x10 -11 <.001), affective empathy (SPS: β=.5057, pfdr<.001=6.00x10 -16 ; AES: β=.331, pfdr<.001=1.14x10 -08 ) , cognitive empathy (SPS: β=.27692, pfdr<.001=3.60x10 -06 ; AES: β=.35470, pfdr<.001=2.52x10 -09 ), and less emotional disconnection (SPS: β=.2374, pfdr=<.0014.40x10 -05 ; AES: β=.2120, pfdr=<.001.0003). Most associations remained significant after controlling for openness to experience, and the other SPS components of ease of excitation and low sensory threshold heeft opmaak toegepast: Engels (Verenigde Staten)

    Keywords: aesthetic sensitivity1, sensory processing sensitivity2, environmental sensitivity3, creativity4, empathy5

    Received: 16 Jul 2024; Accepted: 26 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Laros-van Gorkom, Damatac, Stevelmans and Greven. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Britta Laros-van Gorkom, Faculty of Psychology. Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, Netherlands

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