Scientists do not consider sensitivity to be one of the “Big 5” personality traits. They might make a mistake.
When it’s you often misunderstood by society in general, there is something innately comforting about defining our personality.
This is why personality tests are so popular. From Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram to Hogwarts and What Disney Character Are You? quiz, there seems to be an infinite number of ways to categorize and describe who we are. We answer the questions thoughtfully, read the results, and breathe a sigh of relief. That describes me. I feel understood.
Personally, one of the most profound feelings occurred after taking such a test completing a test From Dr. Elaine Aron to find out if I am a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). Finally, here was something that really characterized me: Yes, I feel my emotions very deeply. Yes, I have strong empathy for others. Yes, I’m easy going overstimulated. Knowing this information helped me to know myself better.
A few years later, as a psychotherapist, I helped many of my clients learn more about their own sensitivity and embrace it. Despite this, many people are still unaware of the existence of HSPs, or see sensitivity as a disadvantage rather than a strength. This may be partly due to the fact that sensitivity is currently not defined as a personality trait, but rather as a temperament.
So what is personality? And does sensitivity deserve to be acknowledged?
Like what you’re reading? Get our newsletter just for HSPs. An email every Friday. Click here to sign up!
The science behind personality
Researcher Dr. David Funder defines personality traits as “Patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior that are relatively consistent over time and across situations.” Consistency is key here – meaning that while certain elements of who we are change and evolve over time, our core personality remains fairly stable.
Temperament, while related to personality, has some key differences, which are discussed in more detail below. And when we evaluate who we are as a person, the focus is on personality traits, not temperament.
Research and evaluation psychologists use the so-called “Big Five” when evaluating personality traits. This personality model was the most extensively researchedand therefore the most evidence-based. As the name suggests, the Big Five focuses on five dimensions of personality that you can remember by the acronym OCEAN: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
Within each of the Big Five are six facets that describe each domain in more detail.
- Openness to experience it includes imagination, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas and values.
- Conscientiousness it includes competence, order, a sense of duty, striving for achievement, self-discipline and deliberation.
- Extraversion includes warmth, community, confidence, activity, thrill seeking, and positive emotions. (Note: introversion is part of the same continuum as extraversion in personality science.)
- Compliance it includes trust, straightforwardness, selflessness, obedience, modesty, and tenderness.
- Neuroticism includes anxiety, anger/hostility, depression, self-consciousness, impulsivity, and vulnerability.
Finally, it should be noted that unlike some other measures of personality, such as the MBTIthe Big Five looks at all traits on a spectrum rather than an either-or.
Sensitivity as a temperament
Since sensitivity does not belong to the above-mentioned Big Five, it would by default belong to the temperament category. Temperament traits were defined as “Early-emerging basic dispositions in the areas of activity, affectivity, attention, and self-regulation, and these dispositions are products of complex interactions between genetic, biological, and environmental factors over time,” say the researchers.
The same researchers expanded the relationship between temperament and personality: Both have the same root, temperament rather developed in a person’s early years.
This is when a person’s personality develops on top their temperament, their personality that matures over time.
Researchers generally agree that temperament develops earlier in life than personality and is based more on genetics than environmental factors. In other words, temperament prefers nature to nurture, while personality draws from both, perhaps with a slight preference for nurture. Furthermore, researchers also tend to agree that personality extends from temperament.
Seeing personality and temperament in action
Let’s further illustrate the difference between personality and temperament with an example: Someone with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), their ADHD may affect their temperament, but not necessarily their personality. For example, ADHD can affect a person’s temperament in their ability to sustain attention or make them prone to hyperactivity. Yet, despite tending to share certain temperamental similarities, different individuals with ADHD may differ in where they find the Big Five personality traits.
Just as we wouldn’t say that ADHD is part of personality, we can recognize that personality traits extend beyond our basic temperament. Furthermore, these temperamental traits of attention and hyperactivity may be discernible as early as infancy, which is consistent with what we know about temperament. This contrasts with the Big Five personality traits, as we tend to recognize these traits, such as conscientiousness, as we become more aware.
While most of us are here because we are HSPs, sensitivity, like any other trait, is a continuum. It is estimated that about 40 percent of people fall into the medium sensitivity range, 20 percent into the low sensitivity range, and 30 percent into the high sensitivity range. The latest scientific expression of the latter group is environmental sensitivity. (If you’ve heard it called sensory processing sensitivity, or SPS, it’s one theory of how sensitivity works and falls under the “umbrella” of environmental sensitivity.) People who score high on environmental sensitivity are also called highly sensitive people.
As for the Big Five, studies have shown that in adults, environmental sensitivity correlates with openness to experience and neuroticism, but not with conscientiousness, extraversion, or agreeableness. (There is a small correlation with lower extraversion scores or being more introverted, although not all sensitive people are introverts.) The same study found that the only personality trait in children that correlated with sensitivity was neuroticism.
However, there are some important factors to keep in mind, which I will cover below.
Need to soothe your sensitive nervous system?
HSPs often live with high levels of anxiety, sensory overload, and stress—and negative emotions can overwhelm us. But what if you finally felt at ease?
This is what you will find in it this effective online course Julie Bjelland, one of the best HSP therapists in the world. You will learn to turn off the racing thoughts, end the emotional outpouring, eliminate the sensory overload, and finally make room for your sensitive gifts to shine.
Stop feeling held back and start believing that you can handle anything. Check out this “HSP Toolbox” and start making changes today. Click here for more information.
4 Reasons Why Sensitivity Should Be Redefined as a Personality Trait
1. Sensitivity is different from the Big 5 traits.
Although sensitivity correlates with neuroticism, the two have repeatedly been found to differ. In fact, in an early studyusing a series of seven personality tests, the researchers were able to disentangle sensitivity from each of the Big Five traits, as well as emotionality, a lesser-known trait. Likewise in a much more recent one 2020 sheetresearchers seeking an integrated theory of sensitivity conducted a series of studies and confirmed that sensitivity is its own property. In their words, “Differences in sensitivity are not fully explained by shared Big Five personality traits.”
In other words, a person’s score on any of the Big 5 traits does not determine their sensitivity score, suggesting that this is a unique dimension of personality.
2. Sensitivity appears to change over time.
One important difference between temperament and personality is that temperament is largely genetic and usually remains the same throughout life. Personality, although it has a genetic component, changes more as a result of life experiences. By this measure, sensitivity seems to be a better fit for personality than temperament.
This is because researchers using twin studies have accurately defined sensitivity only 47 percent is genetic and 53 percent based on environment and experience. What’s more, they found that sensitivity is more useful in some environments than others, and people seem to “fine-tune” how sensitive they are based on their environment. (There are limits, of course. If you’re genetically highly sensitive, you’ll probably always score around the high end of the scale, but your exact score—and how sensitive you are. to feel — goes up or down depending on life experience.)
We saw something similar in the studies above: remember how the correlation between personality traits and sensitivity changed somewhat between children and adults? These properties, and sensitivity itself, seem to change over time, and not always in the same direction.
3. Sensitivity fits the definition of a personality trait better than a temperamental trait.
While signs of high sensitivity may occur early in life, levels of sensitivity are more likely to be noticed around the same time that other personality traits such as extroversion and agreeableness begin to develop and solidify.
Furthermore, returning to the definition of personality, sensitivity affects our thinking, feeling, and behavior to a similar degree as other personality traits. I think deeply because I am very sensitive; I feel strong because I am very sensitive; I behave in ways that reflect my very sensitive nature, such as being compassionate with others and often he needs alone time and I withdraw into my own inner world. I am what I am because sensitivity, just as sensitivity is an essential part of my personality. I imagine, fellow HSP, that you can resonate with this, given that our sensitivity affects many aspects of our being.
4. Redefining sensitivity as a personality trait can be beneficial – on the one hand, it can reduce the sense of shame around it.
Since sensitivity has long been misunderstood by society, this is the result of many of us to be ashamed of being extremely sensitive. Similar to how Susan Cain’s book, Quietif sensitivity were seen as another dimension of personality, the stigma associated with sensitivity would decrease and more people would accept their sensitive nature.
Also, if sensitivity were closer to the forefront of personality discussions, perhaps more people would find out that they too are HSP sooner.
Do you remember what it was like to realize that you are a highly sensitive person? Maybe it gave you permission to be your sensitive self. And at the end of the day, that’s all any of us want. And we all deserve permission to be who we really are.
You might also like:
This article contains affiliate links. We only recommend products that we truly believe in.
