Jetzt Mitglied werden

Inhalt

All About High Sensitivity

In this article, our co-founder and psychologist Guido F. Gebauer explains high sensitivity and what highly sensitive individuals can do to strengthen the resource character of their high sensitivity and overcome the burden character.

Consonance (Gleichklang) has supported highly sensitive singles in their partner search for more than 15 years. We also help highly sensitive people to meet other highly sensitive friends or to find friends who, while not highly sensitive themselves, approach high sensitivity with appreciation and acceptance:

See for yourself and join us: ➨ SIGN UP NOW!

Hochsensible.eu and Our Assessment Instruments

We operate the portal hochsensible.eu, where we provide comprehensive information about high sensitivity. In this article, we have compiled and summarized all the findings gathered on hochsensible.eu in a condensed form.

Part of the descriptions are based on our own studies and data analyses that we have been conducting at Consonance on the topic of high sensitivity for years:

Since this article is very long, you can use the table of contents to jump directly to sections that particularly interest you.

The article ends with a brief summary that recaps the entire article in a highly condensed form.

Finally, we will once again present the resources we offer to highly sensitive individuals at Consonance.

Consonance and Highly Sensitive People

At Consonance (Gleichklang), we offer highly sensitive individuals special support for their partner search and friendship search. This support is based on findings that highly sensitive people become happier in relationships where the other individuals are either also highly sensitive or demonstrate a high level of acceptance and appreciation for high sensitivity in partners or friends.

We take this special situation of our highly sensitive members into account in our friendship matching and partner matching through our psychological matching algorithm:

  • In dating for highly sensitive individuals at Consonance, highly sensitive members therefore specifically meet other members who are also highly sensitive or who can at least appreciate high sensitivity as a special trait in partners and friends.

Our dating for highly sensitive people represents an important alternative for highly sensitive individuals to the large partner exchanges, singles exchanges, dating apps, and matchmaking services. For these major platforms largely dominate online dating but give no room to the needs of highly sensitive people in their partner search and friendship search.

Table of Contents

Using the jump links, you can immediately go to the topics that interest you most:

What Is High Sensitivity?

High sensitivity (HSP) refers to a characteristic of people to react intensely to stimuli and process them especially deeply.

The concept was originally introduced by psychologist Elaine Aron, who assumes that highly sensitive individuals have a special constitution of the neuronal system that leads to increased sensitivity.

Highly sensitive people can react more quickly to sensory overload. However, high sensitivity is not to be confused with a mere hypersensitivity to stimuli. Rather, highly sensitive individuals process stimuli in a special and more intensive way, which causes them to react differently cognitively, emotionally, behaviorally, and socially.

For example, the cognitive processing of highly sensitive people is often very complex. Emotionally, increased openness and intensity of feelings are noticeable. Behaviorally, highly sensitive people repeatedly seek out quiet and prefer to withdraw from highly turbulent environments. Socially, highly sensitive people stand out through compassion, empathy, and helpfulness. Many highly sensitive individuals also live vegetarian or vegan because they feel more compassion toward animals. Also read our dating tips for vegan singles or our dating tips for vegetarian singles.

Further peculiarities of highly sensitive persons (HSP) are a pronounced and detailed perception, a diverse and complex imagination, intuition, enthusiasm, and a very intense experience of music or art.

In addition to these resources, high sensitivity can also be associated with burdens:

  • Highly sensitive people often have an increased sensitivity to pain and feel burdened by the characteristics of their non-highly sensitive environment. They sometimes actually suffer from a hypersensitivity to stimuli, to which their social environment does not always react with understanding.

Highly sensitive individuals can experience their high sensitivity very differently:

  • Some highly sensitive people experience their high sensitivity solely as a resource.
  • Others suffer greatly from their high sensitivity and experience it only as a burden.
  • Still others describe that they experience their high sensitivity both as a resource and as a burden.

It depends on the individual person, their coping, and their social environment whether high sensitivity is experienced as a resource or as a burden:

  • By shaping their daily life and social environment, highly sensitive individuals who currently experience their high sensitivity as a burden can learn to reduce the burden and strengthen resources. This article also shows how to do this.

Romantic and friendly relationships also contribute significantly to whether highly sensitive people become happy or unhappy.

This is where we step in at Consonance by offering an effective partner search for highly sensitive people and friendship search for highly sensitive people through our psychological matchmaking. This makes it easier for highly sensitive individuals to build a truly supportive social network that shares or at least appreciates their high sensitivity.

You suspect that you are highly sensitive. The first step toward engagement is to clarify whether your suspicion is correct. With the help of psychological tests, you can determine whether you are actually highly sensitive.

At the same time, these tests also provide you with further information about how you process your high sensitivity and whether you should change anything.

back

Psychological Tests for High Sensitivity

We present here the two assessment instruments developed by Guido Gebauer:

  • High Sensitivity Test (HSP-Test)
  • High Sensitivity Structure Test (HSST-Test)

Doesn’t everyone know best themselves?

Some think such psychological tests are unnecessary because they know themselves best.

However, this assumption is mistaken:

  • It is true that we have direct access to our own inner experience. That is precisely why we ourselves fill out the test and provide information about our own inner experience.
  • However, we do not have direct access to the inner experience of others. We can sometimes intuit this or ask the individuals concerned. But we lack the direct access to others that we have to ourselves.
  • In psychology, statements such as sociable, introverted, conscientious, but also highly sensitive, are necessarily statements that compare us with others. We are sociable when we are more sociable than others. We are introverted when we are more introverted than others. We are conscientious when we are more conscientious than others. Likewise, we are highly sensitive when we are more sensitive than others. It is not that non-highly sensitive people have no empathy, perceive no stimuli, or cannot be enthusiastic. Everything that highly sensitive people can do, non-highly sensitive people can also do; only the degree differs.
  • The test now compares, on a sound basis, your self-reported experience with that of other individuals. You are highly sensitive only if certain processing patterns are more pronounced in you than in people who are not highly sensitive, or, put another way, are as pronounced as they are in highly sensitive people.
    Since this comparison is involved, the test is more precise and more reliable than one’s own assessment. Your own assessment is still maximally expressed (you fill out the test), but the equally necessary assessment of other people is also optimally captured by the test (other people fill out the test) and then compared with you through an objective statistical analysis.
  • Results of psychological tests show higher reliability and greater accuracy than direct self-assessments. This also applies to the determination of high sensitivity.

back

High Sensitivity Test (HSP-Test)

Interested readers can read a detailed presentation of the psychological and statistical foundations of this test in this article at hochsensible.eu. Here we omit the statistical basis and simply describe what the test measures, how the results are interpreted, and what the test results can tell you about your own high sensitivity and its management.

The test also helps to clarify what high sensitivity actually is.

What the HSP-Test Measures

The High Sensitivity Test (HSP-Test) tells you whether you are highly sensitive, whether you have partial traits of high sensitivity, or whether you are not highly sensitive.

The test also shows you whether you belong to the highly sensitive individuals for whom high sensitivity is a resource, a burden, or both. The test can thereby also give you an incentive to consider and initiate possible changes.

Taking the test for high sensitivity is thus intended to help you answer three questions:

  1. Am I highly sensitive?
  2. Do I succeed in using my high sensitivity as a resource?
  3. What can I do to make my high sensitivity more usable as a resource in the future?

The first two questions are directly answered by the test.

For the third question, the HSP-Test should be an incentive for you to think about this. If you subsequently take the second test, the High Sensitivity Structure Test, you will receive further and more specific information about possible areas for change.

Why the Test Is Helpful

Highly sensitive people who do not know about their high sensitivity or do not understand it find it harder to classify themselves and to create a suitable social environment for their unknown high sensitivity.

Highly sensitive individuals who do not know that they are highly sensitive often react with irritation, burden, helplessness, and overload.

Knowing about one’s own high sensitivity is therefore the first step toward an effective, accepting, appreciative, and self-caring approach to one’s own high sensitivity and thus building stability and joy in life.

The High Sensitivity Test (HSP-Test) can support you on this path by providing a well-founded answer to the question of whether you are highly sensitive and at the same time showing you whether there is a need for change regarding your management of high sensitivity.

The test for high sensitivity is also intended to protect you from confusing high sensitivity with other things, such as emotional lability and neuroticism, depression, anxiety, stress, or impulsivity.

While highly sensitive individuals can indeed show emotional lability, high sensitivity is by no means simply negative feelings like depression or anxiety. Likewise, experiencing overload and strain does not necessarily mean that high sensitivity exists.

High sensitivity is rather a general intensification of perception that relates to negative and positive feelings and only leads to burden and overload when it occurs in an unsuitable environment or when the person concerned does not know how to deal with their high sensitivity. A key mechanism for highly sensitive people to manage their high sensitivity well is to activate their sensitivity to positive feelings in daily life.

Many individuals with depression, anxiety, or other mental illnesses are not highly sensitive. If you suffer from depression, anxiety, or mental overload, this does not mean that you are highly sensitive.

The test for high sensitivity helps you to distinguish reliably between neuroticism, depression, anxiety, stress sensitivity, and high sensitivity. Of course, highly sensitive individuals can also suffer from depression and anxiety. They often do so because they are unable to cope adequately with their high sensitivity and are confronted with the non-highly sensitive world.

The HSP-Test will show you whether high sensitivity is (also) hidden behind your problems. If, for example, you suffer from depression and are highly sensitive, this does not mean that existing effective treatment measures are no longer effective or unnecessary for you.

If you have depression, you should also seek competent psychotherapeutic treatment as a highly sensitive person. Incidentally, highly sensitive individuals also benefit particularly from the methods of cognitive-behavioral therapy, which refers not only to behavior but also to thoughts and feelings. Through cognitive-behavioral therapy, you can acquire techniques and methods to activate positive feelings, better accept and cope with negative feelings, and expand your skills in problem-solving, stress management, and social communication. All of this can help overcome depressive symptoms and at the same time use your own high sensitivity more as a resource.

Also helpful can be measures for structuring daily life (time-outs, conscious quiet), relaxation exercises, meditation, and yoga – all of which are also considered in cognitive-behavioral treatments.

Psychotherapists near you can be found, for example, on this page of the Federation of German Psychologists (BDP), where you can limit the search to therapists whose treatment is covered by health insurance.

If there is no mental illness requiring treatment, coaching can help you find a positive way of dealing with your high sensitivity. Our co-founder Guido Gebauer works as a coach for highly sensitive people, as does Barbara Kern, who runs the website Hochsensibelsein.de.

The HSP-Test alone will not change anything. But after the test, you may be able to classify yourself better, and you can use the test for high sensitivity as an opportunity to work on a positive approach to your own high sensitivity if the test shows deficits.

The HSP-Test is the first step that provides you with knowledge about whether you are highly sensitive and shows you how you process your high sensitivity.

Content of the Test for High Sensitivity

The test for high sensitivity (HSP-Test) contains two scales. The main scale is the “High Sensitivity Scale,” which tells you whether you are highly sensitive. The second scale is the “Resources and Burdens” scale, which tells you how you deal with your high sensitivity.

The “High Sensitivity Scale” will be presented first, followed by the “Resources and Burdens” scale.

High Sensitivity Scale

In a comprehensive statistical analysis during the development of the HSP-Test, it was shown that the following 13 characteristics distinguish between individuals who are highly sensitive and those who are not. Thus, these 13 characteristics also illustrate very vividly what high sensitivity actually is:

  1. pronounced emotional experience
  2. very detailed perception
  3. strong pain sensitivity
  4. strong inner experience of music or art
  5. high degree of intuition
  6. very high emotional vulnerability
  7. intense perception of the moods and feelings of others
  8. very intense and differentiated imagination
  9. very multi-layered thought processes
  10. high sensitivity to loudness and strong stimuli
  11. pronounced engagement with spirituality
  12. resonating with the moods of others
  13. strong striving for harmony

Highly sensitive individuals show a higher expression in all these 13 characteristics than non-highly sensitive individuals.

Thus, high sensitivity can be described once more as follows:

  • Highly sensitive individuals report a more pronounced emotional experience and very detailed perception. Their pain sensitivity is above average. They also describe a high sensitivity to loudness and strong stimuli. Highly sensitive individuals report a strong inner experience of music and art and describe a high degree of intuition. They also tend to be emotionally vulnerable and report an intense perception of the moods and feelings of other people, with whom they often resonate. Many highly sensitive people engage with spirituality and have a strong striving for harmony.

However, not every single characteristic must be present in every highly sensitive individual. For example, there are highly sensitive people who are critical of spirituality. Likewise, there are highly sensitive individuals who do not report increased pain intensity. Some highly sensitive people are also less or not bothered by loud noises but have learned to deal with them.

In the test, the questions are answered on a five-point scale from strong rejection to strong agreement. The point values are then added up, and based on the sum, it is decided whether high sensitivity is present or not. It is also possible that you are in an intermediate range where a tendency toward high sensitivity already exists.

Results and Interpretation of the “High Sensitivity” Scale

The test for high sensitivity gives you a direct, text-based result, so you can easily understand what the test says about you:

  • Not highly sensitive: According to your responses, there is no indication that high sensitivity is present in you. The ways of experiencing you describe do not indicate a very strongly increased complexity and sensitivity of your inner psychological processing.
  • Partially highly sensitive: Your responses indicate that you have highly sensitive perception and experiential patterns that clearly differ from the average. A highly sensitive tendency is to be assumed, but it does not cross the threshold for a reliable determination of high sensitivity.
  • Highly sensitive: The critical threshold for determining high sensitivity has been exceeded. Your responses therefore indicate that you are highly sensitive.
    Replications in several samples and also for different age groups and genders have shown that the test can distinguish very reliably between these three levels.

Here is how you can handle the results of the “High Sensitivity” scale of the test for high sensitivity:

  • Not highly sensitive: With a result of not highly sensitive, you can assume with very high certainty that you do not have high sensitivity. Whatever questions you approached the test with; high sensitivity is apparently not the answer in your case. This is a clear and reliable result that can help you find other answers to your questions. It is not at all bad not to be highly sensitive. In fact, it often makes life easier for non-highly sensitive individuals. So do not fret and accept that it is apparently about something other than high sensitivity. On our psychological test portal, however, you can continue to engage in depth with your personality independently of high sensitivity, for example with the Five plus 30 Factor Inventory of Personality (F+30FIP), which assesses the five central personality tendencies of extraversion, openness, neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, as well as 30 further, more specific personality traits subordinate to these.
    Highly sensitive: With a clear result of “highly sensitive,” you can be very sure that you are indeed highly sensitive. Perhaps this result alone clarifies many things for you, helps you to better understand yourself and to achieve greater self-acceptance. It can also be an incentive to create a different social environment and, for example, with our friendship and partner search for highly sensitive individuals, to specifically search for people who are also highly sensitive or who show high acceptance and appreciation for highly sensitive people.
  • Partially highly sensitive: With a result of “partially highly sensitive,” you can assume that you share some of the special processing patterns with highly sensitive people, even though you do not have the full picture of high sensitivity. This is by no means a bad result. It may even give you better access to “both worlds.” For example, in your partner search or friendship search at Consonance, you can certainly indicate a high acceptance and appreciation for high sensitivity, since you yourself perceive partial aspects of high sensitivity in yourself.

Scale “Resource versus Burden”

In the standardization sample of the HSP-Test, 73.4% of respondents stated that they experience their high sensitivity both as a resource and as a burden. 17.3% of the test development sample reported experiencing their high sensitivity predominantly as a resource. 9.3% described experiencing their high sensitivity predominantly as a burden.

Thus, most highly sensitive individuals experience both positive and negative aspects of their high sensitivity. About one in seven highly sensitive individuals manages to experience their high sensitivity predominantly as a resource, while almost one in ten highly sensitive individuals unfortunately suffers predominantly under their high sensitivity.

The statistical analysis showed that 15 questions can distinguish very well between the three groups “Burden,” “Resource,” and “Resource and Burden.”

These questions, when answered affirmatively, indicate increased burden in highly sensitive individuals:

• frequent anxiety
• neuroticism (emotional lability)
• I am socially isolated
• I am quickly overwhelmed
• I doubt myself
• I feel misunderstood
• very multi-layered thought processes
• I cannot assert myself
• I despair of this world
• long afterglow of feelings

These questions, when answered affirmatively, indicate stronger resources in highly sensitive individuals:

• extraversion
• pronounced engagement with spirituality
• strong inner experience of music or art
• very interested in self-experience
• high capacity for enthusiasm

Again, statistical cut-off values were calculated to classify each person into one of the three groups based on a total point value. You, of course, do not need to calculate anything; one of three possible results will be automatically returned to you in text form:

  • High sensitivity as a resource: You succeed in integrating your highly sensitive tendency into daily life primarily as a resource. Congratulations, because this means you are making the best of your highly sensitive tendency!
  • High sensitivity as a burden: At present, you experience your highly sensitive tendency primarily as a burden. It is associated with negative feelings, distress, and impairment. But this does not have to remain so; changes are possible! It could be helpful for you to train your problem-solving skills and stress management skills, focus more on positive sensory perceptions and pleasant activities, and confront anxieties and worries more actively through engagement and coping. Negative feelings can be accepted and become the starting point for conscious changes. If you cannot manage on your own, you should not hesitate to seek help. Often, people with a highly sensitive tendency can benefit greatly from skill training, which helps them cope much better with negative feelings, articulate themselves better, solve problems more actively and efficiently, set boundaries better, and also enjoy things more. It could also be important for you to open up new areas of life or activate existing ones where your high sensitivity is helpful. According to empirical findings, these could be music, art, intuition, self-experience, or spirituality. Other topics are also possible. Enthusiasm for something supports many highly sensitive people in developing their high sensitivity as a resource. In addition, contact with like-minded and similarly highly sensitive individuals can often promote one’s own joy in life and stability. The presence of highly sensitive processing patterns can enrich your life. Go for it!
  • High sensitivity as a resource and burden: Your highly sensitive tendency functions both as a resource and as a burden. This means that you cannot yet benefit fully from your highly sensitive tendency. It could be helpful for you to train your problem-solving skills and stress management skills, focus more on positive sensory perceptions and pleasant activities, and confront anxieties and worries more actively through engagement and coping. Negative feelings can be accepted and become the starting point for conscious changes. It could also be important for you to open up areas of life where your high sensitivity is helpful. According to empirical findings, these could be music, art, intuition, self-experience, or spirituality. Other topics are also possible. Enthusiasm for something supports people in developing their highly sensitive tendencies as a resource. In addition, contact with like-minded and similarly highly sensitive individuals can often promote one’s own joy in life and stability.

Here is how you can handle the results of the “Resource or Burden” scale of the test for high sensitivity:

  • Is your high sensitivity a resource for you? Excellent! Keep doing what you have been doing.
  • Is your high sensitivity only or partially a burden for you? The test result has already given you suggestions. In this article, you will be able to read many more pieces of advice and recommendations in the section on how to make your high sensitivity a resource.

Interim Summary: Test for High Sensitivity (HSP-Test)

  • The HSP-Test identifies individuals who have sensitive processing patterns to such a degree that they are highly sensitive.
  • Likewise, the HSP can rule out high sensitivity when it is suspected, for example, due to stress sensitivity, depression, or anxiety.
  • In addition, the HSP-Test can identify an intermediate range in which individuals have sensitive processing patterns, but their strength and degree of generalization are below the defining features of high sensitivity.
  • The HSP-Test can also determine whether, in the case of high sensitivity or partially sensitive processing patterns, these have a positive effect in the sense of a resource or a negative effect in the sense of a burden. Here, too, there is an intermediate group in which high sensitivity manifests both as a burden and as a resource. The test results provide recommendations on how burdens can be reduced and resources maximized.
  • If, according to the HSP-Test, you are not highly sensitive, this is a clear result, and you can seek answers to your original questions in other constructs and traits.
  • If, according to the HSP-Test, you are in the intermediate range of high sensitivity, you stand, in a sense, between “both worlds” and can thus gain good access to both non-highly sensitive and highly sensitive individuals. You can also easily develop high acceptance and appreciation for high sensitivity, which you can use in your partner and friendship search. In online dating at Consonance, this acceptance is queried.
  • If, according to the HSP-Test, you are highly sensitive, you can assume with great certainty that you have high sensitivity. This knowledge alone can already help you to better understand and accept yourself. It may also give you the incentive to search for equally highly sensitive partners or friends, or for those who meet your high sensitivity with appreciation. For this, you can also use the online partner search and friendship search at Consonance.
  • If you are burdened also or only by your sensitive processing patterns, you can follow the recommendations given in the test results, as well as the explanations in the section of this article.
  • Whenever your high sensitivity appears only or also as a burden, you should and can take this as an opportunity for change. In any case, it is worth working on yourself if you are burdened by your high sensitivity. High sensitivity itself does not have to lead to difficulties. Rather, it depends decisively on the social environment and one’s own coping strategies whether you, as a highly sensitive person, will benefit from your high sensitivity or suffer under it.

back

High Sensitivity Structure Test (HSST-Test)

The High Sensitivity Structure Test extends the test for high sensitivity (HSP-Test) by not understanding high sensitivity as a completely uniform trait, but rather by identifying seven basic dimensions of high sensitivity. The individual test result is displayed as a profile.

The test is suitable for highly sensitive individuals who want to better understand their high sensitivity. It is also suitable for non-highly sensitive individuals who can discover individual components of high sensitivity in themselves, even if no general, generalized high sensitivity exists.

What the HSST-Test Measures

Unlike the High Sensitivity Test (HSP-Test), which only determines the existence of high sensitivity overall, the HSST enables a differentiated analysis of the degree of expression of highly sensitive processing patterns in seven basic dimensions:

  • Empathy and Compassion
  • Perceptual Sensitivity
  • Mental Complexity
  • Positive Affect Sensitivity
  • Self-Reflection and Self-Experience
  • Moral Sensitivity
  • Burden and Overload

The original basis of the new test is based on questionnaire data from 2,439 individuals; tens of thousands have now completed the test. Numerous questions, all correlated with high sensitivity, were reduced to seven dimensions using a principal component analysis. This test is much longer because it requires more questions due to the subdivision into seven scales.

The High Sensitivity Structure Test also includes a scale for overall sensitivity, so that a clear statement is possible as to whether you are highly sensitive overall.

Content of the High Sensitivity Structure Test

Below, each basic dimension is presented, defined, and examples of test questions matching each basic dimension are given. Due to the large number of questions, not all questions are presented, but the focus is on the seven overarching basic dimensions:

  • Empathy and Compassion – Perception and resonance with the feelings of others: The feelings of people transfer to me, Other people can touch me emotionally, Experience a very pronounced compassion for other people, Can understand people particularly deeply. …
  • Perceptual Sensitivity – High intensity with which environmental stimuli (e.g., visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile …) are perceived: Perceive touches particularly intensely, Perceive colors particularly intensely, Intense perception of low-oxygen air, High sensitivity to loudness and strong stimuli. …
  • Mental Complexity – Complex thinking through of interconnections: Make an effort to really understand things, Try to grasp matters in their depth and wholeness mentally, Interested in complex thoughts and theories. …
  • Positive Affect Sensitivity – Intense experience of joy, happiness, and enthusiasm: Positive feelings are contagious to me, Small occasions can lead to great joy for me, Experience states of deep joy and bliss. …
  • Self-Reflection and Self-Experience – Self-reflection and striving for self-experience: Interested in psychology, Practice of meditative practices, Engage with my own personality. …
  • Moral Sensitivity – Ethical awareness, clarification, and gentleness: Pronounced desire to resolve conflicts calmly and kindly, Advocate for an ethic of understanding and helping, An ethic of mindful interaction with each other is important to me. …
  • Burden and Overload – Sensory overload, stress, and lability: I am quickly overloaded, Experience states of sadness and despair, Small occasions can lead to negative feelings for me, Feel misunderstood. …

In addition, high sensitivity is evaluated as an overall measure, so that in addition to your expressions in the seven dimensions, you will also learn whether you are highly sensitive overall.

Results and Interpretation of the High Sensitivity Structure Test

All results for the seven dimensions as well as for the overall value are reported as No, Partially, or Yes:

  • Yes means that you have values typically observed in highly sensitive individuals.
  • No means that you have values typically observed in non-highly sensitive individuals.
  • Partially means that you stand between the two groups.

Highly sensitive individuals do not have to receive a “Yes” on all scales. On the contrary, the idea of the High Sensitivity Structure Test is that high sensitivity can manifest itself in different individuals in different ways across these seven dimensions.

The test results can again give you an incentive to consider changes or improvements:

  • This is particularly obvious on the “Burden” scale, where a Yes and even a Partially indicate possibly considerable distress.
    A Yes on Perceptual Sensitivity can also be a reason to think about how you want to design your daily life, your environment, including your social network, to achieve an optimum of life satisfaction.
  • A No or even only a Partially on positive feelings can give you a reason to focus more on positive feelings and work on more positivity and enjoyment.
    Below, the meaning of the possible results in the seven basic dimensions is presented. Then some profiles (combinations of the seven basic dimensions) are discussed.

Empathy and Compassion

  • If you have a “Yes” here, this means that you understand the feelings of others very well, can put yourself in their shoes, and can empathize with them. Thus, you are highly capable of experiencing compassion for other people and animals. A “Partially” also indicates an increased expression compared to most non-highly sensitive individuals.
    It is important to ensure that you are not overwhelmed by feelings and thus emotionally collapse. The key is to cultivate compassion, act on it, and still remain with yourself.
  • Fundamentally, empathy and compassion are to be considered resources, even if they are not seen that way by everyone in our competitive and often brutal world. The challenge is to exist in this world and still act with empathy.
  • Empathy and compassion make it easier to build and maintain deep and sustainable partnerships and friendships. The key here, besides partner selection, is also the ability to set boundaries when necessary.
  • If you have a No in this dimension even though you are highly sensitive, this means that the areas of empathy and compassion are less developed. This can give you reason to work on perspective-taking and sensitivity to the feelings of others. This way, you can achieve more empathy.

Perceptual Sensitivity

  • If you have a “Yes” here, this means that you react much more strongly to environmental stimuli in your perception than non-highly sensitive individuals. Thus, you perceive even relatively low-threshold stimuli more intensely. This can affect all sensory modalities, i.e., visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, gustatory, and also pain stimuli. Even with a “Partially,” your perceptual sensitivity is higher than that of most non-highly sensitive individuals, but lower than that of many highly sensitive individuals.
  • It is important that you create an environment in which you feel comfortable and satisfied. It is by no means always possible or sensible to withdraw from existing environmental situations, since you still have to live in the non-highly sensitive world. Nevertheless, you can do many things to prevent sensory overload. Pay attention to times of conscious silence and temporary withdrawal, seek out hobbies that involve nature experiences, meditate, do other relaxation exercises, or practice yoga. Design your home environment so that you feel comfortable. Seek out partners and friends who appreciate the same, less turbulent environments. Inform your social environment about your situation so that compromises can be found.
  • If you have a “No” in this dimension, there is nothing further to note. In this case, you do not have a particularly low threshold for sensory overload and you will typically cope well even in more turbulent environments.

Mental Complexity

  • If you have a “Yes” here, this means that you think in very complex interconnections. Even with a “Partially,” the complexity of your thought processes is higher than that of most people, but lower than that of most highly sensitive individuals.
  • Make sure that you do not focus your thoughts predominantly on dangers or threats. Accept ambiguity and doubt as part of our human life. Through affirmation and acceptance, we can learn to deal with them better.
  • Use your mental complexity positively to engage with philosophy, literature, art, culture, or other sciences.
  • Seek out partners and friends with whom you can exchange ideas.
  • Make sure to let go from time to time, to focus on positive perceptions, feelings, and the little things in life, so that your mental complexity does not impair the lightness of being and does not overwhelm you emotionally.
  • With a “No,” it can be helpful to check for yourself whether you might be taking some things too lightly and could perhaps engage more deeply with some matters. However, a “No” does not imply any immediate need for action.

Positive Affect Sensitivity

  • If you have a “Yes” here, this means that you can experience positive feelings, joy, and enthusiasm much more intensely and quickly than most non-highly sensitive individuals. Even with a “Partially,” the intensity of your positive feelings is higher than that of most non-highly sensitive people, but lower than that of many highly sensitive people.
    A “Yes” and even a “Partially” are very good results. Because our life satisfaction is largely determined by positive feelings.
  • If you can rejoice in the little things, you have better prospects of becoming happy and satisfied overall than if feelings of joy and happiness are difficult for you to come by.
  • Nevertheless, even with positive feelings, you should let them carry you, but not completely sweep you away. Always make sure to stay grounded by connecting your feelings with your thoughts and listening inside yourself to ensure that both say the same thing.
  • With a “No,” you lack positive affect sensitivity. You can work on bringing positive feelings more into your life and into your perceptual focus. As a highly sensitive person, this will be easier for you than if you are not highly sensitive.
  • Do not only pay attention to what does not work, but also to what goes the way you want it to.
  • Become aware of the little joys of everyday life and pay close attention to pleasure when something positive happens.
  • Consciously listen to music, look at art or nature, practice meditation, appreciate affection in interpersonal contact.

  • Activating positive affect sensitivity is, by the way, one of the most effective strategies for making high sensitivity a resource and allowing burdens to recede into the background.

Self-Reflection and Self-Experience

  • If you have a “Yes” here, this means that you think a lot about yourself, pay attention to your feelings, and are interested in self-experience and the further development of your person. Even with a “Partially,” your interest in dealing with your own person is increased compared to non-highly sensitive individuals.
  • It is optimal if you can choose a profession or activity in which self-reflection and self-experience play a major role. This applies to psychology, but also to most social, educational, and artistic professions. But of course, this is only the icing on the cake, and you do not have to be unhappy in other occupations.
    Seminars, meditation, yoga, or coaching can help you to fruitfully implement your need for engagement with your own person.
  • It is also very helpful if you build a social network with partners and friends who are equally interested in self-reflection, self-experience, and self-awareness.
    It is important that in self-reflection you do not only deal with possible critical or negative aspects of your own person, but also recognize and strengthen your own resources and build acceptance for yourself.
  • A “No” is not a fundamental problem. However, if you find that problems exist in your daily life, your relationships, or with yourself, it could help you to reflect more and build a stronger interest in self-experience.

Moral Sensitivity

  • If you have a “Yes” here, this means that your ethical orientation is strongly focused on mindful, helpful, and peaceful interaction, much more so than many people in our society. Even with a “Partially,” your moral sensitivity is increased compared to most people.
  • This is an excellent result! Because in an indifferent, careless, often brutal and selfish world that largely watches the destruction of our climate, nature, and wildlife inactively or lets refugees live in misery and distress or even drown, we do not need less, but more moral sensitivity.
  • There cannot be too much moral sensitivity, but rather too little. However, it is necessary, even with high moral sensitivity, to be able to set boundaries internally and to be careful that help is not exploited. Unfortunately, this is not infrequently the case in our non-mindful world.
  • It can be very helpful to get involved in organizations that work for social causes, the environment, or animals, in order to combine your own moral sensitivity with social support and also received solidarity.
  • If the result is “No,” this can be a reason for you to reflect again on your own moral judgments and social attitudes in order to arrive at a more mindful, softer, gentler, more loving, and more caring perspective.
  • By the way, high moral sensitivity can also improve the quality of partnerships and friendships.

Burden and Overload

  • If you have a “Yes” here, this means that you have a considerable level of burden, as is unfortunately the case for quite a few highly sensitive individuals. Even with a “Partially,” a considerable level of burden is still present.
  • For you, it is now important to reduce internal, external, and social burdens and to strengthen your resources.
  • An important factor, already discussed, is the activation of positive feelings. Pay attention to positive things in life, rejoice in small things, direct your attention to the positive. Meditate or practice yoga.
  • Build a supportive and like-minded circle of friends and acquaintances, seek out partners with whom you share central life principles and ways of experiencing.
  • The sole focus on the positive is not always enough to reduce the burden. Learn to accept negative events and feelings better, but also to look for possibilities for change.
  • Improve your problem-solving skills, your stress management skills, and your social skills to feel less helpless and overwhelmed.
  • Look for online courses, attend seminars, book a coaching session, or seek psychotherapeutic treatment if you feel you cannot manage on your own.
  • With a “No,” there is no need for action. “No” is the desirable result.

Example Profiles

  • Dynamic High Sensitivity: “Yes” or “partially” in all seven components and in the overall value: Your highly sensitive processing patterns are accompanied by both resources (positive feelings, self-experience, moral sensitivity) and burdens (burden, possibly mental complexity). Due to your high interest in self-reflection and self-experience and your existing sensitivity to positive feelings, there are good possibilities that you will succeed in reducing the burden and thereby achieving an improved inner balance. Training in problem-solving skills, stress management skills, and social skills can also be important for you. Likewise, it can be helpful to consistently incorporate periods of rest and recovery into your daily life and to create a social network of like-minded individuals.
  • Balanced High Sensitivity: “No” on burden and “Yes” or “Partially” on all other components and on the overall value: Congratulations and keep it up! You can integrate your highly sensitive processing style into your daily life as a resource without being burdened by it.
  • Burdened High Sensitivity: You receive a “Yes” or “Partially” for burden, a “No” for positive feelings, and a “Yes” or a “Partially” for all other components and the overall value. Your highly sensitive processing patterns are predominantly a burden for you. Anxiety, depression, dissatisfaction, and overload characterize your emotional experience, while you perceive positive feelings, joy of life, and enthusiasm only to a limited extent. Although you are interested in self-experience, are empathetic, and have high moral sensitivity, you fail to make these skills a source of joy. It will be crucial for you to work on increasing your sensitivity to positive feelings. Pay attention to the positive, try to rejoice in the little things, focus on positive sensory perceptions in all areas. Meditation and yoga can be helpful. Design a self-caring daily routine and pay attention to a supportive social embedding with friendships and, in the best case, a partnership with a like-minded person. Also practice your problem-solving skills, stress management skills, and social skills. Seminars, online courses, coaching, or possibly psychotherapy can be helpful for you.
  • Balanced “Non-High Sensitivity”: For the overall value and for burden, a “No” results. Other components are not present or only partially present. You are not highly sensitive, but in some areas sensitive processing patterns may occur. You are not burdened and overall balanced.
  • Burdened Non-High Sensitivity: For all values, a “No” results, but for burden a “Yes.” You are not highly sensitive, but you are under considerable psychological stress. Practice your problem-solving skills, stress management skills, and social skills. Coaching or possibly psychotherapy can be helpful for you to achieve more life satisfaction and balance. With the help of yoga, meditation, and exercises for conscious perception of positive feelings and sensory impressions, you can also achieve more satisfaction.

Numerous other combinations are conceivable, which you can interpret based on the meaning of the individual components.

With regard to four of the seven components, general indications or recommendations for possible changes can also be given – independently of the expression in the other components:

  • If high psychological burden is shown, this should be a reason to work on improved coping strategies, as well as to design private and professional daily life so that more satisfaction and less stress and burden result. Meditation, yoga, seminars, coaching, or psychotherapy can often be helpful. It is also important to build stable and supportive partnerships and friendships with like-minded individuals. For this, you can also rely on online dating at Consonance for a partner search and friendship search specifically tailored to the needs of highly sensitive people. In contrast, the major dating apps, singles exchanges, or matchmaking services are less promising, as they rarely consider the concerns of highly sensitive people.
  • If there is high perceptual sensitivity, it makes sense to think about the design of daily life and environment to avoid sensory overload. Regular periods of withdrawal and recovery can also be helpful here. This can even lead to improved coping in a turbulent environment.
  • If no sensitivity to positive feelings is shown, it can be effective to practice savoring exercises, consciously pay attention to positive sensory perceptions, and practice rejoicing in the little things of daily life. This can help dissolve emotional blockages and increase one’s own life satisfaction. Meditation and yoga are also well suited for activating positive experiences. Activating positive experiences can also act as a counterbalance to stress and pressure.
  • If no moral sensitivity is shown, you can take this as an opportunity to reflect again on your own moral judgments and, on this basis, arrive at a mindful, gentle, and loving perspective. Helpfulness, gentleness, and tolerant attitudes lead to more satisfying social contacts and thereby indirectly have a positive effect on one’s own life satisfaction.

back

Awareness and Self-Knowledge of One’s Own High Sensitivity

Basically, knowledge of one’s own person is always helpful in designing a daily routine and a social network that fits the person, but also in working on changes in one’s own person, which is often possible.

Both tests invite users to check for themselves, based on the test results, to what extent the existing expressions affect their daily life, their relationships, and their emotional experience in a favorable, unfavorable, or neutral way.

If unfavorable effects result, this is an opportunity to consider possible changes and improved coping.
If favorable effects result, these can be more clearly recognized and valued as resources. Such awareness of one’s own resources leads to increased life satisfaction.

Becoming aware of one’s own personality is an important factor, especially for highly sensitive people, in dealing well with their high sensitivity and, in connection with this, reducing burdens and promoting emotional stability and life satisfaction.

back

Peculiarities of Highly Sensitive People

General Aspects

People with highly sensitive processing patterns see and experience this world partly differently from non-highly sensitive individuals. It is therefore not surprising that highly sensitive people differ on average from others in a range of behaviors, attitudes, and habits.

On the other hand, the difference should nevertheless be understood more as a quantitative difference, i.e., as a “more than” and not as a “completely different.” For even non-highly sensitive people experience empathy and compassion, perceive stimuli, have moral convictions and can help others, experience positive feelings and burden, and can reflect on themselves, think complexly, and be interested in self‑experience. In highly sensitive individuals, on average, all these components are activated faster, more often, and more strongly, but fundamentally they are shared by all people.

A “No” in the evaluation of the High Sensitivity Structure Test (HSST‑Test) accordingly does not mean complete absence, but simply that there is no indication of particular sensitivity in this area.

Since fundamentally all people share general human processes, all people can fundamentally understand each other and come into contact with one another. However, contact with each other more often reaches a special depth when there is shared high sensitivity, but acceptance and appreciation of highly sensitive processing by non‑highly sensitive individuals can also represent a good basis for interaction.

Data Basis of the Described Peculiarities

At Consonance, we ask our members about their high sensitivity and at the same time many other characteristics and traits – all information we need for effective partner matching and friendship matching.

In addition, many people fill out our two tests for high sensitivity every day. Together with the test questions, we occasionally add further questions to find out what other peculiarities highly sensitive people have. The series of peculiarities presented below summarizes our findings on statistical differences between highly sensitive and non‑highly sensitive individuals.

back

High Sensitivity, Age, and Gender

Among our members at Consonance, we observe that women more often than men indicate that they are highly sensitive. 38% of our female members are highly sensitive, while among male members this percentage is only 30%.

Also based on the two test instruments for highly sensitive individuals – in which more than 100,000 people have already participated – we can identify a preponderance of women and non‑binary individuals over men among the highly sensitive. In our High Sensitivity Test (HSP‑Test), approximately two out of three individuals are women. They find our test because they are looking for information about high sensitivity.

The vast majority of test participants are themselves highly sensitive. This is not surprising, since they are actively searching for the test. However, even among the participants, there are gender differences:

  • 83% of the men who complete the test show themselves to be highly sensitive. Among women, this percentage is significantly higher at 94%.

We also find that younger individuals more often indicate being highly sensitive than older individuals.

How can this be explained?

It may be that women and non‑binary individuals actually develop highly sensitive processing patterns more frequently than men. After all, the psychological literature also reports higher levels of empathy and emotionality for women, which would be consistent with a higher frequency of high sensitivity.

Against this background, much suggests that high sensitivity occurs more often in women than in men.

The numbers are not representative because they predominantly reflect those who come to us because they are interested in high sensitivity or are themselves highly sensitive. All the more significant is the fact that even when specifically addressing highly sensitive individuals, more women than men are found.

Interestingly, however, there is no difference in the test results between those women and men who are actually highly sensitive:

Highly sensitive men and highly sensitive women showed identical test results. It is not the case that highly sensitive women are even more highly sensitive than highly sensitive men, which would be statistically possible. Thus, there are fewer highly sensitive men than highly sensitive women. However, when high sensitivity is present, it is the same characteristic.

But why should older individuals be less frequently highly sensitive than younger ones? Does high sensitivity perhaps diminish with age?

This is conceivable:

  • It is known in psychology that certain personality traits, such as openness to experience, indeed decrease with age. Openness to experience is in turn correlated with high sensitivity. In this respect, it is conceivable that high sensitivity actually decreases with age.

An alternative explanation for both effects could be that men, due to internalized gender role stereotypes, more often refrain from describing themselves as highly sensitive. Likewise, it is conceivable that younger people engage more often with the concept of high sensitivity and therefore also more often describe themselves as highly sensitive.

Even though there may be more women and more younger than older individuals among highly sensitive people, it is equally clear that highly sensitive individuals can be found among all genders and age groups.

back

Career Paths of Highly Sensitive People

Highly sensitive Consonance members tend to choose different content‑related occupational fields than our non‑highly sensitive members:

  • Highly sensitive Consonance members work significantly more often in the fields of fashion, art, music, education/psychology, nursing, medicine, humanities, or social sciences.
  • Non‑highly sensitive individuals work more often than highly sensitive individuals in the fields of technology, industry, information technology, and transport/traffic.

These findings are easy to interpret. Highly sensitive individuals apparently more often choose artistic professions, professions that require a lot of empathy, or professions that demand critical reflection. They are less interested in professions that are primarily about technology and the efficiency of technical processes.

Presumably, highly sensitive individuals are more able to bring their high sensitivity as a resource in artistic, social, nursing, and humanities or social science professions and thus compensate for disadvantages they face in many areas of professional life.

In this sense, high sensitivity can be considered a resource for artistic, empathetic, and highly reflective professional activity.

We also asked participants in our HSP‑Tests in a survey which professions are particularly suitable for highly sensitive individuals:

  • Leading is the field of music and art, which 95.5% of respondents considered particularly suitable. In second place comes psychology with an approval of 87.9%. High suitability is also seen for humanities and social sciences (82.9%). Still high – but already significantly lower – are mentioned languages (71.6%), education and teaching (69.7%), agriculture and forestry (66.3%), sports and exercise (65.4%), medicine and nursing (64.9%), and natural sciences (64%).
  • Hardly mentioned are occupational fields such as transport and logistics (7.3%), production and manufacturing (8.4%), politics (11.8%), office and secretariat (15.3%), as well as shipping and trade (16%).
  • In a middle range are construction and architecture (39.3%), business organization and management (28.7%), media (26.7%), as well as administration and law (21.1%).

Highly sensitive individuals thus experience artistic‑musical and psychological‑educational occupational fields as particularly suitable. Helping professions in the medical‑nursing field, scientific professions, as well as professions related to movement and nature are also often experienced as suitable. Highly technical areas or office work, as well as shipping and trading activities, are perceived as rather unsuitable.

We also asked questions about the structure of work activities and workplaces:

  • An overwhelming majority of respondents (90.7%) consider activities that require dealing with relatively few people at the same time to be beneficial. Also considered beneficial are flat hierarchies (77.0%), high personal responsibility (76.4%), and self‑employment (75.3%). Moreover, quite many (61.2%) consider a departure from typical professional references (dropout) to be well suited.
  • In contrast, structures such as activities requiring interaction with many people at the same time (5.1%), strict hierarchies (8.1%), or multi‑tasking (16.3%) are very rarely considered beneficial.
  • In the middle range are named: management (37.9%), household (36.2%), or also employees (32.0%).
    Thus, work activities that are characterized by a limited number of communication partners at the same time, flat hierarchies, and personal responsibility – which can also include self‑employment – are predominantly rated as particularly beneficial for highly sensitive individuals. A dropout model is also often rated positively. Multi‑tasking, strict hierarchies, and dealing with many people at the same time are almost always rated as unfavorable for highly sensitive individuals.

The evaluation of the professions of our Consonance members and the survey of preferences by test participants have led to similar results and allow some recommendations for the career choice of highly sensitive individuals:

  • Artistic‑musical, psychological‑educational, nursing‑medical, and humanities professions are often particularly well suited for highly sensitive individuals. It can be sensible to pay attention to flat hierarchies and much personal responsibility, or to become self‑employed.
  • In contrast, workplaces with strict hierarchies, multi‑tasking, and requirements to interact with many people at the same time are unfavorable. Typically considered less suitable for highly sensitive individuals are transport and logistics, production and manufacturing, politics, office and secretariat, as well as shipping and trade.
  • In contrast, the dropout model is often rated positively.

Of course, no universally valid recommendations can be given. Highly sensitive individuals also differ in their personalities, attitudes, and life paths.

Typically, however, it is certainly more favorable for most highly sensitive individuals to find a career path that suits their high sensitivity. These are often musical, artistic, psychological‑educational, nursing, and also humanities and social science professions. It is also helpful if it is a workplace that allows flat hierarchies and a high degree of personal responsibility. Highly sensitive individuals are accordingly well suited for self‑employment.

But dropping out of the usual career paths is also a good option for those highly sensitive individuals who choose this path and can actually implement it.
Sometimes we are only seemingly trapped in certain career paths, but we could free ourselves if we reflect on the situation and implement changes. If you are dissatisfied with your profession or workplace, it is certainly advisable to think about that as well.

There are also life situations and life paths in which remaining in an unsatisfactory professional activity or a workplace situation unsuitable for highly sensitive individuals is indeed necessary.

All the more important in such a case is that you seek balance in your private life, daily routine, and social environment.

back

Personality Traits of Highly Sensitive People

We evaluated the personality structure of highly sensitive participants in the Five plus 30 Factor Inventory of Personality (F+30FIP), which we offer in our psychological test portal.

Participants who were highly sensitive according to the test for high sensitivity (HSP‑Test) achieved higher openness to experience, higher emotional lability, and higher conscientiousness on the F+30FIP. We find – unlike sometimes reported in the literature – no tendency toward introversion, and agreeableness also did not differ between highly sensitive and non‑highly sensitive individuals.

The correlation with openness to experience was the dominant relationship, while the other relationships were significantly less pronounced.

The findings indicate that highly sensitive individuals are characterized by a special personality configuration that arises particularly through increased openness to experience, accompanied by further, lower‑grade personality peculiarities. Openness to experience thus appears to be the central personality component of high sensitivity.

back

Types of High Sensitivity

We also statistically investigated, using cluster analysis, whether different types of high sensitivity can be identified. For this purpose, we analyzed the HSP total value, the sum score of the Burden scale of the HSP‑Test, and the Big Five (extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness) in 839 individuals, all of whom were highly sensitive, using cluster analysis.

Two well‑differentiating groups could be identified, which were defined as follows:

  1. Highly sensitive individuals with strong resources: Compared to the highly sensitive individuals in the second group, these individuals had lower neuroticism, higher extraversion, and higher conscientiousness. The burden level in the HSP was strongly reduced, and the HSP total value was (very slightly) reduced.
  2. Highly sensitive individuals with psychological burden: These individuals accordingly showed high neuroticism, introversion, reduced conscientiousness, massively increased burden, and a slightly higher HSP total value.

Again, it becomes visible that there are highly sensitive individuals who are strongly burdened and those who are little or not burdened. While increased openness to experience is common to all highly sensitive individuals, the two “types” differ based on neuroticism, extraversion/introversion, and conscientiousness. Highly sensitive individuals with strong resources thus show more emotional stability, extraversion, and higher conscientiousness, while the burdened group shows neurotic‑isolative tendencies.

Whether burdened or not, in both groups of highly sensitive individuals, a higher openness to experience is visible than in non‑highly sensitive individuals.

For highly sensitive individuals with high burden, the recommendation accordingly is not to hold high sensitivity itself responsible for their psychological burden, but to strive for a positive, accepting, and coping approach to their high sensitivity. It is particularly important for this group of highly sensitive individuals to work on improved emotional stability, to which improved problem and conflict resolution, training in self‑confidence and boundary‑setting, acquisition of stress management techniques, improved anxiety management, as well as relieving work organization and daily structuring, and a suitable social environment can contribute.

back

Veganism, Vegetarianism, and High Sensitivity

Highly sensitive members of Consonance more often indicate that they live vegan or vegetarian than non‑highly sensitive members. The following figures emerged:

  • 21.6% of 12,153 non‑vegan members reported being highly sensitive. In contrast, of the 1,041 vegan members, 35.6% reported being highly sensitive.
  • 6.6% of 10,195 non‑highly sensitive members reported being vegan. Of 2,996 highly sensitive members, in contrast, 12.4% reported being vegan.
  • 28.6% of 8,061 non‑highly sensitive and non‑vegan members reported being vegetarian. In contrast, of 2,354 highly sensitive and non‑vegan members, 39.4% reported being vegetarian.
  • 19.9% of 7,178 non‑vegan and non‑vegetarian members reported being highly sensitive. Of 3,236 non‑vegan but vegetarian members, in contrast, 28.6% reported being highly sensitive.

The numbers make it clear that high sensitivity is associated with a significantly greater frequency of a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle. Among vegans and vegetarians, there seem to be significantly more highly sensitive individuals than among members who are not vegan and not vegetarian.

According to our evaluations among Consonance members, highly sensitive individuals also place greater value on the protection and rights of animals. Likewise, highly sensitive individuals are more open to animal companions compared to non‑highly sensitive individuals.

The more frequent decision of highly sensitive individuals to live vegan or vegetarian is presumably due to their higher empathy, which extends to all beings capable of suffering.
The decision for a plant‑based and especially vegan diet can be helpful in achieving greater consistency between moral values, compassion, and one’s own behavior. Also read our dating tips for vegan singles.

back

Spirituality, Religions, and High Sensitivity

Highly sensitive Consonance members more often indicate that a spiritual lifestyle is important to them than non‑highly sensitive members.

  • In an evaluation of the statements of our members at Consonance, we found that 38% of highly sensitive Consonance members strongly affirmed spirituality and 27% affirmed it somewhat. In total, 65% of highly sensitive Consonance members affirmed a spiritual orientation.
  • Among our non‑highly sensitive members, 16% strongly affirmed spirituality and 21% affirmed spirituality somewhat. In total, 37% of our non‑highly sensitive members affirmed spirituality.

This makes it clear that highly sensitive members of Consonance feel significantly more appealed to by spirituality on average than our non‑highly sensitive members.
Spirituality and high sensitivity thus statistically overlap, although there are also many highly sensitive individuals who are not interested in spirituality.

We also observe among our highly sensitive members a more frequent positive relation to Buddhism, Hinduism, and also esotericism, while atheism and agnosticism are on average rated more critically by our highly sensitive members.

Likewise, highly sensitive members more often indicate practicing meditation or yoga.

We also observe among our highly sensitive members a more frequent positive relation to Buddhism, Hinduism, and also esotericism, while atheism and agnosticism are on average rated more critically by our highly sensitive members.

Of course, these are merely average effects that illustrate the typical tendencies of our highly sensitive members. In individual cases, high sensitivity can of course also be accompanied by an atheistic attitude.

Overall, it becomes clear that highly sensitive individuals feel more drawn to spiritual and experience‑based religious systems and practices. This fits well with reports in the literature that also suggest a special attraction of spirituality for highly sensitive people.

If you are interested in spirituality or religious topics, it can be sensible for your life satisfaction to build a corresponding circle of like‑minded friends.

back

Meditation and High Sensitivity

Meditation is an umbrella term for various mental techniques that should help practitioners achieve more calm, relaxation, equanimity, experiences of happiness, clarity of mind, overcoming suffering and pain, forgiveness, letting go, empathy, compassion, and caring.

Meditation can be embedded in religious or spiritual belief systems of various kinds. Likewise, meditation not inspired by religions or spirituality is also possible.

We asked participants of our High Sensitivity Test (HSP‑Test) how important it is for them to meditate.

The following results emerged:

  • Both the direct self‑assessment and the total point value in the HSP‑Test correlated positively with the importance of meditation for the participants.
  • However, the HSP‑Test correlated much more strongly with meditation than the direct self‑assessment of one’s own high sensitivity.
    Highly sensitive individuals who indicated meditating showed lower daily burden than highly sensitive individuals who did not meditate.

In our view, the HSP‑Test is significantly more suitable for determining high sensitivity than the mere, direct self‑assessment. This can explain why the expected positive correlation between high sensitivity and meditation is particularly strong in the HSP‑Test.

The results can also be interpreted as an indication that practicing meditation may possibly reduce the psychological burden experienced by highly sensitive individuals. This is in line with numerous psychological studies showing that meditation has a positive effect on well‑being and mental health.

It is clear from the results that high sensitivity and meditation have a close relationship with each other and that meditation can be helpful (also) for highly sensitive people.

back

Highly Sensitive Eroticism and Sexuality

Highly sensitive Consonance members indicated that they view sexuality more as a process that develops slowly and gradually. Likewise, highly sensitive Consonance members reported less interest in BDSM. In contrast, they indicated that they could more easily imagine purely platonic relationships or an asexual partnership.

We also examined differences between highly sensitive and non‑highly sensitive participants with the Sexual Experience Test in our test portal. The following peculiarities of highly sensitive individuals emerged:

  • Highly sensitive individuals show a significantly higher expression on the factor of sexual self‑experience. For highly sensitive individuals, sexuality is more something profound than mere sexual arousal or gratification. Highly sensitive individuals integrate sexuality more than non‑highly sensitive individuals into aspects of self‑experience, personality development, and spirituality. This finding is not surprising, as highly sensitive individuals also generally engage significantly more with psychology, self‑experience, and spirituality. This also generalizes to the area of sexuality.
  • The factor of sexual self‑experience is more pronounced in highly sensitive individuals than in non‑highly sensitive individuals. This means that for highly sensitive individuals, sexuality is more strongly connected with self‑experience and is therefore experienced as something profound that goes beyond mere fun or gratification. Highly sensitive individuals more often see a connection between sexuality, self‑experience, personality development, and spirituality.
  • The factor of love reference is more pronounced in highly sensitive individuals. Highly sensitive individuals are therefore less interested in casual and, above all, less in impersonal erotic contacts. Rather, highly sensitive individuals view sexuality as more integrated into deeper human relationships and love relationships.
  • The factor of fluidity of sexual orientation is increased in highly sensitive individuals. Highly sensitive individuals more often report a change or development in their sexual orientation and its transcendence of gender boundaries. This is presumably related to the tendencies of highly sensitive individuals toward self‑experience and their higher openness to experience.

It becomes clear that for highly sensitive individuals, sexuality is more than purely physical stimulation, arousal, and gratification. Rather, highly sensitive individuals embed their sexual experience in topics of self‑experience and love. Impersonal sexual contacts play a lesser role for highly sensitive individuals. Highly sensitive individuals proceed cautiously within sexuality and require no strong stimulation, which is why they are also less interested in BDSM. This finding is consistent with the increased perceptual sensitivity of highly sensitive individuals, which is why they experience strong stimuli as rather unpleasant. The increased openness of highly sensitive individuals – as well as their striving for self‑experience – is reflected in turn in their greater sexual fluidity, whereby gender boundaries lose significance.

back

Societal Attitudes of Highly Sensitive People

We also compared our highly sensitive and non‑highly sensitive members with regard to their societal attitudes.

It was shown that highly sensitive individuals more often than non‑highly sensitive individuals indicated that they value commitment to ecology, human rights, animal welfare/animal rights, and social justice.

These findings suggest that high sensitivity is associated with prosocial and altruistic political attitudes.

back

High Sensitivity and Nature Experience

We asked participants of our test for high sensitivity (HSP‑Test) the following question:

    • Spending time in nature gives me strength.

In the data analysis, it was shown that this statement was affirmed more strongly the higher the achieved total point value on the High Sensitivity scale of the HSP‑Test.

Highly sensitive individuals have a special closeness to nature and nature experience. Spending time in nature can help activate positive feelings and down‑regulate negative feelings.

Regular time in nature can therefore be a strategy for highly sensitive individuals to achieve the highest possible life satisfaction and emotional stability.

back

Dreams and High Sensitivity

Among the participants of the HSP‑Test, we found that the higher their overall value in high sensitivity, the more intense their nocturnal dreams and the more frequent their daydreams.

Highly sensitive people thus have more intense dreams at night and indulge in daydreams more often than non‑highly sensitive individuals.

This fits with the findings of a psychological review that concluded that individuals with increased perceptual sensitivity more often have particularly vivid, bizarre, but also positive dreams at night and daydreams. The authors also discuss the potential link to nightmares, assuming that an interplay of increased perceptual sensitivity and unfavorable environmental influences may produce nightmares.

This suggests that for individuals for whom their high sensitivity is a burden or who are exposed to unfavorable daily situations, there may be an increased risk of nightmares. Conversely, highly sensitive individuals who can use their high sensitivity as a resource and have a balanced daily routine can expect more positive nocturnal dreams and positive daydreams.

If you suffer from nightmares, you can with high probability benefit from so‑called imagery rehearsal therapy, which originates from cognitive‑behavioral therapy. In this therapeutic method, those who suffer from nightmares vividly imagine the remembered nightmares again immediately after waking up, thus confronting themselves with the dream content, and then work out a positive dream ending for themselves. The consistent application of imagery rehearsal typically leads to a strong decrease in the frequency and intensity of nightmares and the distress associated with them.

Studies show that with consistent application of imagery rehearsal therapy, nightmares decrease more and more over time and often eventually disappear completely.
But it can also be worthwhile to do something for the occurrence of positive dreams. Highly sensitive individuals who deal positively with their high sensitivity and design a satisfied daily life have good chances that this will also show in their dream content.

A positive approach to high sensitivity and a more satisfied daily life can be achieved, for example, through time in nature, meditation, self‑experience and silence, a satisfying professional activity, exchange with like‑minded individuals and the building of deep friendships and a stable partnership, engagement with music, art, and creativity, humane behavior and social commitment, practicing boundary‑setting and assertiveness, training in problem‑solving skills and stress management skills, as well as the identification of realistic and positive short‑term, medium‑term, and long‑term life goals.

Positive dreams can improve our quality of life and become a part of our daily routine. Some ideas and inspirations can also arise in dreams. Highly sensitive individuals are particularly predisposed to vivid dreaming and can learn to influence the nature of their dreams, reduce the burden of possible nightmares, and maximize their positive dream quality.

back

Friendship: What Highly Sensitive People Seek

Evaluations of the Search Criteria of Highly Sensitive Individuals at Consonance

At Consonance, we evaluated what our highly sensitive members place particular importance on in their friendship search. For this, we compared the statements of our highly sensitive members with those of our non‑highly sensitive members.

These are the peculiarities of highly sensitive individuals in their friendship search:

  • Many highly sensitive individuals are particularly interested in friendships with other highly sensitive individuals. They experience friendships with other highly sensitive individuals as an important enrichment of their social network and daily life.
  • Many highly sensitive individuals also place great value on shared spirituality. More often than our non‑highly sensitive members, our highly sensitive members want to meet friends who are interested in spirituality. Often, highly sensitive members wish for a Buddhist orientation in their friends.
  • Our highly sensitive members more often strive for calm and socially compatible communication in their friendly relationships. They desire gentle and forgiving ways of interacting with each other in friendships.
  • Highly sensitive individuals increasingly seek friendships with people who value ecology and sustainability. They also more often seek friendships with people who are committed to humanity and human rights.
  • Our highly sensitive members more often want to meet friends who live vegan or vegetarian.
  • Among our highly sensitive members, there is an increased willingness and appreciation for friendships with people who suffer from disabilities, physical or mental illnesses.
  • Highly sensitive members place higher value on a healthy lifestyle of friends in their friendship search and want to meet smokers less often.
  • More than our non‑highly sensitive members, our highly sensitive individuals are open to friendships with people who have animal companions. They consider animal companions as enriching for a friendship.
  • Among our highly sensitive members, we find a higher openness to friendships with artistic and creative individuals.
  • More often than our non‑highly sensitive members, our highly sensitive members think about embarking on new shores or emigrating together with friends.

Highly sensitive individuals seek friendships characterized by a special connection. They are therefore particularly interested in friendships with equally sensitive people who approach their environment with compassion and sensitivity. Accordingly, they seek people who implement their sensitivity socially, ecologically, spiritually, and lifestyle‑wise in order to understand each other mutually and grow together.

The search criteria presented are again average values, and there is also much variability among highly sensitive individuals. For example, not all highly sensitive people are spiritual. Accordingly, not every one of the search criteria mentioned here must be present. Overall, however, a highly sensitive pattern of friendship search becomes clear, with highly sensitive individuals – like other people – seeking individuals who are similar to them in central characteristics.

This search orientation is psychologically justifiable. People who share similarities in central characteristics have better possibilities to understand each other, shape daily life together, and build projects together. They can more easily find common life goals, establish the right balance of closeness and distance for them, and feel comfortable with each other in the context of shared activities.

Also in online dating at Consonance – of which friendship search is a part – we therefore use the principle of agreement in values, life goals, and life principles as an important matching criterion.

This also includes the consideration of high sensitivity, where members with high sensitivity can decide for themselves whether they want to meet only other highly sensitive individuals or also people who, while not highly sensitive themselves, have high appreciation and acceptance for high sensitivity. In both cases, a sustainable and supportive friendship with potential for development can emerge.

Decisive for a friendship is the psychological‑emotional fit, on the basis of which genuine encounter is possible. By taking high sensitivity into account, we can ensure this fit at Consonance, so that a good foundation is created for highly sensitive members to find sustainable friendships with us.

back

Friendship II: What Highly Sensitive People Seek

In another survey of participants in the test for high sensitivity (HSP‑Test), we collected the following information in addition to high sensitivity:

    • Partnership with a highly sensitive or non‑highly sensitive person
    • Number of highly sensitive family members
    • Number of highly sensitive friends
    • Number of highly sensitive acquaintances
  • Total number of all family members
  • Total number of all friends
  • Total number of all acquaintances

We also asked about life satisfaction, optimism, anxiety, stress, and social isolation. From this information, we then formed the following scales:

  • Emotional stability (satisfied with life, optimistic, little anxiety, little stress)
  • Density of the highly sensitive network (highly sensitive partners, family members, friends, acquaintances)
  • Density of the non‑highly sensitive network (non‑highly sensitive partners, family members, friends, acquaintances)
  • Point value on the HSP‑Test (High Sensitivity scale)

In the evaluation, the following results in particular emerged:

  • The denser the highly sensitive social environment, the higher the emotional stability.
  • The denser the non‑highly sensitive social environment, the higher the emotional stability.
  • But the positive effects of a highly sensitive network are significantly higher than the positive effects of a non‑highly sensitive network.

Social contacts thus promote the emotional stability of highly sensitive individuals. This applies to social contacts with highly sensitive and with non‑highly sensitive individuals. However, contacts with other highly sensitive individuals are particularly helpful.

For highly sensitive individuals, it is therefore advisable to pay attention to building a sustainable social network that should include other highly sensitive individuals in as central positions as possible. Contact with other highly sensitive individuals can lead to a reduction in burden and support you in living your high sensitivity primarily as a resource.

back

Partnerships and High Sensitivity

Effects of High Sensitivity on Love Relationships

We qualitatively evaluated the free self-descriptions of 251 highly sensitive individuals who wrote about how their high sensitivity affects romantic relationships. In our ongoing high sensitivity survey on highly sensitive love, 338 highly sensitive participants described in free texts how their high sensitivity has affected romantic relationships.

The following possible effects emerged:

  • Feeling misunderstood: 92 individuals or 41% of the 251 texts examined stated that they feel misunderstood because of their high sensitivity: “I was not perceived as who I am.”
  • Boundary-setting as a challenge: 59 individuals or 24% of the texts indicated difficulties or challenges with boundary-setting due to their high sensitivity: “I often lost myself in the relationship and did not notice that I was taking on the partner’s emotions or that I was with the other person with all my thoughts and emotions.”
    Hurt and suffering: 36 individuals or 14% of the free texts explicitly mentioned hurt and suffering in their relationships due to their high sensitivity: “I … felt lonely, was helpless and like amputated. My innermost felt violated and I became a shadow, no longer saw myself and fought against myself instead of for myself.”
  • Difficult and complicated: 27 individuals or 11% of the texts generally described rather briefly that they experienced relationships as difficult, complicated, or exhausting due to their high sensitivity: “Sometimes exhausting for both sides. One must have a lot of understanding for each other.”
  • Special closeness: 24 individuals or 9% of the texts spoke of a special closeness in their relationships due to their high sensitivity: “Through my intense perception with all senses, I experience my relationships very comprehensively and ‘profitably.’ Strong closeness is possible without giving myself up. My partners feel very seen and accepted …”
  • Separations as a consequence: 20 individuals or 8% of the texts reported that separations occurred due to their high sensitivity: “Could no longer cope with my husband’s superficiality and the marriage was ended after 25 years.”
  • Destructive conflict: 17 individuals or 7% of the texts reported that due to their high sensitivity, relationships had non-productive, destructive disputes: “Conflicts (on my part) escalated emotionally … I felt increasingly dissatisfied, as talking with him rarely felt good …”
  • Withdrawal: 17 individuals or 7% of the texts indicated withdrawing in relationships due to their high sensitivity: “Rapid overload and overstimulation lead to an increased desire for withdrawal. Then there is little time left for the partner. Rapid overload in social situations and the need for much sleep can also be burdensome for the partner.”
  • Positive and negative consequences: 16 individuals or 7% of the texts indicated that their high sensitivity has both positive and negative effects in relationships: “It was partly like the highest blessing, partly like a curse. Highest love and exchange on all levels, also non-verbal, rather medial, etc. But then also harsh separation crashes due to the ego and also due to the high sensitivity, quite high vulnerability.”
  • Relationship with highly sensitive partners: 16 individuals or 7% of the texts indicated that they have had positive experiences in relationships with other highly sensitive individuals: “In my current relationship with a highly sensitive man (who does not assess himself as such), we complement each other very well. We are similar in many ways. He respects my feelings and takes me seriously.”
  • Own development: 10 individuals or 4% of the texts described that their high sensitivity promotes their own development in romantic relationships: “The space here is insufficient to describe it – very enriching, I have learned a great deal about myself and other people.”
  • Further experiences: Further experiences mentioned were “partnerlessness due to one’s own high sensitivity” (13 individuals), “burden on partners due to high sensitivity” (11 individuals), quickly seeing through facades and lies (10 individuals), being exploited (8 individuals), as well as anxieties (3 individuals), unsatisfied longing (1 individual), and restlessness (1 individual).

What Do These Results Mean?

Meaning of the Frequencies

In a qualitative evaluation, frequencies may only be viewed relatively, never absolutely. For if someone does not spontaneously mention a particular event or experience in a free text, this by no means means that the event or experience did not occur. The absolute frequencies in qualitative evaluations thus lead to an underestimation, and even rare categories of such an evaluation may occur quite often.
The evaluation was primarily concerned with identifying relevant effects of high sensitivity on partnerships, without analyzing their absolute frequencies.
However, the evaluation makes it clear that diverse reactions can occur, that being misunderstood is certainly a very frequent problem, and that basically both positive (more closeness) and negative effects can result.

Content Interpretation

The evaluation shows that highly sensitive love is certainly a complex field. The results can be condensed as follows:

  • Understanding each other as a prerequisite: The experience of not being understood by partners seems to be a fundamental experience of highly sensitive individuals in relationships. Highly sensitive individuals have an increased intensity of perception and an increased need for interpersonal understanding. With non-highly sensitive partners, they may encounter incomprehension. As a result, they can feel lonely in relationships (alone together). Moreover, lack of understanding can also lead to destructive, non-productive arguments. Conversely, good understanding, which is particularly possible among highly sensitive partners, can promote closeness and have a favorable effect on relationship quality.
  • Boundary-setting is necessary: Highly sensitive individuals sometimes find it particularly difficult to set boundaries, which may be related to their high empathy and moral sensitivity – both resources, but can also act as burdens when boundary-setting is difficult. With insufficient boundary-setting, the risk of hurt and separations increases. It is therefore essential for highly sensitive individuals to strive for adequate boundary-setting. High sensitivity in relationships can thus also be an opportunity to work on one’s own personal development and learn new things.
  • Withdrawal as an opportunity and risk: Withdrawal can be understood as boundary-setting and is therefore initially a protective strategy that can protect highly sensitive individuals from sensory overload. It is important that the withdrawal remains temporary and is communicated transparently. Otherwise, withdrawal can increase partners’ lack of understanding. There is also the risk of social isolation through too much withdrawal. Several participants, for example, described partnerlessness as a consequence of their high sensitivity, which may indicate such a dynamic.
  • Separation as failure and coping: Separation may, like withdrawal, or as an extreme form of withdrawal, be a coping strategy. Separation can serve self-protection and self-care and should therefore not be demonized negatively. Especially when incomprehension persists and destructive disputes characterize a relationship, separation can be a good way out that may also protect some from exploitation. However, a premature separation can block learning experiences and prematurely end a partnership that is actually capable of development. This, in turn, can prevent experiences of special closeness, which are also possible when mutual understanding is built. Moreover, there is the danger that separation becomes a pattern and thus results in permanent partnerlessness.
    Effects on Partner Search

Apparently, relationships among highly sensitive individuals are experienced as more sustainable and harmonious. This was mentioned by only a few respondents. However, this is presumably particularly because few of the respondents had experience with partnerships with other highly sensitive individuals.

Implications for Action

  • Communication against incomprehension: Communication is the be-all and end-all that can help overcome incomprehension. For this, it is also important that partners learn something about high sensitivity, as they can only develop understanding if they understand what is present. Working on talking to each other in a fear-free and peaceful atmosphere can help build understanding.
  • Learning to set boundaries: Boundary-setting is by no means an expression of lovelessness or selfishness, but of necessary self-care that characterizes every healthy partnership. The better partners are informed, the easier good boundary-setting can be implemented. Thus, partners can explicitly agree on phases of temporary withdrawal and can clarify together when and in what way problems should be addressed. Such healthy boundary-setting simultaneously creates the conditions for more closeness.
  • Openness to development: Do not see partnership as stagnation. Partnerships require relationship work, and this continues as long as the partnerships exist. If you view the development process, you can work better together with partners on the relationships, but also on your own personality development. In doing so, we can learn from relationships that do end.
  • Separation and new beginning: If all efforts to positively shape a relationship fail, including the possibility of couple therapy, separation can be a sign of healthy boundary-setting and the best way out. Again, it is precisely highly sensitive individuals who usually suffer most from separations. Sometimes they are therefore avoided even when they are inevitable. On the other hand, highly sensitive individuals can understand that separation can also be seen as an opportunity and that the pain can be accepted as a challenge. Every separation offers the prospect of a better new beginning and thus also the possibility of a more suitable partner choice.
  • Mindful partner search: Precisely because mutual understanding is so central to partnerships, you should pay attention to this already in the partner search and partner choice. Once the child has fallen into the bathwater, it is harder to get it out unscathed. Accept the time of partner search and being single as an opportunity to search for a truly suitable person. Already in the first getting-to-know-each-other phase, pay attention to whether understanding and mindful interaction develop. A partnership with another highly sensitive person can be helpful for this. Likewise, a person who is characterized by high appreciation and acceptance of highly sensitive individuals comes into consideration.

Relationship Quality of Partnerships with Highly Sensitive and Non-Highly Sensitive Individuals

We surveyed highly sensitive and non-highly sensitive individuals about their experiences in their romantic relationships. We also asked whether partners were highly sensitive or not.

The following results emerged:

  • Respondents with high sensitivity (HSP) indicated higher relationship quality for partnerships with highly sensitive individuals than with non-highly sensitive individuals.
  • Relationships with highly sensitive individuals were described as more emotional and intimate than relationships with non-highly sensitive individuals.
  • In relationships with highly sensitive individuals, there was less often speechlessness or living past each other.
  • Domestic violence and also verbal violence occurred less frequently in relationships with highly sensitive individuals than in relationships with non-highly sensitive individuals.
  • In relationships with highly sensitive individuals, respondents described more understanding for each other and more mindful interaction than in relationships with non-highly sensitive individuals.

The survey results indicate that partnerships with other highly sensitive individuals can positively affect relationship quality. This can be a good argument for highly sensitive individuals to restrict their partner search to highly sensitive individuals.

Likewise, it is also justifiable not to make such a strong restriction in one’s own partner search but also to consider those individuals as possible partners who are not themselves highly sensitive but have high appreciation and acceptance for highly sensitive partners. At Consonance, we ask all members about this appreciation and acceptance.

An argument for such a less strong restriction is that, despite the described mean differences, we also see in our data that happy relationships between highly sensitive and non-highly sensitive individuals are actually possible. For this, we consider acceptance and appreciation to be essential and therefore use this as a basis in our matchmaking.

back

Building Resources

The following shows how to build resources and reduce burdens. Much of what has already been addressed will be revisited in this context.

Knowledge of One’s Own High Sensitivity Helps

A psychological study examined the relationships between high sensitivity (HSP), stress, and burnout in teachers.

The following result emerged:

  • Highly sensitive teachers who were informed about their high sensitivity as an explanation for their situation reported a decrease in emotional pressure and stress. When highly sensitive individuals know their high sensitivity, they thus react positively.

The background is that we deal more calmly with things we understand. If, on the other hand, we find no explanation, we react with helplessness. The first step toward more resources and less burden therefore lies in the recognition, acceptance, and appreciation of one’s own high sensitivity.

Knowledge of one’s own high sensitivity is therefore not simply an end in itself, but the beginning of the path to more emotional stability and life satisfaction.
This step can be taken with the help of the two tests for high sensitivity, the High Sensitivity Test (HSP-Test) and the High Sensitivity Structure Test (HSST-Test). This way, you will not only recognize whether you are highly sensitive. You will also learn more about the resource and burden character of your high sensitivity and in what way your high sensitivity manifests itself.

back

Knowledge of Further Aspects of One’s Own Person

In addition to knowledge of your own high sensitivity, becoming aware of further personality components or ways of experiencing can also help you to understand yourself better, recognize and strengthen resources, reduce burdens, and make positive life changes.
In the Consonance Test Portal, we offer you the following options:

Five plus 30 Factor Inventory of Personality

This test assesses the Big Five, which represent the best-researched personality traits in psychology. The five factors neuroticism (emotional instability), extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are assessed. In addition, 30 more specific components of your personality are assessed, each of which is an expression of the five overarching factors. We took the questionnaire from the publication of the Institute for Applied Psychology of the University of Zurich. It is intended for free use and has no copyright protection. It comes from the so-called IPIP project (International Personality Item Pool), a project dedicated to the free use and further development of personality tests. By the way, we have supplemented the questionnaire with the high sensitivity scale of the HSP-Test.

Sexual Experience Test

This test assesses 11 components of individual sexual experience. With the help of the test, you gain a very vivid impression of your sexual experience, your attitude toward sexuality, and your sexual satisfaction. The test contains the following scales:

  • Sexual satisfaction, sexual self-experience, sexual love reference, sexual openness to experimentation, sexual problems, sexual fluidity, sexual inhibitions, instrumental sexuality, addictive sexuality, BDSM preference, asexual experience.

The test results can give you indications of whether and where you might want to change something.

Test for Toxic Relationships

This test tells you whether you are currently in a toxic relationship or have been in a toxic relationship in the past. Three factors are reported back to you:

  • Overall toxicity: This value tells you whether a relationship is or was toxic and to what extent.
  • Suppression: This value tells you whether and to what extent the balance in a relationship is disturbed in the sense of a lack of equality.
  • Resources: This value tells you how strongly resources (beneficial aspects) are or were recognizable in a relationship.

If your current relationship turns out to be toxic, you can take steps to either work on fundamental changes (couples therapy, etc.) or, if you do not wish to do so or your partner does not, to separate.

If a past relationship was toxic, you can recognize from this what you want to pay attention to in the future to prevent it from happening again.

Am I Avoidant of Attachment?

This test assesses how easily and well you succeed in entering into relationships and attachment. The test tells you whether you are avoidant of attachment. For people with attachment avoidance, the result also gives you feedback on how you can change this.

Am I an Anxious-Dependent Attachment Type?

This test assesses fears of abandonment, excessive, anxiety-laden need for closeness and clinging, and jealousy. The test tells you whether you are an anxious-dependent attachment type. You will also be given hints on how to change this.

Why Am I Single?

This test evaluates possible reasons why you are single. 11 possible main causes are reported back to you:

  • High satisfaction with being single, other priorities, high standards, inhibitions and self-doubt, barriers and obstacles, negative experiences/fears, lack of romantic feelings, belief in chance, sexual difficulties, lack of willingness to commit, unfavorable attitudes toward online dating.

You will also be given tips on how you can change something if you wish.

Depression Test

The test “Recognizing Depression” does not give you a diagnosis, but only hints that you might have depression. If there are indications of only mild depressive symptoms, you will be given tips on what you can do to improve your condition. If there are indications of more severe depressive moods, you will additionally be advised to seek psychotherapeutic treatment.

back

Individual Strategies for Resource Activation and Stress Reduction

  • Develop benevolent attitudes: It does no good to resent this non-highly sensitive world, because that will not change anything. Accept yourself and the world in which you live, and try to set accents where you can. Through acceptance and equanimity, you can relieve yourself and become more effective and satisfied, while resentment only leads to bitterness and permanent dissatisfaction.
  • Be open about your own high sensitivity: Explain your high sensitivity to your environment without presenting it as a problem. You will probably receive more understanding and encouragement than you think. This is absolutely necessary in romantic relationships. When you talk with partners, you are more likely to find a way to gain mutual understanding, find good compromises for both sides, and experience positive things together.
  • Meet with like-minded people: It is said that shared sorrow is half sorrow. This is true. Likewise, shared joy is double joy. Join with like-minded people to better cope with the superficiality and selfishness of the non-sensitive society and to experience affection, togetherness, and social reinforcement. Create a social niche in which people interact mindfully, caringly, and lovingly with each other. For this, you can also use online dating at Consonance for your partner search and friendship search to meet other highly sensitive individuals or those who show acceptance and appreciation for high sensitivity. In contrast, as a highly sensitive person, you will likely find it difficult on the major dating apps, most singles exchanges, and mainstream matchmaking services. Partnerships, family, and friends can help you decisively to become satisfied with your high sensitivity. You cannot choose all the people in your social environment. But you can seek out highly sensitive and other similar people. Interaction with them can be relieving and reduce daily burdens.
  • Experience music and art: Music and art are close to the hearts of many highly sensitive individuals. Highly sensitive people can be more easily enthusiastic about music and art and have a special feeling for musical and artistic connections. Engage with art and music, and also become creative yourself if possible. Through art and music, you can give special expression to your highly sensitive perception.
  • Establish time in nature: Take time out from the hectic cities and the hustle and bustle of social life. Go into nature. Meadows, forests, mountains, lakes, and rivers help you find your balance. Go alone or with one or a few other trusted people. This way, you can achieve calm, equanimity, and inner peace. In nature, you recharge and unfold the potential of your highly sensitive perception.
  • Practice meditation, yoga, and self-experience: Meditation, conscious breathing, mindfulness exercises, yoga, silence, but also self-experience seminars or individual coaching can help you to find yourself and become satisfied with yourself. This way, you can achieve emotional balance and come back into balance again and again.
  • Perceive the positive: Pay attention to the positive things you encounter. Learn to focus on them and appreciate them. Consciously perceive positive sensory experiences (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, gustatory) and train yourself to enjoy these positive moments. Do short savoring exercises every day to activate positive sensory perceptions and thus at the same time lay aside a possible negative focus. Positive thinking, acceptance, reflection, and imagination can also promote, activate, and reinforce positive experiences.
  • Find the right daily routine: Look for a profession in which you feel comfortable, get enough but not excessive exercise and movement, eat healthily, and establish beneficial routines in your daily life so that balance and equilibrium arise. Establishing a beneficial daily routine can also include reducing overwhelming sensory inputs, in the sense of temporary withdrawal and time-outs, intended temporary solitude and silence, seeking out quiet environments, but also strategies to protect yourself from sensory overstimulation, such as using noise-canceling headphones or sunglasses.
  • Learn coping skills: You cannot completely avoid confrontation with the non-highly sensitive world. Thus, in daily life and at work, requirements often arise that are difficult to reconcile with highly sensitive processing patterns. It is necessary to actively face these demands. Acquire techniques for effective problem and conflict resolution, stress management, self-confident behavior and boundary-setting, decatastrophizing, and anxiety management. In individual or group trainings oriented toward cognitive-behavioral therapy, you can learn to cope better with your high sensitivity in daily life.
  • Build meaning in life: Life goals are important to bring us into balance and flow. Think about how and where we want to live. Reflect on your goals for work, partnership, leisure, and place of residence. See where changes are possible, whether private or professional. For example, self-employment can often be helpful for highly sensitive individuals if it is feasible. But you can also find meaning in spiritual or religious references, in engagement for nature, animals, and social justice, as well as by helping people in your environment without giving yourself up. You can make your own contribution to a more humane world and thereby also gain satisfaction yourself.

Ask Yourself Questions

Your goal is to build a lifestyle, environment, and daily routine in which you feel comfortable as a highly sensitive person and in which you can grow. The most important strategies for this have already been mentioned.

Ask yourself questions to find answers about where you can start:

  • Where and how do I want to live? In a big city, a small town, in the countryside, or completely alone in nature or as a dropout? In an apartment, a house, a motorhome, or a tent? Alone or with other people? How do I want to furnish my living environment? How does my current situation compare to how I would like it to be? Can and should I change something?
  • Do I want to be single or rather live in a partnership? If I want a partner, do we want to live together, or do I like the “Living Together Apart” model with two apartments in the same location? Does a long-distance or weekend relationship suit me?
  • If I am looking for a partner: What characteristics, values, life principles, and lifestyle should the person have so that I become happy with them? What life goals should we definitely share, and where should I change my own life goals? How can I find a person for a partnership? Is online partner search an option for me? Which platform do I want to go to?
  • If I am already in a partnership: Am I, are we satisfied? Do we communicate enough with each other? Do we understand each other? Do we have common life goals? What could we both change to move the relationship forward?
  • Am I satisfied with my family contacts? Do I feel comfortable spending time with my family members? Do we exchange ideas, support each other, or does family mean stress for me? Would I rather intensify or reduce these contacts? How can I become happier with my family? Should I set more boundaries or can we build more shared things? How often do I see family members and how often do I want to see them?
  • Do I have friends with whom I can really talk about everything? Do we support each other, understand and support each other? Do we share common values and interests? Are my friends good for me, or do I wish for other friends? How can I find new friends? What is important to me in a friendship and what kind of people am I looking for? How can I improve existing friendships, or should we go our separate ways?
  • Am I satisfied with my profession or do I want to change? Does the workplace meet my needs or does it only mean stress for me? What possibilities for change exist and how can I approach them? Could I pursue further education or retrain? Could it be helpful for me to become self-employed? Is my financial situation satisfactory? Could I perhaps even become happier with less money? What work do I wish for or dream of? Is there a way to get there? Or can I even drop out of professional contexts? Is there a community I would like to join?
  • Am I fulfilled and happy in my leisure time? Does it give me a sense of meaning and also serve my recovery? What would I wish for my leisure time? Could I spend more time in nature? Do yoga, meditation, or sports? Can I bring music or art more into my life? Are there other activities that interest me but that I have not yet pursued? Is my daily routine self-caring? How can I better attend to my wishes and needs in my leisure time and implement them?
  • Do I live in a way that is good for me? Do I pay attention to exercise, healthy eating, and a mindful approach to myself? What possibilities are there to promote my health?
  • How important are vacations or traveling to me? Are they an important part of my life? What are my travel wishes and longings? How could I design a vacation so that I can switch off, recover, experience new things, and enjoy the time? What could I do to make these wishes and longings come true?

The more you take care of yourself and work on creating meaning and connection, the more you will succeed in activating your high sensitivity as a resource and the more your joy in life will grow.

There are no universally binding answers, so I will leave it at these questions, to which you can find the right answers yourself and from which you can draw conclusions.

back

Brief Summary and Conclusion

A long text demands a brief summary:

  • Highly sensitive individuals have particularly high perceptual sensitivity. They report more pronounced emotional experience and very detailed perception. Their pain sensitivity is above average. They also describe high sensitivity to loudness and strong stimuli. Highly sensitive individuals report an inner experience of music and art and describe a high degree of intuition. They also tend to be emotionally vulnerable and report an intense perception of the moods and feelings of other people, with whom they often resonate. Many highly sensitive people engage with spirituality and have a strong striving for harmony.
  • However, the increased sensitivity can manifest in different areas in highly sensitive individuals. For example, the High Sensitivity Structure Test (HSST) captures the seven basic dimensions of possible increased sensitivity: empathy and compassion, perceptual sensitivity, mental complexity, positive affect sensitivity, self-reflection and self-experience, moral sensitivity, as well as burden and overload. You can have these seven components assessed in yourself via the High Sensitivity Structure Test.
  • Some highly sensitive individuals benefit from their high sensitivity as a resource. Others are burdened by their high sensitivity. Most know both burdens and resources associated with high sensitivity. The High Sensitivity Test (HSP-Test) will help you recognize whether resources or burdens dominate in your case. This in turn can be a reason for you to work on changes that activate resources more strongly.
  • Basically, according to our data, women and younger people seem to more often exhibit highly sensitive processing patterns. This fits with the fact that women are on average more empathetic and that older people on average show a decrease in openness to experience. However, it is also conceivable that men and older people engage less with the concept of high sensitivity and are less willing to attribute a highly sensitive processing style to themselves. Even if there may be average differences, people of all genders and ages can be highly sensitive.
  • Highly sensitive individuals prefer certain professional fields, such as artistic-musical professions, humanities and social science professions, psychology and education, as well as nursing and medical professions that involve helping others. Flat structures, high personal responsibility, or self-employment are also preferred, while highly hierarchical structures and multi-tasking tend to be rejected.
  • In terms of personality structure, high sensitivity is particularly associated with increased openness to experience, but also to a lesser extent with neuroticism and conscientiousness.
    Upon closer examination, however, two groups of highly sensitive individuals can be distinguished, which show the following differences in comparison: The “burdened” group is characterized by openness to experience, neuroticism, low conscientiousness, and introversion. The group of non-burdened highly sensitive individuals is characterized by openness to experience, conscientiousness, lower neuroticism, and higher extraversion.
  • Highly sensitive individuals are particularly often interested in spirituality, self-experience, meditation, yoga, and nature experience. In terms of religion, there is an increased interest in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Eastern philosophy. Highly sensitive individuals also have more intense nocturnal dreams and daydreams.
  • In society, highly sensitive individuals orient themselves toward prosocial attitudes and place increased value on ecology and sustainability, humanity, and the protection of animals. Accordingly, highly sensitive individuals also particularly often eat vegan or vegetarian.
  • Peculiarities were also shown in the sexual area: It becomes clear from the findings we gathered at Consonance with the Sexual Experience Test that for highly sensitive individuals, sexuality is more than purely physical stimulation, arousal, and gratification. Rather, for highly sensitive individuals, sexual experience, self-experience, and love belong together more strongly. They are less interested in impersonal erotic contacts. Highly sensitive individuals mostly proceed cautiously within sexuality and require no strong stimulation, which is why they are also less interested in BDSM. This finding is consistent with the increased perceptual sensitivity of highly sensitive individuals, which is why they experience strong stimuli as rather unpleasant. The increased openness of highly sensitive individuals – as well as their striving for self-experience – is reflected in turn in their greater sexual fluidity, whereby gender boundaries lose significance.
    Highly sensitive individuals would like to get to know other highly sensitive individuals as friends for mindful exchange. At Consonance, highly sensitive individuals seek other people who also approach their environment with compassion and sensitivity. Accordingly, they seek people who implement their sensitivity socially, ecologically, spiritually, and lifestyle-wise in order to understand each other mutually and grow together.
  • In love relationships, highly sensitive individuals on average describe experiencing significantly greater closeness and positivity when their partners are also highly sensitive. They describe these relationships between highly sensitive individuals as more emotional and intimate, less often characterized by speechlessness or living past each other, and less often burdened by verbal or physical violence. Highly sensitive partners showed higher understanding for each other and could interact more mindfully.
  • When partners are not highly sensitive, highly sensitive individuals describe problems with lack of understanding, a necessity for boundary-setting, and possible hurt. Relationships are thus often difficult and complicated, characterized by destructive disputes, withdrawal, and up to separation. On the other hand, highly sensitive individuals also describe that their high sensitivity allows them a special closeness, which comes more into play in relationships with highly sensitive individuals. High sensitivity can lead to positive and negative consequences for relationships. Viewed positively, the possibility of developing and learning within relationships is seen.
  • Overall, it is important for highly sensitive individuals to have a supportive social environment, which is associated with significantly reduced psychological burden. An environment with other highly sensitive individuals leads to a stronger reduction in burden and is correspondingly more supportive than an environment of non-highly sensitive individuals.
  • The recognition of one’s own high sensitivity and also of other personality aspects can help highly sensitive individuals reduce stress, understand themselves better, and thus build more self-acceptance and satisfaction.
  • To activate resources, it can additionally be helpful to work on benevolent attitudes, to be open about one’s own high sensitivity in the social environment and inform others, to specifically meet like-minded people, to experience music and art, to establish time in nature, to practice meditation, yoga, and self-experience, to consciously perceive positive feelings and focus on the positive, to find a suitable daily routine with enough silence and opportunities for withdrawal, and – very importantly – to build meaning in life.
    It is also important to acquire coping skills for dealing with demands. For this, cognitive-behavioral approaches such as problem-solving training, stress management training, and social skills training for acquiring boundary-setting and self-confidence can be helpful.
  • To activate resources and reduce burdens, it is sensible for highly sensitive individuals to examine their daily life in all its areas and facets and ask themselves where they can change objective circumstances or their internal processing and evaluation patterns in order to achieve more equanimity and effectiveness. The clearer you find answers to these questions, the more likely you will succeed in implementation and the more your life satisfaction will increase.

back

Resources for Highly Sensitive People at Consonance

At Consonance, we support people who are highly sensitive in the following ways:

Dating for highly sensitive people and social networking: Partner search, friendship search, search for projects, communities, shared activities, professional collaborations, and Consonance regional groups (regulars’ tables):

  • With the help of matchmaking for highly sensitive people, we bring together people who are together highly sensitive or at least have high understanding, appreciation, and acceptance for each other. This creates sustainable, stable, and happy partnerships.
  • With the help of friendship matching for highly sensitive people, we support our highly sensitive members in strengthening their social network beyond partnerships. At Consonance, you will meet other people who are highly sensitive, as well as people who have acceptance and appreciation for high sensitivity. This can lead to friendships with high connection that improve your life satisfaction. Under the friendship matching module, we also have our contact lists. Here you can meet people near you to establish shared projects and communities, pursue activities in nature, or develop professionally. You can also join a Consonance regional group (regulars’ table) or establish such a group where people who think outside the box meet regularly.

Self-knowledge and self-experience: With the help of our psychological test portal, we enable you to become clearer about your own personality traits and also aspects of your social reference system. By getting to know yourself better through the tests, self-reflection and change are supported.

Psychological information: In our Psychology Blog, Consonance co-founder Guido F. Gebauer publishes weekly articles on topics of relationship psychology. In his book “A Perfect Match? Online-Partnersuche aus psychologischer Sicht” he presents research findings and observations on the psychology of online partner search and gives advice and recommendations based on them. In addition to purchasing it as a printed book, this psychological analysis of online dating is also available as a free knowledge resource. It is also possible to arrange a session for individual coaching with him, which takes place online via video chat or phone.

Coaching: Guido Gebauer also works as an online coach for highly sensitive people. Interested individuals who want to engage with their high sensitivity and clarify questions can take advantage of individual coaching with him at any time.

Conclusion on Relationships

Interpersonal relationships are the decisive factor for our life’s happiness. This applies not only to partnerships, but also to friendships, projects, and communities. Highly sensitive people have special requirements and a specific way of experiencing in relationships. That is why it is important here to consistently pay attention to compatibility. Precisely because highly sensitive people are exposed to numerous stressors and permanent sensory overload in a non-highly sensitive world, all the more conscious attention should be paid in private life to being with people who are good for one’s own development and well-being.

High Sensitivity and Relationship Happiness

When a good bond is formed in private life, mindful interaction is lived, and psychological calm is possible, the stressors of the non-highly sensitive world lose part of their destructive influence. High sensitivity then does not become permanent overload, but can be used as a resource: for empathy, perceptual accuracy, depth, loyalty, and commitment. The prerequisite is a relationship environment that does not exploit or devalue these qualities, but rather supports and protects them.

At Consonance, we have been dedicated to the situation of highly sensitive people for more than 15 years and support them with our best efforts and possibilities in partner search, friendship search, and social networking. Our matchmaking is focused on mindful getting-to-know-you that is based not on quick stimuli, but on fit, stability, and development. With the help of the acceptance principle and additional possibilities to specifically search for highly sensitive people, special opportunities arise for highly sensitive individuals to consciously surround themselves with compatible people in their private lives.

Specialized Matchmaking Agency Instead of Dating Apps

Turning to a specialized matchmaking agency for highly sensitive individuals increases the prospect of finding genuine and lasting relationship happiness compared to general offers in online dating. Because in the area of mainstream online dating and especially on dating apps, there is often no sensitive climate. Human processes there easily become consumption processes:

  • Genuine encounter is replaced by superficial stimuli, distraction, and interchangeability. This often acts for highly sensitive people like an amplifier of overstimulation, self-doubt, and withdrawal – even though closeness, security, and reliability are actually needed.

Not Just Partner Search: Friendships, Projects, Communities

Consonance is not just a partner exchange for highly sensitive people. Likewise, we promote the building of friendships, projects, and communities that are compatible with highly sensitive ways of experiencing. In this way, stability, mental health, and satisfaction of highly sensitive people are specifically supported through social networking that corresponds to their requirements and way of experiencing. Where relationships are understood not as a game but as bonding, the foundation is created for high sensitivity to work not against but for one’s own life in everyday life.

Networking with Other Sensitive People

Networking with other highly sensitive people and those who meet high sensitivity with appreciation and acceptance does not mean isolation, but relief and orientation:

  • Consonance relationships are characterized by less pressure to explain, less justification, and more depth in encounter. This allows high sensitivity to become a genuine resource, also because private happiness makes it possible to better cope with the stress of the outside world.

We invite you to walk this path with us:

See for yourself and join us: ➨ SIGN UP NOW!

back

Become part of the
Consonance-Community!

Register now