Multi-sensitivity study
The “Highly Sensitive Person” is an individual who has personality traits that lead to increased sensitivity towards stimuli, both external and internal. While associations of the highly sensitive personality have been examined with other personality scales, its associations with some other forms of sensitivity are unknown. This project aimed to measure several types of sensitivity, including sensory sensitivity and rejection sensitivity, to see their associations with the highly sensitive personality. At the same time, the project measured environments and mental health to allow secondary analyses of environmental sensitivity. This project’s main assistants were undergraduates Delaney Fulp and Megan Waldron, who received undergraduate funding that funded collection of one of the study questionnaires, the Sensory Profile.
Publications:
- Sensory profile of the highly sensitive personality
- Relationship between sensory processing sensitivity and rejection sensitivity and their association with mental health (preprint)
- Environmental Sensitivity to Discrimination in the Prediction of Adult Mental Health (preprint)
Funding: Honors College Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
Environmental sensitivity in adulthood
On the same basis as our Experiences of Pregnancy project, this project aimed to extend models of environmental sensitivity to adulthood. This project was led by Honors student McKenna Nhem and aimed to examine the current state of the literature examining environmental sensitivity models in the prediction of mental health in adulthood through a scoping review, followed by examining these effects in a cohort of young adults.
Publications:
- Environmental sensitivity to social environments in the prediction of mental health in adulthood: a scoping review of studies examining diathesis-stress, vantage sensitivity and differential susceptibility
- Environmental Sensitivity to Discrimination in the Prediction of Adult Mental Health (preprint)
Funding: Provost’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Summer Fellowship
Parental separation and adolescent externalizing problems
Research shows that parental separation/divorce is associated with adolescent externalizing problems and substance use. However, these effects are heterogeneous, and it remains unclear for which adolescents and under what conditions parental separation strongly predicts adolescent externalizing problems. This project led by past Honors student Madi Bissa aimed to examine the moderators of the association between parental separation and adolescent externalizing problems (including substance use) through a systematic review.
Funding: Provost’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Summer Fellowship