Are Introverts People with Highly Sensitive Physiology?
I’m starting to see that there may be a huge crossover between people who identify as introverts and the physiology of high sensitivity or “the highly sensitive person.” If you’ve watched the introduction to high sensitivity video on the home page of this site and/or have read any of Dr. Aaron’s books on the highly sensitive person, what do you think? Do you consider yourself an introvert? If so, is “high sensitivity” relevant to you?
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I think Dr. Aaron mentions that around 70% of all HSPs are introverts. I am extremely introverted, and “high sensitivity” is highly relevant to me. There are definitely some extroverted HSPs out there (30% by Aaron’s calculation). I’m wondering if intro/extroversion has any effect on one’s life quality being an HSP, if it’s “easier” for them to cope with social/non-HSP interaction.
I think I saw that somewhere too though I’d have to double check it because I don’t actually know.
What I haven’t seen is how many introverts are highly sensitive? 100%? Frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if the number is high. In the work that I’m doing, I’m exploring the hypothesis that highly sensitive people need more neurotransmitters due to increased processing in their nervous systems. So, if as an HSP, anything I do has an “increased cost” in terms of neurotransmitters, then life is going feel very expensive (i.e, exhausting). I have no idea, but that seems to speak to a lot of the introvert memes I’ve seen.
I’m really interested to gather more data on this from people who identify as introverts. When they take the HSP test, does it resonate for them? Do they score highly on that test?