Blame Your Genes for Making You Overly Sensitive
If you're overly-emotional, we bet you've wondered why that is on more than one occasion. Why did you have to get a quivering lip during Star Wars? Sure, Han and Chewy are close, but still — kind of weird. Why can't you watch that video of a duck and a dog hanging out without getting tears in your eyes? The questions come each time you find your emotions welling up. The answers? Not so much. However, researchers might have found a clue: It has something to do with your genes.
According to two psychologists from Stony Brook University, previous studies that have shown those who are overly emotional are simply reacting to stimuli are incorrect. These people are thought to have sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) — a personality trait that has been shaped by repeated overreaction to their environment. Most people fall on the other side of this scale — they don't typically react to small environmental changes. Using MRIs to study peoples' brains, the researchers — Dr. Arthur and Elaine Aron — found that brains of those who have SPS physically react to emotional images.
By Aron's estimates, about 20 percent of the world qualify as highly sensitive people (HSP). And they only have their ancestors to blame. To figure this out, Aron used MRIs to scan the brains of 18 married people — some were HSP, some were not. Each person viewed photographs of smiling and frowning faces. One set of photos featured strangers; the other set featured photos of their spouses. The brains of those who were HSPs showed significant changes in blood flow in what is known as the "mirror neuron system," of the brain. This is the area that is responsible for producing empathy. This showed that while stimuli does impact emotional people, their brains are already predisposed to make them have an emotional response.
"We found that areas of the brain involved with awareness and emotion, particularly those areas connected with empathetic feelings, in the highly sensitive people showed substantially greater blood flow to relevant brain areas than was seen in individuals with low sensitivity during the twelve second period when they viewed the photos," Aron told Science Daily. "This is physical evidence within the brain that highly sensitive individuals respond especially strongly to social situations that trigger emotions, in this case of faces being happy or sad."
From now on, when you feel yourself getting sappy, you at least have someone to blame for it all. It might not make you feel better, but think about it this way: Your ancestors gave you a format for life, you should embrace the good and the bad aspects equally. Now — hey, are you crying? Stop it! Get a grip, dammit.
[Image via Flickr - Marleah Cole]
