Collection Title: “High Sensitivity Through the Lens of Context - Challenges and Potential”

Guest Editor: Dr. Alon Goldberg, Tel-Hai College, Department of Education, Upper Galilee 12210 Israel. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3267-1947

Contact: alongol@telhai.ac.il

And

Dr. Mona Vintila, West University of Timişoara, mona.vintila@e-uvt.ro

Overview and Rationale

Highly sensitive personality (HSP) is a temperamental trait characterized by deep cognitive processing of sensory and emotional information, heightened emotional reactivity, and increased sensitivity to environmental subtleties. While high sensitivity has long been framed predominantly through a vulnerability lens, recent research suggests it may also confer adaptive advantages in certain contexts.

This collection would seek to broaden the scientific exploration of HSP by encouraging research that addresses both its challenges and adaptive potential across diverse contexts and by inviting empirical, theoretical, and conceptual contributions that reflect the full range of HSP-related outcomes. This includes studies that examine environmental mismatches resulting in distress or dysfunction, as well as investigations into creative adaptation, resilience, growth, and flourishing in supportive settings.

Aim of the Collections

The aim of the Collections would be to expand the focus on high sensitivity in psychology by exploring the dynamic interplay between the trait and environmental, social, cultural, and psychological contexts. We would particularly welcome contributions that adopt a contextualized lens, whether the outcomes are positive, negative, or complex. Our objective would be not to exclude studies that emphasize vulnerability but to broaden the scientific discourse to include variability in experiences and outcomes.

Scope and Topics

We would encourage a wide range of submissions from different psychological subfields, including but not limited to:

•

Developmental psychology

•

Individual differences and personality research

•

Clinical and counseling psychology

•

Educational psychology (e.g., how highly sensitive students respond to classroom demands, teacher-student dynamics or sensory stimulation in learning environments)

•

Occupational and organizational psychology (e.g., how highly sensitive individuals experience workplace demands, leadership styles, sensory overstimulation, or derive meaning and satisfaction in various occupational contexts)

•

Cognitive psychology - deep processing, attentional sensitivity, and adaptive decision-making in contextually supportive conditions

•

Socioemotional psychology - emotion regulation, positive emotionality, and prosocial behavior of those with HSP

•

Health psychology (e.g., association between HSP and health issues and onset of disease)

•

Neuroscience and genetics

•

Evolutionary psychology (e.g., theoretical frameworks examining HSP as an adaptive survival strategy)

•

Cultural psychology - cultural perceptions and expressions of high sensitivity, sensitivity in diverse sociocultural contexts and settings

Key Themes May Include:

•

The interaction of HSP with supportive vs. non-supportive environments

•

Adaptive and maladaptive responses to context among highly sensitive individuals

•

The role of creativity, imagination, or environmental shaping as coping mechanisms

•

Longitudinal trajectories and developmental factors influencing HSP

•

Context-sensitive interventions and clinical applications

•

Sociocultural or policy implications for educational, occupational, or therapeutic environments

Clarification on Inclusion Criteria

This collection would welcome studies that report on both strengths and vulnerabilities associated with high sensitivity. Manuscripts that address adverse outcomes, particularly when contexts are not aligned with the needs of highly sensitive individuals, would be, not only welcome, but considered essential to the goal of understanding variability. We also would like to invite theoretical or empirical work on mechanisms, including stress reactivity, differential susceptibility, biological sensitivity to context, and gene-environment interactions.

Article Types and Methodologies

We would be open to a variety of article types, including empirical research (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods), meta-analyses, systematic reviews, theoretical papers, and innovative methodological approaches. We also would encourage cross-disciplinary collaborations and perspectives that integrate multiple levels of analysis (e.g., biological, psychological, contextual). Submission deadline for full manuscripts Sep. 1, 2026

Call for Papers

Psychobiography and Autoethnography:

Developing new discourses and theories

for

Current Psychology

Guest Editors

Claude-Hélène Mayer, Industrial Psychology and People Management, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa, cmayer@uj.ac.za; Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9445-7591

Jerome Carson, School of Psychology, University of Greater Manchester, Deane Road, Bolton, Greater Manchester, UK. J.Carson@greatermanchester.ac.uk Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7596-116X

Psychobiography is the study of lives of extraordinary individuals through the lens of psychological theory (Elms, 2007; Schultz, 2005). Over the past decades, it has become an important field in psychology (e.g., Mayer & Kovary, 2019; Mayer et. al, 2023). Psychobiographies are viewed as offering explorative descriptions and interpretations to life history data (McRunyan, 1997), while understanding individual lives in their socio-cultural and historical contexts (McAdams, 1994).

During the past, extraordinary individuals have been studied from various perspectives. There are a range of theoretical and methodological approaches that have been applied in psychobiographies to provide insight into life span developments on the one hand and/or specific life events on the other (Anderson, 2025; Ponterotto, 2025; Schultz & Lawrence, 2017).

Psychobiographers usually reflect upon their personal motivation why they explore the life of a specific individual and researchers have discussed the psychobiographer`s relationship with their psychobiographical subjects (Ponterotto & Moncayo, 2018; Ponterotto, 2025). Autobiographical findings or descriptions are frequently used in psychobiographies to aid researchers in understanding how a psychobiographer may have interpreted events or a particular period of their life (Ponterotto, 2013). This, in turn, may shed further light on their personality, motivations and ways of responding to the world.

Recently, autoethnographic researchers have started to bring psychobiography and autoethnography (AE) together from a viewpoint of AE. Hopkinson and Niklasson (2024), for example, have developed the International Digital Collaborative Autoethnographical Psychobiography (IDCAP) to feature a novel qualitative research method and Hopkinson et al. (2025) have argued for autoethnographical psychobiography. Autoethnography, over the past decades, has developed in many different forms (Adams & Hermann, 2020; Adams et al., 2022; Ellis et al., 2011; Gonzalez Suero, 2025; Gonot-Schoupinsky & Mayer, 2025), as has psychobiography (McRunyan, 1987; Elms, 2007; Mayer & Kovery, 2019; Mayer et al., 2021, 2023).

Rationale of this Special Issue

This Special Issue in Current Psychology is dedicated to present original articles which develop new discourses and theories on psychobiography and autoethnography. At the moment, there is a specific drive in autoethnography to explore this methodology in the context of the lives of extraordinary individuals, specifically in psychobiography.

It aims at filling the void on in-depth discourses and theory-building on psychobiography and autoethnography. In particular, it focuses on meaning-making of psychobiography and autoethnography, thereby focusing on the relationship of psychobiographical and autoethnographical aspects in writing psychobiography and/or autoethnography.

This SI elaborates on the new models developed and also aims at publishing research that tests these new models and/or reflects upon them critically. Further, there are new publications on how to use autoethnography and psychobiography in intercultural as well as in therapeutic contexts (for healing, self-development etc.). Therefore the editors of this SI would like to invite researchers with AE background on the one hand and others with PB background on the other hand to explore their theoretical, but also their empirical standing in both fields and especially integrating these fields. One further aspect addresses the question how we create identities through AE and PB and in the eyes of the “extraordinary other”. Additionally, the editors are focusing on developing the discourses around psychobiographers and their subjects (like Freud or Jung did already many decades ago). Thereby, questions regarding how psychobiographers find their subjects they research are posed. It is also of interest why PB research exactly these chosen subjects - this is quite a well established question in the field of psychobiography. However, this question has hardly been described and presented from an AE perspective and many questions are still open. Finally, the editors are aiming at seeing discourses around „lessons learned”: what can AE and PB contribute to our world today?

While the editors invite researchers from both sides (AE and PB), they would like to move theory forward and expand the views of both fields, show overlaps and boundaries and provide new foci of research within both fields. There is an interest in articles which explain why a certain individual choses to explore the life of a specific extraordinary individual: what are the commonalities, how do they relate? The editors further call upon articles which explore how individuals interlink their own identity aspects with the ones of extraordinary individuals, thereby bringing connection across time, space, historic contexts and present times. Also, the editors are interested in articles in which, for example, psychologists or therapists describe how they work with PB and AE in their psychological work (theoretically, empriically, practically). This special issue will tackle new grounds in psychological theory and practice.

The Special Issue editors are both experienced tenured professors. Claude-Hélène is currently number one in the world on ‘Scopus Researcher Discovery’ for Psychobiography, while Jerome is number two for Autoethnography. Both have published many books and hundreds of journal papers.

For further information on Current Psychology, please see here: https://beta.springernature.com/pre-submission?journalId=12144

Please adhere to the submission instructions here: https://beta.springernature.com/pre-submission/submission-guidelines?journalId=12144

Before you submit your article through the journal`s website, please send your abstract to the guest editors: cmayer@uj.ac.za and J.Carson@greatermanchester.ac.uk.

Abstract deadline is the 1. May 2026.

Full paper submission deadline, after acceptance of the abstract, is the 1 August 2026.

References

Adams, T. E., & Herrmann, A. F. (2023). Good autoethnography. Journal of Autoethnography, 4(1), 1–9.

Adams, T. E., Jones, S. H., & Ellis, C. (Eds.). (2022). Handbook of autoethnography (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Anderson, J.W. (2025). Psychobiography. In Search of the Inner Life. Oxford University Press.

Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 273–290.

Elms, A. C. (2007). Psychobiography and case study methods. In R. W. Robins, R. C. Fraley, & R. F. Krüger (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in personality psychology (p. 97-113). Guildford Press.

Gonzalez Suero, A. (2025). The Recent History and Current State of Autoethnography in Germany: A Literature Review. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 26(2). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-26.2.4310

Gonot-Schoupinsky, F. & Mayer, C.-H. (2025). Positive Autoethnography: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. Emerald Publishers.

Hopkinson, P., & Niklasson, M. (2024). A life through the looking glass: the development of a qualitative method International Digital Collaborative Autoethnographic Psychobiography. Mental Health and Social Inclusion, 28(6), pp.1309-1324. https://doi.org/10.1108/mhsi-04-2024-0050

Hopkinson, P., Danielsson, A., Voyce, A., Niklasson, M., & Carson, J. (2025). Autoethnography for social workers: New approaches. Social Work and Social Sciences Review. https://doi.org/10.1921/swssr20252590

Mayer, C.-H., & Kovary, Z. (2019). New trends in psychobiography. Springer.

Mayer, C.-H.; van Niekerk, R., Fouché, P.J. & Ponterotto, J. (2023). Beyond WEIRD: Psychobiography in Times of Transcultural and Transdisciplinary Perspectives. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

McAdams, D. P. (1994). The person: An introduction to personality psychology. Harcourt Brace College.

McRunyan, W. (1997). Studying lives. Psychobiography and the conceptual structure of personality psychology. In R. Hogan, J. Johnson, &

S. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology (p. 41-69). Academic Press.

Ponterotto, J. G. (2013). Qualitative research in multicultural psychology: Philosophical underpinnings, popular approaches, and ethical considerations. Qualitative Psychology, 1(S), 19–32. https://doi.org/10.1037/2326-3598.1.S.19

Ponterotto, J. G. (2025). The psychobiographer's handbook: A practical guide to research and ethics. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000410-000

Ponterotto, J. G. & Moncayo, K. (2018). A cautious alliance: The psychobiographer’s relationship with his/her subject. Indo-Pacific Journal

of Phenomenology, 18(1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/20797222.2018.1511311

Schultz, W. T. (Ed.). (2005). Handbook of psychobiography. Oxford University Press.

Schultz, W. T., & Lawrence, S. (2017). Psychobiography: Theory and method. American Psychologist, 72(5), 434-445. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000130