Abstract:

Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS) has gained increasing attention as a personality trait linked to heightened environmental responsiveness and a deeper integration of sensory and emotional information. Academic life commonly exposes students to sustained workloads, performance expectations, and situational pressures that can intensify anxiety and depressive symptoms in highly sensitive students. Although prior research has examined these emotional outcomes independently, far less is known about how SPS interacts with academic stress and internalizing symptoms within the same analytical framework. Furthermore, possible gender differences in these patterns remain understudied, despite evidence suggesting that men and women may differ in how they experience and regulate stress and emotional difficulties. Understanding these dynamics is essential for clarifying the role of SPS in students’ wellbeing and for informing tailored support strategies in educational contexts. The present study examined the associations among Sensory Processing Sensitivity, Academic Stress, Anxiety and Depression using an EBICglasso network model estimated separately for men (n=182) and women (n=617). The networks included four nodes and demonstrated identical structural density in both genders (5/6 non-zero edges; sparsity = 0.17). The strongest partial association in both groups emerged between anxiety and depression (men = 0.648; women = 0.618), revealing a shared emotional core. Nonetheless, gender differences appeared in the strength of SPS connections: in men, SPS was more strongly associated with academic stress (0.433), whereas in women SPS showed a slightly stronger association with anxiety (0.198). The link between academic stress and depression was also somewhat higher in women. Although both networks displayed identical structural density, notable differences emerged in the magnitude of specific edge weights across genders. Centrality analyses showed that anxiety was the most central node in both genders, exhibiting the highest strength and expected influence values, indicating that it acts as the primary organizing mechanism linking SPS with stress and depressive symptoms. SPS and academic stress occupied peripheral positions, suggesting that they exert a more indirect influence on the emotional system. Depression showed moderate centrality in both networks, largely driven by its strong connection with anxiety. These findings suggest that, although men and women share a similar emotional network structure, the pathways through which SPS relates to emotional distress differ slightly. SPS appears to contribute more to academic stress in men, while in women it is more strongly linked to anxiety. Overall, the results indicate that anxiety functions as the central integrative element in both networks, shaping how stress and depressive symptoms co-occur. These gender specific patterns highlight that the emotional impact of SPS may depend on the predominant regulatory demands experienced by each group. Such differences underscore the importance of considering gender when designing interventions to improve the psychological wellbeing and quality of life in highly sensitive students.

Keywords:

Sensory processing sensitivity, academic stress, anxiety, depression, gender, students, university, network analysis.