Abstract

The notion that some people are more affected than others by the same experience is widely embraced in most fields of psychology and usually framed in a Diathesis-Stress perspective: some people are more vulnerable to adverse experiences as a function of inherent risk characteristics (e.g., personality, genes). More recently, it has been suggested in the Differential Susceptibility framework (Belsky & Pluess, 2009) that individuals may vary in their psychological reactivity more generally: some are more affected by both negative as well as positive influences. Based on this now empirically well-supported proposition, I will introduce the new concept of Vantage Sensitivity which refers to variation in response to exclusively positive experiences (Pluess & Belsky, 2012). Empirical evidence will be presented and evaluated using data from behavioural, physiological, neuroimaging and genetic studies. Potential mechanisms and practical implications will be discussed.