CAUSAL MODEL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS AND SENSORY PROCESSING SENSITIVITY IN LATE ADOLESCENSE

Abstract

The objectives of this research are as follows: (1) to compare the level of Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS) between two different groups of late adolescents, including a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and a non-Highly Sensitive Person (non-HSP); and (2) to explore the causal models of positive psychological factors, and SPS in late adolescence, which included 306 undergraduate students, majoring in the Faculty of Education from three universities in Bangkok, Thailand, who collaborated with members of the Council of University Presidents of Thailand, chosen by a simple random sampling technique. The research instruments are the general information scale and three psychological scales for undergraduate students (The Highly Sensitive Person, Psychological Capital (Psycap), and Self-Compassion, evaluated in five-rating scales). These three scales were determined with the Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α-coefficient) of 0.925, 0.909, and 0.852, respectively. All the data are collected and calculated in descriptive analysis (percentile rank, normalized t-score, and multiple correlation), and causal model analysis using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). This research found that the level of SPS in the samples was normalized t-score at a percentile rank of 3.30-100.00. Furthermore, the results of SEM can explore the causal model of samples about 37.20% of model consistency to represent the samples, and statistical values consisted of Chi-square/degree of freedom about 2.3090 (p-value = 0.00059), GFI = 0.973, CFI = 0.980, NFI = 0.965, RMSEA = 0.0655, and SRMR =0.0694. Moreover, the Total Effect (TE) of the model was considered as TE = -0.66 between SPS and Self-compassion. In contrast, SPS and Psycap is considered as TE= 0.18. These studies are important to understand the effect of positive psychological factor in Thai undergraduate students to support their SPS level by enhancing the level of Psycap.

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