Elaine Aron

Elaine N. Aron is an American clinical research psychologist and author. Aron has published numerous books and scholarly articles about inherited temperament and interpersonal relationships, which has sold over a million copies.

Education Aron is known for research into sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) as graphically summarized by Greven et al. (review article, 2019). A person with a high measure of SPS is said to be a highly sensitive person (HSP).

Aron graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley, and later earned a Master of Arts in clinical psychology from York University (Toronto) and a Ph.D. in clinical depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California.

Professional practice Aron maintains a psychotherapy practice in Mill Valley, California.

In 1997, Aron and her husband published an academic paper called The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings, in which the appendix featured a set of 36 questions of increasing intimacy. Participants who were strangers to each other were grouped in pairs to ask each other the questions, and found afterwards to develop a stronger friendship and in some cases even a relationship. In January 2015, New York Times writer Mandy Len Catron posted the article "To Fall In Love With Anyone, Do This" and listed them as the "36 questions that lead to love".

Published works

Books Source: The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You (1996) The Highly Sensitive Person's Workbook (1999) The Highly Sensitive Person in Love: Understanding and Managing Relationships When the World Overwhelms You (2001) The Highly Sensitive Child: Helping Our Children Thrive When the World Overwhelms Them (2002) The Undervalued Self: Restore Your Love/Power Balance, Transform the Inner Voice That Holds You Back, and Find Your True Self-Worth (2010) Psychotherapy and the Highly Sensitive Person: Improving Outcomes for That Minority of People Who Are the Majority of Clients (2010) The Highly Sensitive Person's Complete Learning Program: Essential Insights and Tools for Navigating Your Work, Relationships, and Life - Audiobook (2019) The Highly Sensitive Parent: Be Brilliant in Your Role, Even When the World Overwhelms You (2020)

Scholarly journal articles

Note 3 (p. 195) cites Chen et al. (1992) re social and cultural unacceptability adding to environmental stressors. Aron, Elaine N., Ph.D., (July 21, 2011) "Understanding the Highly Sensitivity Person: Sensitive, Introverted, or Both? | Extraverted HSPs face unique challenges" Psychology Today.

Magazine articles

Personal life Aron is married to SUNY-Stony Brook psychology professor Arthur Aron, with whom she collaborates in studies of the interaction of childhood environment with sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) in predicting adult functioning.