Sample RSD Test Results
Completed on 2026-03-21
What your results mean
Your responses describe a strong and consistent rejection sensitivity pattern, characterised by high core sensitivity to perceived criticism or disapproval, a tendency to internalise those experiences rather than externalise them, and notably prolonged emotional recovery times. The overall profile sits firmly in the significant range. The most clinically meaningful feature is not the intensity of the initial reaction — though that is elevated — but the sustained quality of the distress and the pattern of self-directed processing that follows. This is an internalising, slow-burn RSD profile rather than an explosive or externalising one.
RSD is increasingly understood as a dimensional trait rather than a binary condition, and your profile illustrates why. Your core sensitivity is your highest score, reflecting a baseline heightened sensitivity to how others perceive and respond to you. This operates as a perceptual filter: situations are more readily interpreted as containing signals of rejection, and ambiguous signals (silence, a delayed reply, an unchanged facial expression) are more likely to be read as negative. The internalising response pattern — directing the resulting distress inward as self-criticism, shame, or perceived failure rather than outward as anger — means your RSD may be less visible to others but more persistent and more costly to you. The slow recovery dimension confirms this: the emotional aftermath of perceived rejection lingers well beyond the triggering event, sometimes for days. The masking score indicates you have learned to conceal this process, which adds further cognitive load to each episode.
Your RSD Pattern
Reaction Pattern
internalising
You experience both internalising and externalising responses to perceived rejection.
Recovery Style
slow burn
Your recovery from rejection is gradual — the hurt tends to linger and replay.
Your Strengths
Deep Emotional Attunement — your sensitivity to how others feel and what they need is a genuine relational strength. The same perceptual system that makes rejection painful also gives you an unusually accurate read on interpersonal dynamics, often before others have consciously registered them.
Protective Loyalty — people who experience strong rejection sensitivity frequently develop an exceptionally strong commitment to those who have proven safe. Once trust is established, your loyalty and investment in relationships is a meaningful and consistent strength.
Pattern Recognition in Social Environments — your nervous system is attuned to social signals with unusual granularity. While this creates vulnerability to misreading ambiguous signals negatively, it also means you notice things others miss — shifts in tone, changes in group dynamics, unspoken tension.
Motivation Through Approval Channels — while approval-seeking as a coping strategy has costs, the same sensitivity means you are often highly motivated to perform well in contexts where relationships or belonging are at stake. Understanding which environments activate this motivational channel helps you work with it consciously.
Self-Awareness as a Protective Factor — your responses indicate a meaningful degree of meta-awareness about your own rejection sensitivity pattern. Recognising the trigger-response-recovery cycle as it is happening is itself a protective factor, and one that many people with significant RSD have not yet developed.
Subscale Breakdown
Core Sensitivity measures the baseline perceptual sensitivity to rejection-related signals — the degree to which your nervous system is primed to detect potential criticism, disapproval, or exclusion. At 70% (significant), this is your highest subscale score and the foundation of your RSD profile. High core sensitivity does not mean you are wrong about what you perceive; it means the detection threshold is lower and the perceived signals are more salient and emotionally charged than they would be for most people.
Anticipatory anxiety captures the prospective dimension of rejection sensitivity — the degree to which concern about potential rejection shapes behaviour before an event occurs. At 61% (elevated), your responses suggest meaningful avoidance of situations where rejection is possible, pre-emptive self-monitoring to reduce rejection risk, and significant energy invested in predicting how others will respond. This forward-looking anxiety often drives the people-pleasing, perfectionism, and social withdrawal that can accompany significant RSD.
This subscale examines how rejection sensitivity shapes the texture of your relationships — the degree to which fear of rejection influences how you communicate, set expectations, handle conflict, and maintain closeness. At 50% (elevated), rejection sensitivity is visibly shaping interpersonal behaviour: you may hold back opinions, avoid conflict disproportionately, seek reassurance more than you would prefer, or pre-emptively withdraw from relationships that feel uncertain.
This subscale examines the impact of rejection sensitivity in professional and achievement contexts — how criticism, performance feedback, and competitive comparison affect your functioning at work or in goal-directed activity. At 39% (elevated), the impact is present but not your most prominent dimension. You may find critical feedback disproportionately difficult to process even when you understand it is well-intentioned, or notice that the possibility of public failure has a chilling effect on risk-taking and creative output.
Recovery & Processing is your second-highest score and the dimension that gives your profile its 'slow-burn' character. At 69% (significant), it indicates that the emotional aftermath of perceived rejection events is prolonged — the dysphoric state does not clear quickly, and in the intervening period it continues to influence mood, decision-making, and motivation. Many people with this recovery pattern describe it as being 'pulled back' to the triggering event repeatedly, even when they have consciously decided to move on.
RSD Masking captures the degree to which you actively conceal your rejection sensitivity responses from others. At 63% (elevated), there is significant masking behaviour: suppressing visible distress in the moment, performing composure after rejection events, and reframing your responses to appear more resilient than you feel. This is a significant cognitive and emotional load, and it often means that the people closest to you have incomplete information about how these patterns affect you — which in turn can make it harder to receive appropriate support.
Key Findings
High Core Sensitivity with Slow Recovery
The combination of elevated core sensitivity (F: 70%) and high recovery difficulty (E: 69%) is the most clinically significant pattern in your profile. It indicates that perceived rejection events both land with high impact and take an extended time to process. Recovery periods can last hours or days, during which the emotional residue continues to influence mood, motivation, and interpersonal behaviour. This is distinct from simply 'being sensitive' — it is a slow-clearing regulatory challenge that compounds across multiple episodes. Strategies that specifically target the recovery phase, rather than only the initial reaction, tend to be most effective for this profile.
Internalising Response Pattern
Your RSD response pattern shows a strong internalising signature: when rejection is perceived, the distress tends to be directed inward. This commonly manifests as self-blame ('I must have done something wrong'), shame ('I am fundamentally not good enough'), or rumination on what you could have done differently. Because this pattern is largely invisible to others, it is often unrecognised — both by those around you and sometimes by yourself. The absence of visible upset can be misread as resilience, when in fact significant processing is occurring internally. Recognising the internalising pattern is the first step toward interrupting it.
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Important: This is not a diagnosis
Your results describe patterns consistent with certain neurocognitive profiles. They are designed to help you understand yourself better and to facilitate conversations with healthcare professionals. They are not a clinical diagnosis and should not be used as a substitute for professional assessment.
If your results suggest elevated or significant patterns, this does not necessarily indicate the presence of a clinical condition. Many factors influence these scores, and a qualified professional can help you interpret them in the context of your full history.
You are more than a set of scores. We hope these results help you on your journey of self-understanding.