To what extent has the theory of OEs been tested and described in the peer-reviewed literature?
I'm not expert at searching in this particular domain, but I couldn't find anything. Thinking about what one would have to do to put this on a proper scientific basis, I think the problem would be that the idea is so fluid. I mean, the basic idea is that some people are more sensitive to certain things than others (that could hardly be false) and that there is a correlation between high sensitivity and giftedness (this is the contentful part that one might hope to test). What would you do? You'd need to start with a population some of which had been identified gifted by a test that was independent of OEs, and some of which had not. You'd want not to know which people were which. You'd then test everyone for the presence of one or more OEs. Doesn't sound impossible so far, but you'd need to do it in a reasonably objective and repeatable way, and in order for this to count as confirming the existence of Dabrowksi's OEs, you'd need to show a positive correlation for a large number of different sensitivities. You'd also need somehow to rule out other explanations, such as that gifted people tend to exaggerate their reports of all their feelings while not actually being affected disproportionately by them, perhaps as a side-effect of tending to be highly articulate.
It would be very interesting if something like this has been done, but if it has, I haven't found it. Of course, the idea can still be a useful one even if it lacks an objective scientific basis. My suspicion is that this is more of a useful conceptual idea for dealing with individuals than something that can be turned into a scientific theory.
