Shyness
Jonathan M. Cheek
I. Description of the problem. Shyness is the tendency to feel tense, worried, or awkward during social interactions, especially with unfamiliar people. This definition reflects three categories of shyness symptoms: somatic anxiety, cognitive anxiety, and observable behavior.
A. Epidemiology.
Although transient situational shyness is virtually universal, about 33% to 45% of schoolaged children and adults in the United States label themselves as shy.
There is a developmental peak for shyness during adolescence, when 60% of the girls and 50% of the boys in seventh and eighth grades identify themselves as shy.
Less than 50% of the children who first became shy during later childhood and early adolescence still consider themselves to be shy by age 21.
75% of college students who say they were shy in early childhood continue to identify themselves as shy persons.
B. Clinical features. In early childhood, shyness is usually manifested as the relative absence or inhibition of normally expected social behaviors. The child appears excessively quiet, with diminished social participation. For shy children, the normal peaks of stranger anxiety (9 months) and separation anxiety (18 months) do not fade away. In later childhood and early adolescence, the cognitive symptoms of shyness, such as painful selfconsciousness and anxious self-preoccupation, begin to become a significant component of this personality syndrome.
Longitudinal research indicates that shyness that continues into adulthood can create significant barriers to satisfaction in love, work, recreation, and friendship. Shy adults tend to be more lonely and less happy than those who are not shy. Childhood shyness does not, however, predict psychopathology in adulthood and should be considered part of the normal range of individual differences in personality and social behavior. At times it may be difficult to differentiate shyness from a communication disorder such as an autism spectrum disorder. A thorough history may help tease out the core characteristics of autism—that is social communication and behavioral concerns—versus symptoms of shyness alone.
C. Etiology.
1. Temperament. Shyness is one of the few temperamental traits whose precursors in infancy are often clear. About 15% to 20% of infants typically respond to a new situation or stimulus (e.g., an unfamiliar toy, person, or place) by withdrawing and becoming either emotionally subdued or upset (crying, fussing, and fretting). It has been speculated that this pattern of inhibition to novelty is related to a lower threshold for arousal in sites in the amygdala. Infants with this highly reactive temperament in the first year of life are more likely to be wary or fearful of strangers at the end of the second year and are also more likely to be described as shy by their kindergarten teachers.
2. Transactional model. Behavioral inhibition in infancy does not lead invariably to childhood shyness. Parents who are sensitive to the nature of their inhibited child’s temperament, who take an active role in helping the child to develop relationships with playmates, and who facilitate involvement in school activities appear to ameliorate the impact of shyness on the child’s subsequent social adjustment. Childhood shyness is a joint product of temperament and socialization experiences within and outside the family.
3. Late-onset shyness. Many of the children who first become troubled by shyness between the ages of 8 and 14 do not have the temperamental predisposition for behavioral inhibition. Late-developing shyness is usually caused by adjustment problems in adolescent social development. The bodily changes of puberty, the newly acquired cognitive ability to think abstractly about the self and the environment, and the new demands and opportunities resulting from changing social roles combine to make adolescents feel intensely self-conscious and socially awkward.
The inability of some adolescents to outgrow late-developing shyness has been linked to several factors. Research on the timing of puberty indicates that earlymaturing girls and late-maturing boys suffer more severe social adjustment problems with their peers. Moving to a new neighborhood or school can disrupt the development of social skills, which are most easily practiced in safe and familiar surroundings. Shy adolescents need to experience positive social relationships in order to develop a healthy level of self-esteem. If parents, siblings, teachers, or peers tease and embarrass the shy adolescent, he or she may develop the self-image of being an unworthy and unlikable person.
Sex role socialization puts different pressures on adolescent girls and boys. Teenage girls experience more symptoms of self-conscious shyness, such as doubts about their attractiveness and worries about what others think of them, whereas teenage boys tend to be more troubled by behavioral symptoms of shyness because the traditional male role requires initiative and assertiveness in social life.
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