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PubMed1993

Vascular disease risk factors, urinary free cortisol, and health histories in older adults: shyness and gender interactions.

We studied relationships between shyness and health during a health screening survey of older adults (ages 50-88) living in an active retirement community in the southwestern United States (n = 232). As in previous studies of infants, older individuals with hay fever, insomnia and constipation were more shy than those without these problems. Shy persons overall showed higher sitting systolic blood pressure and a larger fall in orthostatic systolic blood pressure on standing; shy men had a greater prevalence of hypertension histories than did low-shy men. Shy subjects of both sexes had lower HDL cholesterol and higher triglycerides than did low-shy subjects; shy women tended to have higher LDL cholesterol than did low-shy women. In contrast with findings of elevated salivary cortisol in extremely inhibited children of both sexes, only shy women had higher 24 h urinary free cortisol excretion than did low-shy women; men showed the opposite pattern, possibly related to suppression of aggression. Shy men also tended to report a higher prevalence of thyroid disease history than did low-shy men (20% versus 6%). Notably, autoimmune thyroiditis has previously been linked with panic and depression, disorders which in turn have been associated with shyness. Taken together with previous work in shy children and their families, the data raise the possibility of (a) increased risk for arteriosclerotic vascular disease; and (b) increased risk of adrenal- and/or thyroid-related diseases in certain shy older adults.

Aged↗
PubMed1995

Relations of shyness and low sociability to regulation and emotionality.

The relations of shyness and low sociability (i.e., the nonfearful preference to be alone) to measures of regulation and emotionality were examined. College students and (for some variables) friends reported on their relevant dispositional characteristics. In general, shyness was associated with low regulation and high negative emotionality (including intensity, negative affectivity, and personal distress), low positive affect, and low constructive coping. In contrast, low sociability was unrelated to negative emotionality; associated with low positive emotional intensity, low physiological reactivity, and high inhibition control; and correlated with low seeking of social support as a means of coping. The findings are considered within a heuristic model in which emotional reactivity and regulation are proposed as predictors of social responding.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2005

Assessing shyness in Chinese older adults.

The Shyness Scale (SS) is a brief instrument for assessing shyness as a personality trait. The psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the SS were investigated in a random sample of 192 Macau Chinese older adults. The Chinese version of the SS possesses high internal consistency and exhibited satisfactory short-term test-retest reliability. The Chinese version of the SS exhibited acceptable convergent validity with other negative measures of psychological well-being including negative emotional states (assessed by the Negative Affect Scale), loneliness (assessed by the UCLA Loneliness Scale), and state anxiety and trait anxiety (assessed by STAI). The divergent validity of the Chinese version of the SS was demonstrated by the negative but significant association between the SS and self esteem (assessed by Rosenberg Self Esteem Inventory).

Affect↗
PubMed2004

Shyness and locus of control as predictors of internet addiction and internet use.

The new psychological disorder of Internet addiction is fast accruing both popular and professional recognition. Past studies have indicated that some patterns of Internet use are associated with loneliness, shyness, anxiety, depression, and self-consciousness, but there appears to be little consensus about Internet addiction disorder. This exploratory study attempted to examine the potential influences of personality variables, such as shyness and locus of control, online experiences, and demographics on Internet addiction. Data were gathered from a convenient sample using a combination of online and offline methods. The respondents comprised 722 Internet users mostly from the Net-generation. Results indicated that the higher the tendency of one being addicted to the Internet, the shyer the person is, the less faith the person has, the firmer belief the person holds in the irresistible power of others, and the higher trust the person places on chance in determining his or her own course of life. People who are addicted to the Internet make intense and frequent use of it both in terms of days per week and in length of each session, especially for online communication via e-mail, ICQ, chat rooms, newsgroups, and online games. Furthermore, full-time students are more likely to be addicted to the Internet, as they are considered high-risk for problems because of free and unlimited access and flexible time schedules. Implications to help professionals and student affairs policy makers are addressed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Children's discrimination of expressions of emotions: relationship with indices of social anxiety and shyness.

OBJECTIVE: To conduct an exploratory investigation of possible relationships between individual levels of social anxiety and the ability to classify emotional expressions in a group of schoolchildren observing pictures of children of similar age. METHOD: One hundred forty-nine second- and third-grade schoolchildren underwent a facial expression discrimination trial. Children were characterized on the basis of the number of spontaneous comments they made during a pause in the trial, and on their scores on the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, the Stevenson-Hinde and Glover Shyness-to-the-Unfamiliar Scale, and the Cloninger Harm Avoidance scale. The scales were filled in by appropriately trained teachers. RESULTS: The overall rate of correct identification was 72%, without gender-associated differences. Regression analyses showed that higher rates of misidentifications were significantly associated with higher scores on the Liebowitz scale and fewer spontaneous comments. Misidentifications of the "anger" expressions (most often misclassified as "disgust") were associated with higher ratings on the Liebowitz scale when children were exposed to a boy's picture and by fewer spontaneous comments when children were exposed to a girl's picture. Misidentification of a neutral expression of a girl's picture (most often misclassified as "sadness") was significantly associated with fewer spontaneous comments. CONCLUSIONS: These pilot results suggest that a child's ability to correctly identify other children's basic emotions is partially associated with his or her level of observed social shyness.

Child↗
PubMed1987

Peer group antecedents of severe love-shyness in males.

Love-shyness is a degree of inhibition and reticence with the opposite sex that is sufficiently severe to preclude participation in courtship, marriage and family roles. Love-shyness is believed to be the result of a genetic-biologically rooted temperament and learning experiences with peers and family. Two love-shy groups (an older one and a younger one) were compared to a nonshy group on several variables pertaining to past peer group history, recreational proclivities, etc. The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire was also administered to all subjects. The love-shys recalled going through life as social isolates and outcasts and experienced very stressful and nonsupportive relationships with agemate peers. In contrast to the non-shys who recalled suffering very little bullying at the hands of agemate peers, the love-shys' formative years were recalled as having been fraught with victimization by bullies. The implications of these findings are discussed and recommendations are offered.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Abnormal shyness in children.

Recent nonclinical studies of children who do not often interact with their peers have identified at least three different kinds of solitude: temperamental shyness, social-evaluative shyness, and unsociability. These kinds of solitude can be clearly distinguished from social nonacceptance. The evidence for the different faces of children's solitude and their situational, age, and cultural specificity is reviewed, and potential implications for clinical child psychology are discussed. Clinical practitioners can profit from a recognition of the multifaceted nature of solitude in childhood.

Child↗
PubMed1999

Childhood shyness and maternal social phobia: a community study.

BACKGROUND: Family history data suggest the possibility of an association between childhood shyness and parental social phobia. AIMS: To examine the prevalence of maternal affective disorder in a community sample of four-year-old shy and non-shy children. METHOD: By screening 867 children, 43 shy children, 59 children with another form of disturbance (i.e. fearfulness, feeding problem or conduct problem) and 26 children with no disturbance were identified. Interviewers who were unaware of child status used a standardised mental state assessment to determine the rate of affective disorder in the mothers of these children. RESULTS: Compared with the mothers of the children in both comparison groups, the mothers of the children who were purely shy (i.e. shy children with no comorbid condition) had a significantly raised lifetime rate of anxiety disorder in general, and social phobia in particular. The odds ratio of a social phobia in the mothers of the purely shy children was raised over the normal control group by a factor of more than seven. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest a specific association between childhood shyness and maternal social phobia.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Gaze during speaking as related to shyness.

32 shy and 32 nonshy women were selected from a population of Japanese junior college students on the basis of their responses to the Trait Shyness Scale. This study manipulated shyness (shy and nonshy), interviewers' gaze (high amount of gaze and low amount of gaze), and interviewers' sex in a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design. Subjects were randomly assigned to eight groups and interviewed by one of two male or two female confederates. Two trained judges recorded duration of gaze and speech through a one-way mirror and watching videotaped records. Analysis showed that for the interviewer in the high gaze condition the self-reported shy women gazed less while speaking than the nonshy women.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

General and test anxiety, shyness, and grade point average of elementary school children of divorced and nondivorced parents.

116 boys and girls in elementary Grades 4, 5, and 6 were administered the General Anxiety Scale, Test Anxiety Scale, and the Shyness Scale. Their GPAs were obtained from school records as were Normal Curve Equivalents from the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills given the previous school year. Children of divorced parents (n = 31) had lower GPAs than children of nondivorced parents (n = 85). The girls had higher GPAs and general anxiety scores than the boys. The students who scored lower on test anxiety had higher Normal Curve Equivalents. Pearson correlations were significant for scores on Test Anxiety with those on general anxiety (r = .57), GPA (r = -.25), and Normal Curve Equivalents (r = -.26). Normal Curve Equivalents correlated significantly with GPA (r = .66), but shyness did not correlate significantly with any other measure.

Achievement↗
PubMed1995

Shyness and loneliness: relationship to the exercise frequency of college students.

The purpose of the current study was to estimate the relationship between exercise frequency and measures of shyness and loneliness in a sample of 882 college students. Analysis provided evidence that higher shyness and loneliness scores were associated with not exercising and infrequent exercising. Also, subjects who exercise 7 times a week scored significantly lower than the other exercise-frequency groups. Analysis of covariance, controlling for possible confounding variables, gives further support.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Revised multicultural perspective index and measures of depression, life satisfaction, shyness, and self-esteem.

In a 2002 publication, Mowrer and McCarver reported weak but significant correlations (r =.24) between scores on the Multicultural Perspective Index and scores on Neugarten, Havighurst, and Tobin's 1961 Life Satisfaction Index-A and the Life Satisfaction Scale developed in 1985 by Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin. Using 382 undergraduate students the present study reduced the Index from 42 to 29 items based on each item's correlation with total items. An additional 104 undergraduate students then completed the modified 29-item version, Rosenberg's Self-esteem Scale, Cheek and Buss's Shyness Scale, the Self-rating Depression Scale by Zung, and the Neugarten, et al. Life Satisfaction Index-A. Scores on the modified Index were negatively correlated with those on the Depression and Shyness scales and positively correlated with scores on the Self-esteem and Life Satisfaction scales (p< .05).

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Shyness and sociability: a dangerous combination for illicit substance use in adolescent males?

Researchers have hypothesized that behavioral problems are accentuated when a shy person wants to be with other people. This need to be with others--sociability--is a related but separate construct from shyness. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship of shyness and sociability to illicit substance use in a sample of 654 male high school students. It was found that, in general, shy male adolescents were significantly more likely to use illicit substances when compared to those who were not shy. Those who were shy and highly sociable were significantly more likely to use hallucinogenic substances than were those who were shy and low to moderate in sociability as well as those who were not shy. Although not significant, there was a trend toward more cocaine and marijuana use among those who were shy and highly sociable. The implications of these findings for those who work with adolescents are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1997

Daylength during pregnancy and shyness in children: results from northern and southern hemispheres.

An extreme degree of shyness in young children is a temperamental trait under modest genetic influence and characterized by distinct physiological profiles. Data from both the United States and New Zealand indicate that maternal exposure to short daylength during pregnancy, especially the midpoint of gestation, predicts an increased risk of subsequent shy behavior in children. Estimates of attributable risk indicate that approximately one-quarter of shyness prevalence can be linked to pregnancy during times of reduced daylength. This phenomenon might be mediated by changing concentrations of melatonin, serotonin, or other neurotransmitters or corticoids that are known to covary with seasonal variations in daylength.

Child↗
PubMed1985

Shyness-environment interaction: a view from the shy side through auto-photography.

It is proposed that shyness both induces and is induced by the perception of the environment. This study of person-situation transaction used photographic images taken by shy and less shy subjects in response to the question, "Who are you?" A content analysis of the photographs showed that shy persons were less person-oriented, more aesthetically oriented, and showed a reduced range of orientations when compared to less shy persons. The hierarchy of orientations for shy persons was aesthetic, people, self, and school; whereas for less shy persons it was people, self, aesthetic, and other persons. Thus, the difference between shy and less shy persons is in the pattern of orientations rather than in orientations in and of themselves. Moreover, one single difference between the groups, such as the lesser orientation toward people, does not justify the interpretation of shyness as a "people phobia."

Adult↗
PubMed2004

The influence of emotion regulation, level of shyness, and habituation on the neuroendocrine response of three-year-old children.

The current study investigated the temperamental dispositions of 53 three-year-old children (27 males, 26 females) and their behavioral and physiological responses to a stranger approach situation. Results indicated that elevations in cortisol were predicted by the child's level of shyness (with both shy and bold children showing elevations), better emotion regulation, and attendance at daycare which was believed to measure habituation to interactions with unknown adults in a playroom setting. In addition, the majority of children, both shy and bold, had cortisol levels that had begun to recover by fifteen minutes after the initial assessment. This suggests that the major concern for inhibited children is not weak regulation, but rather more frequent activation of the HPA system in response to novelty and a perceptual framework that expects fear.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2001

Treating childhood shyness and related behavior: empirically evaluated approaches to promote positive social interactions.

Behavioral and cognitive-behavioral strategies, including exposure, social skills training, and peer-mediated approaches, used to treat childhood shyness and related impairments are described. In addition, relevant outcome studies published within the past 20 years are evaluated, and limitations regarding the generalization, maintenance, and social validity of the reported treatment gains are addressed. Although the interventions reviewed have demonstrated short-term merit in ameliorating social and emotional impairments, such as problematic peer relations and internalizing difficulties, there currently is a lack of evidence to support the social validity and long-term generalization and maintenance of such behavioral gains. Thus, recommendations for future research are made, including the need to (a) assess the social validity of treatment outcomes, (b) utilize important socialization agents (e.g., parents, teachers, peers), and (c) conduct prevention research and longitudinal outcome studies.

Adolescent↗