Early‐ and later‐developing shyness in children: An investigation of biological and behavioral correlates

Links between social avoidance and frontal alpha asymmetry during processing emotional facial stimuli: An exploratory study

Individuals who are socially avoidant actively remove themselves from opportunities for social interaction and have a strong desire for solitude. Although social avoidance is associated with a host of adjustment difficulties, its neural substrates remain under-explored. To address this gap, we conducted an exploratory study to compare electroencephalography (EEG) frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) scores during processing emotional facial stimuli in socially avoidant and non-withdrawn comparison individuals. From an original sample of N = 384 undergraduate students, 25 avoidant and 27 comparison individuals were identified. For this subset of participants, EEG modulations and self-reported experience ratings during a picture processing task were assessed. Among the results, the socially avoidant group's ratings of positive stimuli were significantly lower than the non-withdrawn comparison group. The socially avoidant group also had significantly lower FAA scores in response to positive stimuli than the comparison group. Further, asymmetry scores of the comparison group in the positive conditions were higher than in the negative and neutral conditions. However, there were no significant differences between these three conditions in the socially avoidant group. Our results suggest that socially avoidant individuals may eschew interpersonal relationships because of a relatively greater right hemisphere cortical activity, which may contribute to a withdrawal motivation when confronted with negative emotional stimuli in social contexts.

Shyness subtypes and associations with social anxiety: A comparison study of Canadian and Chinese children

Previous research has shown that there are distinct types of children's shyness within eastern and western cultures, with different origins, developmental courses, and outcomes. However, the measures used to examine children's shyness in eastern contexts have been developed almost exclusively in the North American context. Whether shyness subtypes and their predictive associations are conserved between western and eastern cultures on a children's shyness measure developed in an eastern context is an empirical question. Here we examined (a) whether two subtypes from the Chinese Shyness Scale (i.e., anxious and regulated) were identified in a western context, and (b) whether cultural context moderated the relation between the two subtypes of shy behavior and a widely used western characterized social anxiety measure. The participants were children aged 3-5 years from China (Mage  = 4.46 years, SD = 0.64, n = 182, 53.8% boys) and Canada (Mage  = 3.99 years, SD = 0.82, n = 201, 42.3% boys). The results indicated that the two shyness subtypes and the one-factor social anxiety construct were identified in both cultures. Subsequently, latent moderation structural equation modelling revealed that anxious shyness was significantly and positively related to social anxiety in children from both countries, but more strongly in Canada. Conversely, regulated shyness was significantly and positively related to social anxiety in Canadian children, but not in Chinese children. Findings are discussed regarding possible cultural explanations for why the relations between two Chinese shyness subtypes and social anxiety are different in Chinese and Canadian contexts and their implications to understanding cross-cultural differences in developmental shyness. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Two subtypes of shyness (anxious and regulated shyness) reported in China were identified in both China and Canada Country/culture moderated the relation between shyness subtypes and social anxiety Anxious shyness was positively related to social anxiety in both countries Regulated shyness was positively related to social anxiety in Canadian children, but not in Chinese children.

Temperamental and Theoretical Contributions to Clinical Psychology

This review considers two themes. The first section describes the influence of two temperamental biases detectable in infants that render children vulnerable to maladaptive behavior if the rearing environment invites such responses. Infants who display high levels of limb activity and crying in response to unexpected events are likely to be shy and fearful as children and are at risk for an anxiety disorder. Infants who display little limb movement and crying are susceptible to assuming risks and vulnerable to asocial behavior if the rearing environment invites these actions. The second section criticizes three common research practices: failure to examine patterns of measures for predictors and outcomes, an indifference to the power of the setting on the evidence recorded, and the distortions that semantic terms in questionnaires impose on replies.

Evaluating the Effect of Parent-Child Interactive Groups in a School-Based Parent Training Program: Parenting Behavior, Parenting Stress and Sense of Competence

The Exploring Together program is a group-based parent training program that comprises separate parent, child, and teacher components, and a combined parent-child interactive component. A cluster-randomized trial design was used to compare the Exploring Together program with (Exploring Together; ET) and without (Exploring Together-Adapted; ET-Adapted) the parent-child interactive component. One hundred and thirty-six parents and their children (aged 5-10 years) with externalizing and/or internalizing problems participated in the trial, recruited from primary schools. There was a significant reduction in negative parenting behavior across both treatment groups (ET and ET-Adapted) but no significant improvement in positive parenting behaviors. Parenting self-efficacy improved significantly across both treatment groups however there was no significant change in parenting satisfaction or parenting stress. There was no consistent evidence of superiority of one version of the Exploring Together program over the other. Further investigation regarding treatment dosage and mastery of parenting skills associated with the program is warranted.

Maternal dynamic respiratory sinus arrhythmia during toddlers' interactions with novelty

Maternal psychophysiological responses to toddlers' distress to novelty may have important implications for parenting during early childhood that are relevant to children's eventual development of social withdrawal and anxiety. Likely, these responses depend on intrapersonal, interpersonal, and contextual factors. The current study investigated the time course of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) across two laboratory novelty episodes, one low threat and one moderate threat, in 120 mothers of 2-year-old toddlers. Growth models tested context differences in and correlates of dynamic patterns of RSA. Dynamic patterns differed between tasks and according to mothers' perceptions of and distress about toddler shyness. Thus, changes in mothers' RSA across toddlers' interactions with novelty seem to depend on the context as well as how mothers perceive and respond to their toddlers' shyness.

The unique contribution of blushing to the development of social anxiety disorder symptoms: results from a longitudinal study

BACKGROUND

Self-conscious emotional reactivity and its physiological marker - blushing has been proposed to be an etiological mechanism of social anxiety disorder (SAD), but so far, untested in longitudinal designs. This study tested, for the first time, whether self-conscious emotional reactivity (indexed as physiological blushing) contributes to the development of SAD symptoms over and above social behavioral inhibition (BI), which has been identified as the strongest predictor of SAD development in early childhood.

METHODS

One hundred fifteen children (45% boys) and their mothers and fathers participated at ages 2.5, 4.5, and 7.5 years. Social BI was observed at all time points in a stranger approach task, and physiological blushing (blood volume, blood pulse amplitude, and temperature increases) was measured during a public performance (singing) and watching back the performance at ages 4.5 and 7.5. Child early social anxiety was reported by both parents at 4.5 years, and SAD symptoms were diagnosed by clinicians and reported by both parents at 7.5 years.

RESULTS

Higher social BI at 2.5 and 4.5 years predicted greater social anxiety at 4.5 years, which, in turn, predicted SAD symptoms at 7.5 years. Blushing (temperature increase) at 4.5 years predicted SAD symptoms at 7.5 years over and above the influence of social BI and early social anxiety.

CONCLUSIONS

That blushing uniquely contributes to the development of SAD symptoms over and above social BI suggests two pathways to childhood SAD: one that entails early high social BI and an early onset of social anxiety symptoms, and the other that consists of heightened self-conscious emotional reactivity (i.e. blushing) in early childhood.