Linking Temperamental Shyness and Social Anxiety in Childhood and Adolescence: Moderating Influences of Sex and Age

Age-related differences in behavioral problems between shy adults and shy children

Although both concurrent and longitudinal relations between shyness and behavioral problems are well-established in childhood, there is relatively less work exploring these associations in emerging adulthood. In addition, age-related differences in the strength of these relations in child and adult samples have not been fully explored within the same study. We collected measures of shyness, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and social problems in a sample of 94 typically developing 6-year-old children (50 female; Mage = 78.3 months, SD = 3.1 months) and 775 undergraduate students (633 female, Mage = 18.2 years, SD = 0.9 years) from parent-reported and self-reported questionnaires, respectively. Shyness interacted with age in predicting internalizing behaviors and social problems, but not externalizing behaviors. Specifically, shyness was concurrently and positively related to internalizing and social problems in young adulthood, but this relation was not found in childhood. Findings are discussed in terms of developmental consequences of shyness across the lifespan and limitations of relying on ratings from different informants when examining age-related differences.

The Development of Shyness from Late Childhood to Adolescence: A Longitudinal Study of Mexican-origin Youth

Shyness, the tendency to be inhibited and uncomfortable in novel social situations, is a consequential personality trait, especially during adolescence. The present study examined the development of shyness from late childhood (age 10) through adolescence (age 16) using data from a large, longitudinal study of Mexican-origin youth (N = 674). Using both self- and mother-reports of shyness assessed via the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire-Revised, we found moderate to high rank-order stabilities across two-year intervals and a mean-level decrease in shyness from age 10 to 16. Anxiety and depression were associated with higher initial levels of shyness, and anxiety was associated with greater decreases in shyness from age 10 to 16. Contrary to predictions, neither nativity (country of birth) nor language proficiency (English, Spanish) was associated with the development of shyness across adolescence. Thus, youth generally decline in shyness during adolescence, although there is substantial individual variability in shyness trajectories.

Childhood inhibition predicts adolescent social anxiety: Findings from a longitudinal twin study

An enduring issue in the study of mental health is identifying developmental processes that explain how childhood characteristics progress to maladaptive forms. We examine the role that behavioral inhibition (BI) has on social anxiety (SA) during adolescence in 868 families of twins assessed at ages 8, 13, and 15 years. Multimodal assessments of BI and SA were completed at each phase, with additional measures (e.g., parenting stress) for parents and twins. Analyses were conducted in several steps: first, we used a cross-lagged panel model to demonstrate bidirectional paths between BI and SA; second a biometric Cholesky decomposition showed that both genetic and environmental influences on childhood BI also affect adolescent SA; next, multilevel phenotypic models tested moderation effects between BI and SA. We tested seven potential moderators of the BI to SA prediction in individual models and included only those that emerged as significant in a final conditional model examining predictors of SA. Though several main effects emerged as significant, only parenting stress had a significant interaction with BI to predict SA, highlighting the importance of environmental moderators in models examining temperamental effects on later psychological symptoms. This comprehensive assessment continues to build the prototype for such developmental psychopathology models.

Adolescents' Empowerment for Mental Health Literacy in School: A Pilot Study on ProLiSMental Psychoeducational Intervention

Adolescence is a critical life phase for mental health and anxiety an emerging challenge for adolescents. Psychoeducational interventions to promote mental health literacy (MHL) on anxiety in adolescents are needed. This study aimed to test the primary outcome of a future full-scale trial: improvement of adolescents' anxiety MHL components on recognition, prevention strategies, and self-help strategies. A sample of 38 adolescents, 24 (63.2%) females and 14 (36.8%) males, with an average age of 14.50 years (SD = 0.89) participated in this study. Each class was allocated to the intervention group (IG, n = 21) or the waiting list control group (WLCG, n = 17) with single-blinded randomization. MHL was assessed using the QuALiSMental. The ProLiSMental psychoeducational intervention consists of four or eight weekly sessions of 90 or 45 min for adolescents, using different active pedagogical methods and techniques. There also are initial and final sessions with adolescents, legal guardians, and teachers. There was a significant improvement with a small to relatively strong effect size in many dimensions of anxiety MHL components. This study suggests the progression to the full-scale trial and values the important role of mental health and psychiatric nurses in the adolescents' empowerment for MHL in schools.

Fearful Temperament and the Risk for Child and Adolescent Anxiety: The Role of Attention Biases and Effortful Control

Fearful temperament represents one of the most robust predictors of child and adolescent anxiety; however, not all children with fearful temperament unvaryingly develop anxiety. Diverse processes resulting from the interplay between automatic processing (i.e., attention bias) and controlled processing (i.e., effortful control) drive the trajectories toward more adaptive or maladaptive directions. In this review, we examine the associations between fearful temperament, attention bias, and anxiety, as well as the moderating effect of effortful control. Based on the reviewed literature, we propose a two-mechanism developmental model of attention bias that underlies the association between fearful temperament and anxiety. We propose that the sub-components of effortful control (i.e., attentional control and inhibitory control) play different roles depending on individuals' temperaments, initial automatic biases, and goal priorities. Our model may help resolve some of the mixed findings and conflicts in the current literature. It may also advance our knowledge regarding the cognitive mechanisms linking fearful temperament and anxiety, as well as facilitate the continuing efforts in identifying and intervening with children who are at risk. Finally, we conclude the review with a discussion on the existing limitations and then propose questions for future research.

Temperamental Shyness, Frontal EEG Theta/Beta Ratio, and Social Anxiety in Children

The authors examined how children's frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) theta/beta ratio-an index of neurocognitive control-changed from baseline to a social stressor, and whether these EEG changes moderated the relation between temperament and anxiety. Children (N = 152; M_age  = 7.82 years, 52% male, 81% White) had their EEG recorded during a baseline and speech anticipation condition. Children's frontal theta/beta ratio decreased from baseline to speech anticipation, and this baseline-to-task change moderated the relation between temperamental shyness and social anxiety. Temperamental shyness was related to higher state and trait social anxiety only among children with large baseline-to-task decreases in theta/beta ratio. Findings are consistent with theoretical models hypothesizing that temperamentally shy children with heightened neurocognitive control may be at greater risk for anxiety.

Shyness and Psychological Maladjustment in Chinese Adolescents: Selection and Influence Processes in Friendship Networks

Few studies have been conducted to examine the role shyness plays in friendship selection and influences processes, particularly how befriending shy peers affects individual's psychological adjustment. To address these gaps, this study investigated the selection, de-selection, same behavior influence effects of shyness in the friendship network in Chinese adolescents using the longitudinal social network analysis. It also explored the possible pathways that transmit indirect influences of friends' shyness to individual's psychological maladjustments (i.e., loneliness and depressive symptoms). A sample of adolescents (N = 1254, 48.4% girls, M_age = 13.20 years at Time 1) were followed for three years in middle schools. The results showed that adolescents tended to befriend those who had similar shyness level during T1-T2 interval, but the friendships between shy friends were more likely to terminate during T2-T3 interval. Moreover, adolescents were found to become more similar with their friends in shyness over time. The study also found that friends' shyness at T1 would influence individual's loneliness at T3 via 1) increasing friends' loneliness at T2 or 2) increasing individual's shyness level at T2. Those two pathways, however, were not found for depressive symptoms. These findings indicate that shyness plays an important role in the friendship formation and dissolution and befriending shy peers may have implications for adolescents' development of shyness and loneliness.

Getting to the heart of childhood empathy: Relations with shyness and respiratory sinus arrhythmia

Although prior studies have found that shyness and empathy are inversely related and that well-regulated children tend to express empathic behaviors more often, little work has assessed combinations of these factors in predicting affective and cognitive empathy in early childhood. The authors examined relations among shyness, resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and observed affective and cognitive empathy in a sample of 130 typically developing children (M_age  = 63.5 months, SD = 12.2; 62 males). Shyness was assessed by observing children's behaviors during a self-presentation task, and this observed measure was then combined with a maternal report of children's temperamental shyness. Children's shyness predicted lower levels of both affective and cognitive responses to an experimenter feigning an injury. Resting RSA moderated the relation between children's shyness and observed empathy such that relatively higher shyness combined with lower RSA levels conferred the lowest levels of cognitive empathy. Children who were relatively low in shyness exhibited similar levels of cognitive empathy across different levels of RSA. However, this moderation was not found when predicting children's affective empathy. Our results suggest that not all shy children are alike in terms of their empathic behaviors: shy children who are physiologically dysregulated appear to have difficulties exploring and/or processing others' pain.

Autopercepção de timidez e sua relação com aspectos da fala em público

RESUMO Objetivo: Determinar a prevalência da timidez em estudantes universitários e analisar dentre os fatores sociodemográficos e da comunicação em público, aqueles que mais se relacionam com sua presença. Método: estudo transversal analítico realizado com 1124 universitários com idade entre 17 e 63 anos. Utilizou-se um questionário com perguntas referentes às características sociodemográficas; frequência de participação em atividades de fala em público, autorrelato do medo de falar, autopercepção dos aspectos não verbais da comunicação oral: tom de voz, velocidade de fala, intensidade de voz, projeção vocal, contato visual com a plateia durante o discurso, uso das mãos nas apresentações em público; autoavaliação da fala em público (Escala para Auto Avaliação ao Falar em Público) e autopercepção da timidez (Escala Revisada de Timidez). A análise dos fatores associados à timidez com as demais variáveis foi realizada por meio do teste Qui-quadrado de Pearson e regressão logística uni e multivariada. O nível de significância adotado foi de 5%. Resultados: a maioria da população universitária autorreferiu traços de timidez e medo de falar em público. Houve associação da timidez com a idade de 17 a 30 anos, medo de falar em público, pouca participação em atividades de fala em público, autopercepção negativa da fala e com aspectos não verbais da comunicação. Conclusão: A timidez é prevalente em estudantes universitários jovens, que participam de poucas atividades de fala em público, que apresentam medo de falar em público, autorrelatam falar em intensidade baixa e apresentam inabilidade de usar as mãos com naturalidade durante apresentações em público.

Perspectives on two temperamental biases

This paper describes the contribution of two infant temperamental biases to variation in behaviour and biology over the first 18 years in a sample of middle-class Caucasian children. One bias, called high reactive, is defined by frequent display of limb activity and crying in four-month-old infants to unexpected or unfamiliar events. The other, called low reactive, is defined by the opposite pair of behaviours to the same incentives. High reactive infants are likely to display cautious, avoidant responses and signs of an excitable amygdala to unexpected experiences. Low reactives are characterized by a sociable, emotionally spontaneous profile to the same experiences and a minimally excitable amygdala. However, each bias is a better predictor of the future traits that are unlikely to develop than the ones that do. The final pattern of traits is a function of the person's temperaments, life history, and current circumstances.This article is part of the theme issue 'Diverse perspectives on diversity: multi-disciplinary approaches to taxonomies of individual differences'.

Social Withdrawal and Social Surrogacy in Emerging Adulthood

Shyness has been well established as a hindrance to social adjustment and may be problematic for emerging adults attending university, given the high social expectations placed upon students. Previous studies suggest emerging adults high in shyness recruit their friends to act as social surrogates in order to help reduce the stress of entering social interactions; yet, whether other less studied forms of social withdrawal (i.e., avoidance, unsociability) are associated with social surrogacy remains uninvestigated. The goal of the present study was to examine differences between subtypes of withdrawal as related to social surrogacy, while considering the roles of social anxiety and social self-efficacy. Participants were 961 emerging adults (76% female; 67% Caucasian) between the ages of 18 and 25 (M = 20.15, SD = 1.71). The results indicated that patterns of social surrogacy varied between withdrawal subtypes, such that social surrogacy was positively related to shyness, and negatively related to unsociability, whereas avoidance yielded mixed results. The findings highlight the importance of considering withdrawal motivations in understanding social surrogacy.