What is Shyness? A New Study Offers Insight into the Multiple Components of Shyness in Children

Are all shy children alike? Shyness in children is a complex emotion that manifests on different levels. A McMaster University study analyzes the complexity of shyness by examining behavioral, affective, and physiological responses to social stressors in children.

A recent study has delved into the definition and nature of shyness in children. Shyness is typically characterized by fear and nervousness when facing social novelty or evaluation, and it can manifest on behavioral, affective, and physiological levels.

However, the clustering of these components is not well understood. The study explores longstanding theories that suggest shyness can be considered a relatively stable trait across development, known as temperamental shyness, or as an emotion experienced in certain social situations, referred to as state shyness.

The results provide insights into the complexity of shyness and how it may present differently in individual children.

Shyness in children

In order to deepen our understanding of shyness in children, the current study published in Child Development by researchers at McMaster University in Canada examined how children respond behaviorally, affectively, and physiologically to a speech task.

The study found that a subset of children may exhibit temperamental shyness, which is relatively stable across development, while a larger group of children may experience shyness as a temporary emotional state in certain situations.

“Our findings provide empirical support for the long-theorized idea that there may be a subset of temperamentally shy children who manifest heightened behavioral, affective, and physiological reactivity in response to a social stressor, as well as a subset of children who may experience only the affective component which may reflect state shyness,” as explained by Kristie Poole who conducted the study at McMaster University and is now a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at Brock University. “This highlights the multiple components and developmental course of temperamental shyness and the features that distinguish temperamental and state shyness in middle to late childhood.”

Kristie Poole, who conducted the study at McMaster University and is now a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at Brock University, explains that their findings provide “empirical support for the long-theorized idea that there may be a subset of temperamentally shy children who manifest heightened behavioral, affective, and physiological reactivity in response to a social stressor, as well as a subset of children who may experience only the affective component which may reflect state shyness.”

This emphasizes “the multiple components and developmental course of temperamental shyness and the features that distinguish temperamental and state shyness in middle to late childhood.”

In this study, 152 Canadian children (73 girls) aged 7-8 years and their primary caregivers were recruited from a child database at McMaster University, which contained birth records of infants whose parents had given consent for inclusion. The participating children were primarily White (81.6%), followed by mixed race (9.9%), Asian (3.9%), Black (2.6%), and Latin American (2%), and were from middle to upper socioeconomic class families.

As part of the study, the children were fitted with an ambulatory electrocardiogram and engaged in activities with an experimenter in a room adjacent to their parent. During this time, the parents completed online questionnaires related to their child’s temperament while monitoring their child on a muted closed-circuit monitor. The children were then asked to prepare and recite a two-minute speech about their last birthday in front of a video camera and mirror.

During the study, the children were informed that their speech would be videotaped and shown to other children, in order to create a stressful situation. The study team assessed the children’s avoidance/inhibition behavior, their self-reported nervousness, and their respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a measure of their physiology.

As compensation for their participation, families were provided with $20 gift cards and children received Junior Scientist Certificates. One- and two-years post-evaluation, parents were asked to complete an online follow-up survey regarding their child’s temperament. The survey included questions such as “child act shy around new people” in order to examine how the children’s responses to the speech task were related to their temperament over time. Parents received $10 gift cards for each follow-up survey completed.

The study revealed that around 10% of children in the research demonstrated higher, stable levels of parent-reported temperamental shyness and showed social stress reactivity on behavioral, affective, and physiological levels. These findings suggest that this group may be characterized as temperamentally shy. On the other hand, about 25% of children showed social stress reactivity only on an affective level, with lower levels of parent-reported temperamental shyness, indicating they may be characterized by state shyness. The implications of these findings suggest that shyness may have different forms that vary in kind, rather than degree, highlighting the complexity of this emotion in children.

The recent findings provide empirical support for longstanding theories first proposed by the late Jerome Kagan several decades ago. Kagan suggested that temperamental shyness may exist as a distinct category for some children, with features that are stable across time and contexts. In addition to this subset of children, the study also found that a larger group of children may experience shyness as an emotional state in some situations.

The study highlights that experiencing state shyness in response to a speech task is a relatively common and normative experience for children at this age. However, for a smaller group of temperamentally shy children, being the center of attention may be stressful across various contexts and over time.

The discovery of two distinct types of shyness in children and the implications of early temperamental shyness as a risk factor for internalizing-related problems warrant further investigation into the long-term social, psychological, and academic adjustment of children. However, the current study has some limitations, as it only measured behavioral, affective, and physiological components at one point in time, without the means to assess their stability across development. To improve the generalizability of the findings, future research should include more diverse samples of children from various socioeconomic backgrounds, as the current study was primarily conducted on White children from middle to upper-class families. The authors recognize these limitations and recommend that future studies address these issues to deepen our understanding of shyness in children.

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