Personality Psychology: The Personality Trait of Shyness

Shyness is a common description for discomfort and inhibition in the presence of others, often with negative connotation. Apparently it derives directly from the interpersonal nature of the situation rather than from other sources of threat and discomfort. Even though they may occur in the presence of others, this trait is not essentially interpersonal. Hence dispositional-situational is again in play.

Darwin (1872) wrote: "this odd state of mind, often called shamefacedness, or false shame, he concluded that because a shy individual has a low degree of self-confidence and a high degree of self-consciousness, he or she would naturally fear the presence of strangers.". Therefore, some researcher proposed shyness as a state experience (warren, Thomas 629). Neurological perspective had recently gained focus, such that some people are born with the trait just as the psychopathic do. The common behavior such as certain social withdrawing behavior is often highly correlated with other psychological disorder symptoms, such as social anxiety, social phobia and inhibition. Therefore, taking gene-environment interaction into account, socialization and conditioning would be the factors that develop the shyness trait.

The self theory has found that internal attribution and self attention cognitive style are highly correlated with shyness trait.

Withdrawing behavior of shyness may function as a buffer to avoid self esteem being threatened. They may be socially introverted, less risk taking and which so forth lessen the chance of meeting failures. On the other hand, the same behavior may lead to disclosure and lower social interaction, causing isolation from the group and hence deteriorate self esteem contradicting to the positive functions it serves. Shyness also serves an ambivalent role as shy people try not to get attention from the others, yet their contrast to the group would get themselves more social focus.

Withdrawing and being passive may make shy people more dependent and protected, they may get more social support and assistance in their daily tasks, this rewarding outcome may further reinforce the behavior. Shyness can become an excuse or self- handicap to preserve some degree of positive self-image. Being labeled as shy is less averse than being seen as unattractive or incompetent. It is clear that life-course continuities and consequences of shyness are mediated by several processes.

It is found that childhood shyness did not produce extreme pathological outcomes, but it did have significant consequences or later adult development. People with shyness problem during childhood meet difficulty in the transition points during which young adults are called on to make critical choices about world and family. For men, such behavior may prove somewhat problematic in their efforts to negotiate traditional masculine roles involving mate selection and vocational decision making. These children consistently underestimate their performance and exaggerate their poor achievement. Withdrawn children may inhibit them from pursuing opportunities in the labor market and create difficulties for them in their efforts to establish opposite-sex relationships.

Research on young adults suggests that, although shy people are likely to make more self-defeating attributions in response to situations that involve initiating new relationships in a group, they do not do so in task-oriented groups (Hoffman & Teglasi). Most significant one will be interpersonal relationship. In workplace, they may be perceived as lazy, layback or disclose, hard to mix into group, become outcast, in layman term, the 'antisocial'. Having small social circle and, less chance of emotional disclosure, will relate to less social support. Although they are suspected to be more emotionally sensitive, more vulnerable to set backs. Shyness, instead of serving its function to protect self esteem, it will turn the other way round.

In Asian culture, shyness may have same connotation as 'cute' or 'gentle', in the modern term, whereas 'demure' and 'graceful' are related in the old days, especially for teenagers and females. Shyness can be seductive to some opposite sex counterpart, when a girl drop her head down, and look up with shy expression, it can be interpreted with some implicit meaning. It is normal for strangers to be shy and hold back for the first encounter, it becomes a virtue. Despite the fact that they attempt to hide back, they are normally the odd in a group (e.g. in class), so ironically they tend to have more attention from the others, and may even be popular as they are odd. In a positive way, it helps to build up their confidence again. Recent phenomena in Japan that androgynous is adorable and trendy, it has a population of male teen appealing feminine. Another group is what we call Otaku, who sticks to home online and do miniature collection, indulge in own world and behave shy. New age people adore shy people and think that they are attractive and shy population even become a special norm with special connotation.

In short, contradictory, but it depends on stage of life and which context and function in which the context serves. Clearly sex differences in the continuity and consequences of early personality are moderated by cultural and historical prescriptions of gender-appropriate behavior.

Reference: Zimbardo, P. G. (1977; Reprinted, 1996). Shyness: what it is, what to do about it. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishers