Influence of Behavioural Problems on Shyness in Late Childhood

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to study the extent of influence of behavioural problems on shyness among children in late childhood. A total of 480 children belonging to late childhood were selected for the study using stratified sampling method. The sample consisted of equal number of (240 each) boys and girls aged between 6 to 10 years and was chosen from seven different schools from Mysore, both from urban and rural areas. The data collected by using PBCL (Veeraraghavan & Dogra, 2000) which pertain to assess the level of children emotional and behavioural problems and Shyness Assessment Test (D'souza, 2006) pertain to assess three domains of shyness - Cognitive/Affective, Physiological, and Action oriented. Two-way ANOVA was employed to find out the difference in 2 behavioural problem groups-low, and medium and influence of gender and area on shyness scores, Results indicated that those with a low level of behavioural problems possessed low shyness and with moderate levels of behavioural problems higher shyness scores. Gender did not have significant influence over shyness. Rural children were shyer than urban children in physiological and action oriented domains of shyness. Strategies for decreasing the behaviour problems and shyness have been delineated.