Shyness and Sociability Beyond Emerging Adulthood: Implications for Understanding the Developmental Sequelae of Shyness Subtypes

Abstract

Emerging evidence suggests that conflicted shyness (combination of shyness and sociability) places individuals at risk for maladjustment in childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood. However, it is not known (1) if this risk for maladjustment persists into adulthood, (2) the extent to which it is generalizable to a broad range of adaptive domains, and (3) if there are mechanisms that might underlie the link between the conflicted shyness phenotype and domains of functioning. Here, we find that the combination of shyness and sociability (i.e., conflicted shyness) places individuals in their thirties at the greatest risk for poor functioning across demographic, health, interpersonal, and psychological domains above and beyond shyness alone. We also report that attention and loneliness may be factors that underlie the risk for poor mental health in individuals characterized by conflicted shyness. Our findings extend work on conflicted shyness by considering several domains of functioning beyond emerging adulthood and suggest possible mechanisms linking this phenotype with symptoms of psychopathology. Findings suggest that the conflicted shyness subtype may be associated with negative consequences across various domains of functioning and across developmental periods at least until the fourth decade of life.