Social Withdrawal

Abstract

Social withdrawal is defined as the process of removing oneself from opportunities for social interactions (Coplan and Rubin, 2010). Historically, social withdrawal has been conceptualized as a broad risk factor for negative peer experiences (e.g., exclusion, victimization) and internalizing problems (e.g., anxiety, depression) (Rubin et al., 2009). Contemporary researchers now espouse more complex conceptual models to describe social withdrawal, shifting from a unidimensional to a multidimensional approach (Asendorpf, 1990; Coplan et al., 2015a). As a result, contemporary researchers now conceptualize three subtypes of social withdrawal (shyness, unsociability, and social avoidance) that have different underlying emotional, motivational, and psychological substrates, and are uniquely related to indices of socio-emotional functioning (e.g., Coplan et al., 2018a). The aim of this article is to describe the different subtypes of social withdrawal and their socio-emotional characteristics in childhood and adolescence.