The moderating effect of classroom status hierarchy on the associations between shyness and peer relationship difficulties in Chinese children

Abstract

The goal of the present study was to examine the moderating effect of classroom status hierarchy on the relations between shyness and peer relationship difficulties in Chinese children. Participants were N = 1,275 children in Grade 3–7 (Mage = 10.78 years, SD = 1.55 years) from Shanghai, People’s Republic of China. Participants completed a self-reported measure of shyness, while peer nominations were used to assess peer victimization and social preference. We analyzed data by method of multilevel regression. Regarding main effects, shyness was positively associated with peer victimization and negatively associated with social preference. Regarding moderating effects, the relations between shyness and peer victimization as well as shyness and social preference were both moderated by classroom status hierarchy, in that, shyness was only positively associated with peer victimization and negatively associated with social preference in high hierarchy classrooms. The findings suggest that classroom status hierarchy plays an important role in shy children’s social adjustment.