Shy Children Research Articles

The Effect of Physical Education with a Humanistic Approach on the Physical Activity Level and Physical Fitness in Shy Children

Background: Shy children often avoid interacting with their peers, which can restrict their participation in physical activities and impact their physical fitness. Therefore, it is essential to offer specific support and strategies to assist these children in increasing their involvement and enhancing their physical fitness. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate how physical education, utilizing a humanistic approach, impacts the physical fitness and daily physical activity behavior of shy children. Methods: In order to achieve this, a quasi-experimental field study was planned with pre- and post-tests including a control group. Participants were 9 to 10-year-old elementary school girls from Tehran, selected based on the Chick-Briggs Shyness Scale Physical fitness was measured using tests for cardiorespiratory endurance, agility, muscular endurance, muscular strength, and flexibility. The physical Activity Questionnaire for Children (PAQ-C) was utilized in assessing children's attitude towards physical activity. The experimental group (n = 15) received a physical education course with a humanistic approach using the teaching physical and social responsibility (TPSR) model, while the control group (n = 15) maintained their usual daily routines. Results: The experimental group showed significant improvements in physical activity levels, muscular endurance, and flexibility compared to the control group. A humanistic, game-based educational approach using the TPSR model can effectively improve certain components of physical fitness and promote a positive attitude towards physical activity in shy children. Conclusions: This approach can help teachers and coaches better understand and assist this group of children in overcoming the negative relationship between shyness, sports participation, and physical fitness.

Developmental Bibliotherapy with Extremely Shy Children

Extremely shy children may find themselves somehow isolated from society and feel alone. This may cause them to experience different problems at home, at school and in the community. If this situation continues in the following years, the difficulties they experience in life will increase and the probability of their emergence as mental problems such as childhood loneliness, social anxiety disorders, depression and anxiety disorders that negatively affect their quality of life will increase. Thus, it is important to intervene in childhood shyness, social isolation, loneliness, and behavioral inhibition in order to eliminate possible problems that may be experienced in childhood and at the same time to prevent the continuation of the situation in adolescence and adulthood. Developmental bibliotherapy can be used in the context of both prevention and early intervention studies for shyness in early childhood with extremely shy children. In this context, the aim of this study is to provide an in-depth perspective on the concepts of extreme shyness and bibliotherapy, and to present an example of a developmental bibliotherapy session that can be experienced with extremely shy children who are between five to eight years old in early childood period and a sample book list that can be used in the sessions.."

Temperamental Shyness, Peer Competence, and Loneliness in Middle Childhood: The Role of Positive Emotion.

Guided by the conceptual frameworks of social withdrawal (Rubin, K. H., & Chronis-Tuscano, A. (2021). Perspectives on social withdrawal in childhood: Past, present, and prospects. Child Development Perspectives, 15(3), 160-167.) and emotion socialization (Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., & Spinrad, T. L. (1998). Parental socialization of emotion. Psychological Inquiry, 9, 241-273.; Morris, (A) S., Criss, M. M., Silk, J. S., & Houltberg, (B) J. (2017). The impact of parenting on emotion regulation during childhood and adolescence. Child Development Perspectives, 11(4), 233-238.), the current study examined multifaceted relations among temperamental shyness, peer competence, and loneliness and focused on the role of socializing and expressing positive emotion in middle childhood. Participants included 1,364 families, among whom mothers reported children's temperament when children were 4.5 years old. Mothers and alternative caregivers (usually fathers) independently rated family expressiveness when children were 8-9 years old. Mothers rated their children's peer competence, and children's positive affect with peers were observed when children were ages 8-9 and 10-11. Children self-rated their loneliness levels at ages 10-11. A path model revealed a moderated mediation effect, such that family positive expressiveness moderated the sequential mediation pathway from child temperamental shyness through child peer competence at ages 8-9 and positive affect with peers at ages 10-11 to loneliness at ages 10-11. This sequential mediation was significant only under low but not high levels of family positive expressiveness. Findings support the importance of socializing positive emotion in the context of temperamental shyness and have implications for family-based intervention strategies aimed at children exhibiting high temperamental shyness.

Caregivers as experimenters: Reducing unfamiliarity helps shy children learn words.

Previous work has found that shy children show chance-level disambiguation and retention of novel word meanings in a typical lab-based word learning task. This effect could be explained in terms of shy children's aversion to unfamiliarity disrupting the requisite attentional processes, because the task is marked by a high degree of unfamiliarity. To test this argument, we examined whether increasing the familiarity of the task facilitates shy children's ability to form and retain word meanings. Two-year-old children (N=23) took part in a word learning task in which their caregiver acted as the experimenter. On referent selection trials, children were presented with sets of three objects, one novel and two familiar, and were asked for either a familiar object using its known label, or a novel object using a novel word. Children were then tested on their retention of the previously formed novel word-object mappings. In this context of increased familiarity, shyness was unrelated to performance on referent selection trials. However, shyness was positively related to children's retention of the word-object mappings, meaning that shyer children outperformed less-shy children on this measure of word learning. These findings show that context-based familiarity interacts with intrinsic individual differences to affect word learning performance.

A dyadic investigation of shy children's behavioral and affective responses to delivering a speech.

Shyness is typically associated with avoidant social behavior and restricted affect in new social situations. However, we know considerably less about how one child's shyness influences another child's behavior and affect in new social situations. Children's shyness was parent-reported when children were age 3 (N=105, 52 girls, Mage=3.50 years), and children were tested approximately 1 year later (Mage=4.76 years) in same-gender dyads where they were asked to give an impromptu speech about their most recent birthday in front of an experimenter and the other member of the dyad. We examined whether children's shyness and speech order influenced their own and their social partner's observed behavior and affect during the speech. Regardless of speech order, children's own shyness was positively associated with their own avoidant social behavior and gaze aversion. Regardless of shyness, children who gave their speech second averted their gaze more than children who gave their speech first. We also found that children who gave their speech second displayed less positive affect if their social partner who they watched give the speech first was shyer. We speculate that some 4-year-old children may be sensitive to the avoidant behaviors of their shy peers and, in turn, respond with less animation when it is their turn to participate in the same activity. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We examined whether preschool children's shyness and speech order influenced their own and their social partner's observed behavior and affect during a dyadic speech task Children's own shyness was positively associated with their own avoidant social behavior and gaze aversion Children who gave their speech second averted their gaze more than children who gave their speech first. Children who gave their speech second displayed less positive affect if their social partner who they watched give a speech first was shyer These findings suggest that preschool-aged children are sensitive to learning about their environment indirectly through social observation.

Shyness, Sport Engagement, and Internalizing Problems in Chinese Children: The Moderating Role of Class Sport Participation in a Multi-Level Model.

The relations between shyness and internalizing problems have been mainly explored at the individual level, with little known about its dynamics at the group level. This study aims to examine the mediating effect of individual-level sport engagement and the moderating effect of class-level sport participation in the relations between shyness and internalizing problems. The participants were 951 children attending primary and middle school from grade 3 to grade 7 (Mage = 11 years, 509 boys) in urban areas of China. Cross-sectional data were collected using self-report assessments. Multi-level analysis indicated that (1) shyness was positively associated with internalizing problems; (2) sport engagement partially mediated the relations between shyness and internalizing problems; and (3) class sport participation was a cross-level moderator in the mediating relations between shyness, sport engagement, and internalizing problems. Shy children in classes with a higher level of sport participation tend to have less sport engagement and more internalizing problems than those in classes with a lower level of sport participation. These findings illuminate implications from a multi-level perspective for shy children's adjustment in a Chinese context. The well-being of shy children could be improved by intervening in sport activity, addressing both individual engagement and group dynamics, such as class participation.

STRATEGI AFEKTIF DALAM MENGATASI PERMASALAHAN PEMALU PADA AUD: FAKTOR PENYEBAB, PENDEKATAN, DAN DAMPAK PSIKOSOSIAL

The problem of shyness in early childhood cannot be left alone because it will affect their personality. This research aims to find out about effective strategies for overcoming shyness problems, namely including the causal factors, approaches used in overcoming shyness problems, and the psychosocial impact on AUD. This research uses a qualitative case study type approach. Data collection techniques use interviews, observation and documentation. The main subject of the research was an 8-year-old child in Tanjung Selamat subdistrict, Bandar Lampung city. Data analysis using Miles and Huberman. The results of this research found that the factors that cause shyness problems in children consist of internal factors and external factors. The approach used is a psychological intervention which focuses on developing social skills and increasing self-confidence, such as parents taking their children out of the house to interact with neighbours, introducing children to children their age, role-playing, and encouraging children to play with friends outside the home. , and limit children's use of cell phones so that children do not enjoy being alone. The psychosocial impacts of shy children that researchers found included the impact on social interactions and lack of managing emotions.

Strategi Afektif Dalam Mengatasi Permasalahan Pemalu Pada AUD: Faktor Penyebab, Pendekatan, Dan Dampak Psikososial

The problem of shyness in early childhood cannot be left alone because it will affect their personality. The existence of this study aims to find out about what are the causal factors of shyness problems in children aged 8 years and how to deal with these shy problems. This study uses a qualitative approach to the type of case study. With the main subject of the research is an 8 year old child in the sub-district of Tanjung Senang, the city of Bandar Lampung. The results of this study found that the factors causing the problem of shyness in children consisted of internal factors and external factors. The ways that can be done to overcome the problem of shyness are by inviting their children out of the house to interact with neighbors, introducing children to children their age, encouraging children to play with friends outside the home, and limiting children from using cellphones so that children are not engrossed in themselves.

Exploring Norwegian teachers’ perceptions of shy students at recess and their strategic responses

ABSTRACT Recess (break times) during the school day offers children opportunities for peer interactions which enrich social development. For shy children, however, these periods can produce anxiety, leading to withdrawal and onlooker behaviour. The analysis reported here is from a national study of how Norwegian elementary school teachers support the engagement of shy children in school life. Nineteen teachers with recognised success with shy students were interviewed to elicit their interpretations of shy children’s behaviour and their strategies with them. Qualitative analyses found that these teachers recognised that recess was integral to creating inclusive schools, took the perspectives of shy children, and ascribed anxiety-related emotions to them. Teachers also mentioned that asking other children to include them in activities left shy children feeling pitied. However, giving designated roles to the child; allowing them to stay inside with friends to build real friendships; and starting playful activities with the child that attracted other children were all described as successful strategies.

Mental Health among Preschool Children Social Anxiety Disorder among Preschool Children in Baghdad / Iraq

Background: Social anxiety (SA) is an intense fear of performing in front of people or other social situations in which the child may feel embarrassed, humiliated or the focus of more attention than he or she wants(1). Children who suffer from social anxiety usually fear from looking foolish or stupid in front of other children or adults(2). Children with social anxiety (SA) avoid social situations or may enter these situations with extreme anxiety, nervousness and stress(3).Social anxiety (SA) is different from shyness. Shy children may be uneasy and quiet around others, but they do not necessarily avoid social or public situations (4). Also, after a short period, shy children usually feel more comfortable while social anxiety disrupts a child’s life by making it difficult to deal with school, social relationships and public situation (5). Few publishing on preschool SA in Iraq. This was the impetus to carry out this work.
 Objective: Enhancement the attendance care of mental health of preschool children.

Children’s shyness and early stages of emotional face processing

The ability to detect and recognize facial emotions emerges in childhood and is important for understanding social cues, but we know relatively little about how individual differences in temperament may influence early emotional face processing. We used a sample of 419 children (Mage = 10.57 years, SD = 1.75; 48% female; 77% White) to examine the relation between temperamental shyness and early stages of emotional face processing (assessed using the P100 and N170 event-related potentials) during different facial expressions (neutral, anger, fear, and happy). We found that higher temperamental shyness was related to greater P100 activation to faces expressing anger and fear relative to neutral faces. Further, lower temperamental shyness was related to greater N170 activation to faces expressing anger and fear relative to neutral faces. There were no relations between temperamental shyness and neural activation to happy faces relative to neutral faces for P100 or N170, suggesting specificity to faces signaling threat. We discuss findings in the context of understanding the early processing of facial emotional display of threat among shy children.

Shyness, social engagement, and conversational response times in children's dyadic interactions with an unfamiliar peer

AbstractTo be a desirable social partner and develop healthy relationships with peers, a child must be able to engage with peers across a variety of contexts. Understanding the factors supporting high levels of social engagement with peers is thereby essential, requiring the development of nuanced and ecologically valid indices of social engagement. Building on recent adult work, the current study explores conversational response time as a novel index of children's social engagement with peers in a dyadic context. This study further explores relationship between conversational response time and children's shyness. Fifty‐six 9‐ to 11‐year‐old children interacted with an unfamiliar peer in an unstructured setting and completed a self‐report measure of shyness. Children's behaviour was coded for their conversational RTs and overall social engagement. Faster conversational RTs were significantly related to children's own social engagement and marginally related to their partners' engagement. Moreover, higher shyness in children's partners predicted faster conversational RTs in children themselves. New directions for using conversational RT as an index of children's social engagement and implications for accounts children's social development are discussed.

Bermain Sebagai Media Untuk Mengubah Sikap Pemalu pada Anak Prasekolah

Shyness in children affects the child's ability to adapt in social environment and cannot maximize his abilities at school, so it is necessary to provide psychological intervention with playing as a media. This is because playing is the biggest activity in a child's world, and one of the way for children talk or express their feelings to others. The games that will be giver are active play such as constructive games, role plays, sports games and group play. The aim of this research is to determine the success of the intervention provided. The research method used is a qualitative case study with 1 respondent. Before the intervention process, researchers collected data through interviews, observations and psychological tests from respondents. Based on the data, the results of this research show that respondents have not actualized their abilities optimally and tend to close themselves off and withdraw from the environment. The results of the intervention show that individuals are more confident, have better interactions, a desire to play with friends, have better social skills, have the courage to express their feelings, and are more active in school activities. Thus it is concluded that playing can be a medium for providing intervention in overcoming children's shyness.

Diagnosing shyness in children and adolescents: a comparative analysis of different methods

The aim of the article is to discuss the tools used for diagnosing shyness in children and adolescents. Increasingly, scholars emphasize the multidimensionality of the concept of shyness, as shy children and teenagers exhibit various specific characteristics. It is important to note that the same level of shyness in different children does not necessarily result in the same behaviour. Additionally, among the methods used for diagnosing shyness in children and adolescents, significant differences in approach can be observed, with some methods capturing certain aspects of shyness more than others. Moreover, the diversity of methods used in the diagnosis of shyness in children and adolescents also depends on their age, with some methods intended for infants and toddlers, others for preschool or school-aged children, and others for adolescents. The most commonly used diagnostic methods include self-report questionnaires or assessment questionnaires. Other methods used in the diagnosis of shyness include observation, behavioural experiments, and sociometry. While the article focuses mainly on tools used in Poland, it provides essential information about the limitations and advantages of individual methods. It is important to note that there is no single method that can fully capture the phenomenon of shyness. Therefore, combining several methods seems like a reasonable approach. The information presented in this article highlights various ways of using diagnostic tools for shyness in children and adolescents. This information should help specialists make informed decisions when selecting appropriate diagnostic methods. Additionally, the article can serve as an inspiration for further research on the diagnosis of shyness.

Shy, happy, calm, and controlled: Temperament correlates of socioemotional adjustment in toddlerhood.

Understanding heterogeneity in shy or inhibited children's risk for poor socioemotional adjustment can inform intervention targets. The present study considered temperament traits associated with approach and regulation that may alter trajectories away from internalizing behaviors and poor socioemotional competence among shy toddlers. Fifty-five 22-24-month-old children (22 boys) preselected for parent-reported shyness were observed during laboratory tasks designed to measure shyness, activity level, positive affect, and inhibitory control between January 2016 and January 2018. Basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was obtained for a subset of the sample from recordings of cardiac activity as toddlers watched a neutral video. Hierarchical regression analyses predicted internalizing and competence from activity level, positive affect, inhibitory control, and basal RSA, alone and in interaction with shyness, while controlling for child gender. Activity level was positively associated with internalizing behaviors, and inhibitory control and positive affect were negatively associated with internalizing behaviors. Importantly, shyness was associated with more internalizing behaviors among children low in inhibitory control or high in basal RSA, but not among children high in inhibitory control or low in basal RSA. Relations between temperament traits and socioemotional adjustment were specific to internalizing behaviors and did not generalize to competence. The present findings suggest that in toddlerhood positive affect and inhibitory control may serve as protective factors for shy children, lessening risk for internalizing problems, whereas high activity or greater basal RSA may forecast risk. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Early-Life Temperamental Differences as Longitudinal Predictors of Unintentional Injuries.

Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of hospitalization and death among children. Compared to environmental factors, less attention in injury preventive efforts has been paid to how individual characteristics relate to the risk of injury. Using a large prospective cohort, the current study assessed the longitudinal impact of early-life temperament on the cumulative number of injuries until mid-adolescence. The data came from the European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood (ELSPAC-CZ). Temperament was evaluated by mothers when children were 3 years old (N = 3,545). The main outcome was the pediatrician-reported sum of child's injuries from age 3 to 15 (seven timepoints). Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to determine classes based on temperamental dimensions and then extended to a mixture model with a distal count outcome. The covariates included maternal conflict and attachment, sex, family structure, and maternal education. The LPA determined the existence of three classes: shy children (8.1% of the sample; lowest activity/highest shyness), outgoing children (50.8%; highest activity/lowest shyness), and average: children (41.1%; middle values). Results from a mixture model showed that the outgoing temperament was associated with the highest longitudinal risk for injuries, as both average children (IRR = 0.89 [0.80, 0.99]), and the shy children (IRR = 0.80 [0.68, 0.95]) had lower risk. Early childhood temperamental differences can have long-term effects on injury risk. Highly active children showed the highest risk for future injuries, suggesting that these characteristics make them more likely to be involved in novel and potentially dangerous situations.

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

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.

Children's Shyness, Frontal Brain Activity, and Anxiety in the Perioperative Context.

Although preoperative anxiety affects up to 75% of children undergoing surgery each year and is associated with many adverse outcomes, we know relatively little about individual differences in how children respond to impending surgery. We examined whether patterns of anterior brain electrical activity (i.e., a neural correlate of anxious arousal) moderated the relation between children's shyness and preoperative anxiety on the day of surgery in 70 children (36 girls, Mage = 10.4 years, SDage = 1.7, years, range 8 to 13 years) undergoing elective surgery. Shyness was assessed using self-report approximately 1 week prior to surgery during a preoperative visit (Time 1), preoperative anxiety was assessed using self-report, and regional EEG (left and right frontal and temporal sites) was assessed using a dry sensory EEG headband on the day of surgery (Time 2). We found that overall frontal EEG alpha power moderated the relation between shyness and self-reported preoperative anxiety. Shyness was related to higher levels of self-reported anxiety on the day of surgery for children with lower average overall frontal alpha EEG power (i.e., higher cortical activity) but not for children with higher average overall frontal alpha EEG power (i.e., lower cortical activity). These results suggest that the pattern of frontal brain activity might amplify some shy children's affective responses to impending surgery. Findings also extend prior results linking children's shyness, frontal brain activity, and anxiety observed in the laboratory to a real-world, ecologically salient environment.

Shyness and Socio-Emotional Adjustment among Young Chinese Children: The Moderating Role of Screen Time.

The primary aim of the present study was to examine the potential moderating role of screen time in the links between shyness and indices of socio-emotional adjustment in young Chinese children. Participants were N = 211 children (112 boys, 99 girls) ages 43-66 months (M = 58.84 months, SD = 5.32) recruited from two public kindergartens in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. Mothers completed assessments of children's shyness and screen time, and both mothers and teachers completed measures of indices of children's socio-emotional functioning (prosocial, internalizing problems, learning problems). Among the results, shyness was positively associated with internalizing problems and negatively associated with prosocial behavior, whereas screen time was positively associated with internalizing problems. However, several significant shyness × screen time interaction effects were observed. The pattern of these results consistently revealed that at higher levels of screen time, links between shyness and indices of socio-emotional difficulties were exacerbated. Results are discussed in terms of the implications of shyness and screen time in early childhood.

Measuring Shyness in Children Online

During the pandemic, developmental psychology research labs had to adapt to virtual testing methods. Many labs continue to conduct online studies even as restrictions have been lifted, as these methods extend the geographical range of participating families. However, online testing methods cannot always match in-person procedures. For example, psychologists often measure behaviours that indicate shyness in children during in-person laboratory visits that include contexts such as giving a public speech or interacting with confederates. To adapt this method to a virtual environment, Dr. MacGowan has recently innovated a new procedure for studying shyness within an online, synchronous testing session.
 Dr. MacGowan's ongoing eProsocial study evaluates children’s behavioral shyness during synchronous sessions on Zoom. This is accomplished by having an experimenter posed as a child confederate named “Sam” log on with a gender-matched profile picture of a child; participants are told that Sam is the next child scheduled for a testing session. The lead experimenter leaves the participant to “chat” with Sam and the disguised researcher uses 7 pre-recorded audio clips of a real child’s voice to facilitate conversations with the participant (e.g., “What grade are you in?”). When the lead experimenter returns, they perform a manipulation check to gauge if the child is suspicious of Sam’s existence by asking “What did you think of Sam?”.
 A total of 194 sessions have been conducted to date, and only one participant has indicated doubt in the existence of Sam during manipulation checks. These results exhibit initial construct validity. To further examine validity, research assistants will code shyness behaviours, such as latency to respond, and compare this data to caregiver shyness reports. Dr MacGowan’s approach to measuring shyness in an online setting is promising, and other developmental researchers should consider replicating this paradigm in future studies.