Shyness Scores Research Articles

Dancing program and young children’s social development

The purpose of the study was to investigate impact of dancing program on early childhood children’s pro-social skills, aggression and shyness. Treatment group applied eight weeks long dancing program which contained two dance activities for each week. Control group had not applied the dance program. Forty-five children from treatment and 62 children from control group participated the study. Teachers rated their children’s social skills before and after the dancing program. Findings showed that treatment children’s pro-social skills significantly increased from pretest to posttest and aggression and shyness scores significantly decreased from pretest to posttest. Similar findings were not detected for control group. Two groups’ posttest minus pretest differences for three sub dimension compared and comparison revealed significant difference in favor of treatment group. These findings pointed the dancing program which was developed by investigators as a practical intervention tool to promote young children’s social skills.

The Covid-19 pandemic had polarizing effects on trait scores depending on a person's resilience and predispositions: A longitudinal prospective study

While Covid-19 is, first and foremost, a pernicious physical illness, its highly contagious nature has led to significant disruption in social life and psychological stress, occasionally resulting in dire mental health consequences that are still not fully understood. To address this issue, a prospective longitudinal design study was conducted by administering standard self-reporting questionnaires covering the NEO-five factor inventory (NEO-FFI), shyness, alexithymia, autism quotient, anxiety, depression, and sensory processing sensitivity (SPS). A total of 114 participants (of which 71.93% were females) with an average age of 30.29 (standard deviation = 11.04) completed the survey before and a few months after the pandemic. Results revealed the distribution of population scores to become more extreme in either positive or negative trait directions despite the stability of average trait scores across the population. Higher resilience was found to be positively correlated with improved trait scores post-pandemic but corona anxiety score was not correlated with trait score changes. In addition, in the subjects with moderate negative trait scores, agreeableness and autism scores and in subjects with high negative trait scores, openness, SPS and shyness scores were significantly correlated with trait scores changes post-pandemic. These results reveal the nuanced effects of the pandemic on the people's psychological well-being and highlight vulnerabilities for certain groups despite the overall stability of population that needs to be taken into account for mental health policies going forward.

Does Shyness Influence the Self-Perception of Vocal Symptoms, Public Speaking, and Daily Communication?

The present study aimed to characterize and to verify the relationship between shyness and self-assessment of vocal symptoms, public speaking, and aspects of daily communication. This is an observational, analytical, and cross-sectional study. Two hundred and sixty-four male and female participants, with a mean age of 21 years and without any vocal disorder. To measure the outcomes, the participants' scores were measured using the following self-assessment instruments: Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale, Voice Symptom Scale, Self-Statements during Public Speaking Scale, and the Daily Communication Self-evaluation Questionnaire. A descriptive and inferential analysis of the data was performed. Shy persons had higher vocal symptomatology scores in the limitation, emotional, and total domain. Furthermore, they scored higher on the negative aspects of public speaking and lower on its positive aspects. In addition, they showed weaker loudness and higher pitch in daily communication, compared with nonshy persons. Statistically significant correlations were found between positive shyness scores and all domains of vocal symptoms, negative aspects of public speaking, and pitch in daily communication. However, negative correlation was found between the positive aspects of public speaking and loudness in daily communication. Shy persons have a higher self-evaluation with regard to the negative and less positive aspects of public speaking and most vocal symptoms, as well as weaker loudness and higher pitch in daily communication when compared to nonshy persons. The greater the perception of shyness, the greater the self-assessment with regard to daily communication and vocal symptoms and the negative aspects of public speaking.

Assessment of social skills in adolescents with obsessive compulsive disorder

Objective: The aim of this study is to compare social skills of adolescents diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), with their healthy counterparts. Methods: Seventy adolescents aged between 12 and 18 years were included in this study. Case group comprised 33 adolescents meeting DSM-5 criteria for OCD at any certain period of their lives and control group comprised 37 healthy adolescents. Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia, Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, Children’s Global Assessment Scale, sociodemographic data form, UCLA Loneliness Scale, submissive acts scale, shyness scale and social comparison scale (SCS) were applied. Results: Adolescents in the OCD group had lower SCS scores and higher shyness scores (p=0.003, p=0.043). Parents of adolescents with OCD reported higher rates of struggles on the part of their children in making friends as well as higher odds of being excluded by their peers (p=0.001, p=0.005). Parents of children in the case group reported less number of friends for their children, and higher levels of shyness; however this did not reach a statistically significant difference between two groups (p=0.212, p=0.368). Discussion: Lower SCS scores obtained in adolescents with OCD were thought to be related to their perfectionist nature and self-perceptions of not being good enough. Scoring significantly higher on shyness scale might be related to their tendencies to avoid social occasions and interactions in order to hide their symptoms.

Italian validation of the Children's Shyness Questionnaire: Exploring associations between shyness and psychosocial functioning.

BackgroundIn recent years, researchers have begun to explore the implications of shyness for the psychosocial wellbeing of children and adolescents, exploring its association with internalizing problems. Research in an Italian context is hindered by the lack of a validated self-report measure of shyness. We report two studies aimed to assess the psychometric properties of an Italian translation of the Children’s Shyness Questionnaire (CSQ-it) and investigate its correlations with convergent and divergent constructs. The first study aimed to examine associations between CSQ-it and self-report measures of anxiety and somatic symptoms and attachment with parents and peers. The second study aimed to investigate its relations to internet addiction.MethodsThe self-report measures were completed by 550 participants in the first study and 131 participants in the second study. Parents provided information on their child’s problems. Psychometric properties were assessed by Cronbach’s alpha in both studies and by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis in Study 1. The relations between shyness and measures of internalizing problems and attachments were analyzed by correlational methods. In Study 2 a moderated mediation model tested the hypothesis that the relationship between shyness and internet addiction is mediated by somatic symptoms and that shyness moderates the relationship between somatic symptoms and internet addiction.ResultsThe reliability and validity of the Italian Version of the Children’s Shyness Questionnaire were satisfactory. Results from confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the single-factor model of the questionnaire previously identified in North American and Chinese studies. There were significant correlations between shyness, anxious and somatic symptomatology, impaired psychosocial functioning and specific components of attachment relationships. In Study 2 the indirect effect of shyness on internet addiction through somatic symptoms was significant as well as significantly moderated for high shyness scores but not for low levels of shyness.ConclusionTo our knowledge this is the first study that explored the psychometric proprieties of the Children’s Shyness Questionnaire in the Italian context. Findings demonstrated that this self-reported measure of shyness has sound psychometric properties and can be used as a sensitive and appropriate instrument for the assessment of shyness in children and adolescents.

Association of temperament with dental anxiety and behaviour of the preschool child during the initial dental visit.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is an association between temperament characteristics of preschool children, dental anxiety, and their dental behaviour. A total of 100 children, aged 3-5yr, who were attending their initial dental visit accompanied by a parent, were included in this cross-sectional study. Dental anxiety of children was measured using the Facial Image Scale. The behaviour of children during the initial oral examination and oral prophylaxis was assessed using Frankl's behaviour rating scale. Temperament was assessed using Emotionality, Activity, Shyness Temperament Survey for Children (parental ratings). Statistically significant weak linear positive correlations were seen between the following: the percentage duration of definitely negative behaviour and shyness scores (rs =0.28); anxiety level and emotionality scores (rs =0.28); and anxiety level and shyness scores (rs =0.26). Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that children with higher anxiety had higher odds of showing definitely negative behaviour, which decreased with increasing age of the child. Emotionality and shyness temperaments may be weakly associated with dental anxiety, and shyness may be weakly associated with the dental behaviour of the preschool child. Definitely negative dental behaviour is associated with dental anxiety and age of the child.

Parenting Styles as a Predictor of the Preschool Children’s Social Behaviours

The aim of this study is to investigate relationship between children’s social behaviors and parenting styles. Specifically, the study examines children’s aggressive, prosocial and socially inhibited behaviors in association with parenting dimensions namely warmth, inductive-reasoning, obedience-demanding and punitive. In addition to this, children’s social behaviors and parenting styles are examined in relation to children’s gender. The research was conducted on 60-72 month-old 276 children attending preschools in Konya, Turkey. In order to assess parenting styles, the Child Rearing Questionnaire developed by Sanson et al. and adapted by Altan was used. This questionnaire has four subscales, namely inductive reasoning, punishment, obedience demanding behavior and warmth. The questionnaire was completed by mothers. In order to assess child social behaviors, the Teacher Assessment of Social Behavior Scale developed by Cassidy and Asher and adapted by Seven was applied. This scale was completed by the teachers. According to the study results, children’s social behavior (aggressive, prosocial and shy/withdrawn) can be predicted significantly by parents inductive reasoning, warmth and punitive styles toward children. In addition to this, boys’ aggression scores are found to be significantly higher than girls and girls shyness scores are found to be significantly higher than boys.

Shyness Correlates of Instagram Addiction among College Students

The present study assesses the relationship between the shyness and Instagram addiction among college students studying in Mysuru city. A total of 400 students were randomly selected from few colleges of Mysuru city. Shyness Assessment Test (D’Souza, 2006) and Test for Instagram addiction (TIA) (D’Souza, Samyukta & Bivera, 2018) were administered to a sample of 400 college students. Shyness of students was measured in 3 domains and Instagram addiction in 6 factors. Data were subjected to product moment correlation and stepwise multiple regression to find out the relationship between shyness and Instagram addiction, including the domains of shyness which predict Instagram addiction. Results revealed that Most of the factors of Instagram addiction including total Instagram addiction scores correlated positively and significantly with all the domains of shyness and total shyness scores. Two domains of shyness- physiological and action oriented domains best predicted the Instagram addiction to an extent of 9.4%.

Temperament and self-esteem in high-risk offspring of bipolar parents: Vulnerability and scar effects

BackgroundThe nature of the temporal relationship between psychological factors and mood episodes is unclear. The objectives of this study were to determine if temperament and self-esteem predict the onset of mood episodes, and if prior mood episodes influence the stability of these factors over time in high-risk offspring of bipolar parents. MethodsOffspring of a parent with bipolar disorder participating in the Flourish Prospective Offspring Study were clinically assessed repeatedly using semi-structured KSADS-PL/SADS-L format interviews, and completed repeated measures of self-esteem, and temperament. Shared frailty survival models and mixed effects regression models were used to determine if psychological factors predicted incident mood episodes, and whether these factors change over time after the incident mood episode, respectively. ResultsEmotionality, shyness and self-esteem were not associated with the hazard of incident major depression; however, increased activity reduced the hazard of this outcome (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.51; 95% CI: 0.27, 0.98). Emotionality and shyness scores increased, while sociability, activity and self-esteem scores decreased after the incident major depressive episode (emotionality: mean change [MC]: 0.35, p = 0.0289; shyness: MC: 0.40, p = 0.0196; sociability: MC: −0.49, p = 0.0001, activity: MC: −0.32, p = 0.0001; self-esteem: MC: −0.79, p = 0.001). LimitationsPsychological measures were based on self-report and some models had low numbers limiting the numbers of covariates included as potential confounders. DiscussionAmong the assessed temperamental dimensions, activity showed a protective effect for major depressive episode onset suggesting this temperamental characteristic could serve as a protective target in high risk youth. Conversely, all assessed psychological factors shifted towards increased vulnerability after the first depressive episode.

Shyness Correlates of Facebook Addiction among College Students

The present study assesses the relationship between the shyness and face book addiction among college students studying in Mysuru city. Shyness Assessment Test (D’Souza, 2006) and Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS, 2012 were administered to a sample of 120 college students. Shyness of students was measured in 3 domains and face book addiction in 6 elements domains. Data were subjected to product moment correlation and stepwise multiple regression to find out the relationship between shyness and face book addiction, including the domains of shyness which predict face book addiction. Also gender comparisons were tested through Independent samples ‘t’ tests. Results revealed that most of the elements of face book addiction including total face book addiction scores correlated positively and significantly with all the domains of shyness and total shyness scores. Only cognitive/affective domain of shyness, best predicted the face book addiction to the extent of 10.5%. Male students had higher addiction in tolerance, relapse, withdrawal elements of face book addiction including total addiction than female students.

Internet Addiction and Shyness among Adolescents

This study evaluated the effect of internet addiction on shyness among adolescents in and around Mysore City. The sample consisted of equal numbers of (360 each) boys and girls aged between 16 to 18 years and was chosen from 16 different schools and Pre-university colleges in and around from Mysore. The students completed an Internet addiction scale (Young, 1998) and Shyness assessment test (D’Souza, 2006). Two way ANOVA was employed to find out the significance of difference between adolescents with normal, problematic and addict levels of internet addiction on shyness including gender effects. Results revealed that as the levels of internet addiction increased, shyness in various domains-cognitive/affective, physiological and action-oriented domains increased significantly. With addict and problematic level of addiction the shyness scores did not vary statistically. Female adolescents were found to be shyer than male adolescents in all the domains and total scores, except for physiological domain. Implications of the findings of the study have been delineated.

Instructional Support and Academic Skills: Impacts of INSIGHTS in Classrooms With Shy Children

ABSTRACTResearch Findings: This study investigated how mean classroom-level shyness scores moderated the impacts of INSIGHTS into Children’s Temperament on instructional support and students’ math and reading skills in kindergarten and 1st-grade classrooms. INSIGHTS is a temperament-based social-emotional learning intervention with teacher, parent, and classroom programs. A total of 22 low-income urban elementary schools, 90 teachers, and 435 children were included in the study. Schools were randomly assigned to INSIGHTS or an attention-control condition. Multilevel modeling demonstrated larger impacts of INSIGHTS on instructional support in 1st-grade classrooms with greater mean classroom-level shyness scores. A further set of multilevel analyses showed larger impacts of INSIGHTS on math skills for students in classrooms with greater mean classroom-level shyness scores. Practice or Policy: Results suggest the importance of considering temperament at the classroom level when deciding how to allocate limited resources to the implementation of temperament-based intervention and/or social-emotional learning programs. Moreover, providing professional development supports to teachers of shy students—who are at risk for poorer instruction and academic skills—should be considered by policymakers and practitioners.

Influence of Parenting Styles on Shyness among Adolescents

The current study intended to investigate the influence of parenting styles on shyness among adolescents. A sample of 200 subjects whose age ranged between 11 to 14 years was considered as early adolescents in the present study. Thus, a total sample of 200 subjects (100 boys and 100 girls) from in and around Mysore city were randomly selected as the participants of the study. They were provided with Parental authority questionnaire (PAQ; Buri, 1991) to measure perceived parenting styles –permissive, authoritative and authoritarian, and Shyness Assessment Test (SAT; D’Souza,2006), which measured shyness in three domains-cognitive/affective, physiological and action oriented. Two-way ANOVA was employed to find out the influence of parenting styles and gender, and school type on shyness. Results revealed that parenting styles had significant influence over physiological domain and total shyness scores, where adolescents with permissive parenting styles were shyer than adolescents with authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles. Female adolescents were shyer than male adolescents in all the domains of shyness including total shyness. Adolescents studying in government schools were shyer than adolescents studying in aided and unaided schools in action oriented domain of shyness and total shyness.

Intrinsic Brain Activity Responsible for Sex Differences in Shyness and Social Anxiety

Male and female show significant differences in important behavioral features such as shyness, yet the neural substrates of these differences remain poorly understood. Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that both shyness and social anxiety in healthy subjects are associated with increased activation in the fronto-limbic and cognitive control areas. However, it remains unknown whether these brain abnormalities would be shared by different genders. Therefore, in the current study, we used resting-state fMRI (r-fMRI) to investigate sex differences in intrinsic cerebral activity that may contribute to shyness and social anxiety. Sixty subjects (28 males, 32 females) participated in r-fMRI scans, and the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) and fractional ALFF (fALFF) were used to measure the spontaneous regional cerebral activity in all subjects. We first compared the differences between male and female both in the ALFF and fALFF and then we also examined the whole brain correlation between the ALFF/fALFF and the severity of shyness as well as social anxiety by genders. Referring to shyness measure, we found a significant positive correlation between shyness scores (CBSS) and ALFF/fALFF value in the frontoparietal control network and a negative correlation in the cingulo-insular network in female; while in male, there is no such correlation. For the social anxiety level, we found positive correlations between Leibowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) scores and spontaneous activity in the frontal-limbic network in male and negative correlation between the frontal-parietal network; however, such correlation was not prominent in female. This pattern suggests that shy female individuals engaged a proactive control process, driven by a positive association with activity in frontoparietal network and negative association in cingulo-insular network, whereas social anxiety males relied more on a reactive control process, driven by a positive correlation of frontal-limbic network and negative correlation of frontoparietal network. Our results reveal that shyness or social anxiety is associated with disrupted spontaneous brain activity patterns and that these patterns are influenced by sex.

Shyness among students pursuing professional and nonprofessional courses: A comparative study

The present study is an attempt to assess shyness among students pursuing professional and nonprofessional courses, along with the influence of few demographic variables on academic stress. A total of 600 students (200 professional and 400 nonprofessional) students studying in Mysuru city were randomly selected from various professional and nonprofessional colleges in and around Mysuru city. Data were subjected two way Analysis of variance to find out the difference between course type and demographic variables on domains of shyness including total shyness scores. Results revealed that students pursuing non-professional courses experienced significantly higher shyness in all the domains including total shyness scores. Gender-wise comparison revealed that male students were shyer than female students in all the domains of shyness as well as in total shyness scores.

Effects of problem characteristics on the online helping behavior of shy individuals

The present research examined how problem characteristics might influence the online helping behavior of shy individuals. Three hundred undergraduates were recruited and assessed using the College Students’ Shyness Scale. According to the scores, 68 high-shy students and 68 low-shy students were selected to participate in simulated experiments designed to determine the influence of the shyness level, the presence of a foreseeable reward, the complexity of the problem, and the urgency of the problem influence online helping behavior. The results showed that (a) High-shy individuals tended to exhibit online helping behavior more for low-complexity problems and high-urgency problems than for high-complexity problems and low-urgency problems. (b) Low-shy individuals always exhibited online helping behavior less for high-complexity problems and when no reward was offered than they did for low-complexity problems and when a reward was offered. (c) High-shy individuals showed online helping behavior more than low-shy individuals did for no-reward, high-complexity problems and high-urgency problems. (d) Participants online had higher shyness scores for showing helping behavior than those offline.

Influence of Behavioural Problems on Shyness in Late Childhood

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.

Psychological Assessment of Shyness among Children

Shyness is a common but little-understood emotion. Shyness is not a mental disorder. Common sense indicates that Shyness is a behavior pattern characterized by inhibition in some situations. It is a behavior pattern in which the person does not express (or expresses few) thoughts and feelings do not interact actively, and can have physiological alterations like rapid breathing and heart beating. So shyness is the feeling of withdrawal and ineptness when facing situations a person is unfamiliar with. Shyness is a problem for untold numbers of people. The goal of the present study is to explore the shyness of children. Objectives: 1. To study the gender differences in shyness of children. 2. To study the domicile differences in shyness of children. The sample consisted of 120 children; among 60 were male children and 60 were female children. Selected children were measured on Shyness Assessment Test developed by D’Souza (2006). Results indicated that male and female children did not differ in their shyness scores in all the domains-cognitive/affective, physiological, action oriented domains and total shyness scores. Children from rural area were shyer than children from urban areas in all the domains- cognitive/affective, physiological, action oriented domains and total shyness scores.

Sex differences in intrinsic brain functional connectivity underlying human shyness.

Shyness is a fundamental trait associated with social-emotional maladaptive behaviors, including many forms of psychopathology. Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that hyper-responsivity to social and emotional stimuli occurs in the frontal cortex and limbic system in shy individuals, but the relationship between shyness and brain-wide functional connectivity remains incompletely understood. Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging, we addressed this issue by exploring the relationship between regional functional connectivity strength (rFCS) and scores of shyness in a cohort of 61 healthy young adults and controlling for the effects of social and trait anxiety scores. We observed that the rFCS of the insula positively correlated with shyness scores regardless of sex. Furthermore, we found that there were significant sex-by-shyness interactions in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and insula (two core nodes of the salience network) as well as the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex: the rFCS values of these regions positively correlated with shyness scores in females but negatively correlated in males. Taken together, we provide evidence for intrinsic functional connectivity differences in individuals with different degrees of shyness and that these differences are sex-dependent. These findings might have important implications on the understanding of biological mechanisms underlying emotional and cognitive processing associated with shyness.

Shyness discriminates between children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome and Williams syndrome and predicts emergence of psychosis in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

Background22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) is a common neurogenetic syndrome associated with high rates of psychosis. The aims of the present study were to identify the unique temperament traits that characterize children with 22q11.2DS compared to children with Williams syndrome (WS) and typically developing (TD) controls, and to examine temperamental predictors of the emergence of psychosis in 22q11.2DS.MethodsThe temperament of 55 children with 22q11.2DS, 36 with WS, and 280 TD children was assessed using the Emotionality, Activity, Sociability (EAS) Temperament Survey, Parental Ratings. The presence of a psychotic disorder was evaluated in 49 children and adolescents with 22q11.2DS at baseline and again 5.43 ± 2.23 years after baseline temperament assessment.ResultsChildren with 22q11.2DS scored higher on Shyness compared to WS and TD controls. Children with 22q11.2DS and WS scored higher on Emotionality and lower on Activity compared to TD controls. Shyness was more severe in older compared to younger children with 22q11.2DS. Baseline Shyness scores significantly predicted the later emergence of a psychotic disorder at follow-up, in children with 22q11.2DS.ConclusionsOur results suggest that shyness is an early marker associated with the later emergence of psychosis in 22q11.2DS.