Shyness and children's emotionality, regulation, and coping: contemporaneous, longitudinal, and across-context relations

The relations of teachers' and parents' reports of children's shyness (i.e., social inhibition) at ages 6-8, 8-10, and 10-12 years to dispositional regulation, emotionality, and coping were examined. Shyness was positively related to internalizing negative emotion, coping by doing nothing, and, for parent-rated shyness, behavioral inhibition/nonimpulsivity, attention focusing, and avoidant coping; it was negatively related to positive emotionality, instrumental coping, seeking support from teachers (at younger ages), and for teacher-rated shyness, attentional control. Often prediction held over several years and/or across reporters. Parent-reported internalizing negative emotion at age 4-6 predicted shyness at ages 6-8 and 8-10, but primarily for children low in attention shifting. Teacher-rated shyness was related to low social status; parent-rated shyness correlated with boys' adult-rated social status at age 4-6 and with style of social interaction, particularly for girls. The relation between parent- and teacher-reported shyness decreased with age. The overall pattern of findings was partially consistent with the conclusion that parent-rated shyness reflected primarily social wariness with unfamiliar people (i.e., temperamental shyness), whereas teacher-rated shyness tapped social inhibition due to social evaluative concerns.     

The relations of children's dispositional empathy-related responding to their emotionality, regulation, and social functioning.

The relations of kindergartners' to 2nd graders' dispositional sympathy to individual differences in emotionality, regulation, and social functioning were examined. Sympathy was assessed with teacher- and self-reports; contemporaneously and 2 years earlier, parents and teachers reported on children's emotionality, regulation, and social functioning. Social functioning also was assessed with peer evaluations and children's enacted puppet behavior, and negative arousability-personal distress was assessed with physiological responses. In general, sympathy was associated with relatively high levels of regulation, teacher-reported positive emotionality and general emotional intensity, and especially for boys, high social functioning and low levels of negative emotionality, including physiological reactivity to a distress stimulus. Vagal tone was positively related to boys' self-reported sympathy, whereas the pattern was reversed for girls. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Longitudinal Relations of Regulation and Emotionality to Quality of Indonesian Children's Socioemotional Functioning.

Data regarding individual differences in children's regulation, emotionality, quality of socioemotional functioning, and shyness were obtained from teachers and peers for 112 Indonesian 6th graders. Similar data (plus parents' reports) also were collected when these children were in 3rd grade. For boys, regulation and low negative emotionality generally predicted positive socioemotional functioning (e.g., social skills, adjustment, prosocial tendencies and peer liking, sympathy) within and across time and across reporters, even at the follow-up when initial levels of regulation or negative emotionality were controlled. For girls, relations were obtained primarily for concurrent teacher reports, probably because girls tended to be fairly well regulated and socially competent and variability in their scores was relatively low. Shyness for both sexes tended to be associated with concurrent measures of low regulation, high negative emotionality, and low quality of social competence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contemporaneous and longitudinal prediction of children's sympathy from dispositional regulation and emotionality.

The relation of 8- to 10-year-olds' teacher-reported dispositional sympathy to regulation and emotionality was examined with a longitudinal sample. In general, sympathy was correlated with adults' reports of regulation and low negative emotionality contemporaneously and, to some degree, 2 and 4 years prior. General emotional intensity interacted with some aspects of regulation in predicting sympathy; for example, attention focusing predicted sympathy but only for children low in general emotional intensity. In general, the pattern of correlations changed little from age 6-8 to age 8-10 years, although parent-reported negative emotionality was more highly negatively related to sympathy at the older age. Dispositional sympathy was associated with verbal or physiological markers of sympathy in a laboratory setting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Origins of individual differences in infant shyness.

Explored the origins of individual differences in infant shyness by studying its relationship to parental shyness, sociability (the tendency to prefer being with others rather than alone), and introversion–extraversion (a factor that combines shyness, low sociability, and lack of impulsivity). The parents of 152 adopted and 120 nonadoptive infants (aged 12–24 mo) rated their child's shyness on a 5-item scale and completed the 16PF and measures of emotionality, activity, sociability, and impulsivity. In addition, information on biological mothers was obtained. The Family Environment Scale and the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment were used to assess each infant's environment. Results show that infant shyness was positively related to shyness and negatively related to sociability and extraversion in nonadoptive mothers who shared both heredity and family environment with their infants. Genetic influence on infant shyness at 24 mo of age was shown by significant correlations of shyness and low sociability of biological mothers with shyness of their adopted-away infants. Infant shyness was also related to low sociability of adoptive mothers. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality effects on children's speech in everyday life: Sociability-mediated exposure and shyness-mediated reactivity to social situations.

Speech and heart rate were continuously monitored during 7 days from morning to evening in 41 Grade 2 children selected for high or low parental judgments of sociability and shyness. Ss attended school in the mornings and were free in the afternoons; the child's social situations in the afternoon were reconstructed with the child and a caretaker. During the afternoons sociable Ss spent more time in conversations than unsociable Ss, but the groups did not differ in their verbal participation within conversations. Shy Ss spent as much time in conversations and spoke as much in familiar situations as nonshy children but spoke less in moderately unfamiliar situations. Neither sociability nor shyness had an effect on heart rate reactivity. The results show that sociability affects the exposure, and shyness the reactivity, to situations and that these traits are clearly distinct despite some similarity in lay judgments of personality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shyness and sociability.

Two studies investigated the relationship between shyness (tension and inhibition with others) and sociability (preference for being with others rather than being alone) using 952 undergraduates. A factor analysis of shyness and sociability items revealed 2 distinct factors, indicating that shyness and sociability are distinct personality dispositions. Self-reported shyness showed only a moderate negative correlation with self-reported sociability. Furthermore, the measures of shyness and sociability had different patterns of correlations with other personality scales (e.g., the Public and Private Self-Consciousness scales of the Self-Consciousness Inventory, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the EASI [Emotionality, Activity, Sociability, Impulsivity] Temperament Survey). On the basis of these findings, it is concluded that shyness is not just low sociability. Next, 4 groups of Ss were selected: shy–sociable, shy–unsociable, unshy–sociable, and unshy–unsociable. Pairs of these Ss, matched for both traits, interacted for 5 min. Shy–sociable Ss talked less, averted their gaze more, and engaged in more self-manipulation than did the other 3 groups. In studying social behavior, it should be known whether Ss are shy but also whether they are sociable. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding child-based effects on parenting: Temperament as a moderator of genetic and environmental contributions to parenting.

The degree to which child temperament moderates genetic and environmental contributions to parenting was examined. Participants were drawn from the Nonshared Environment and Adolescent Development project and included 720 sibling pairs, ages 13.5 + 2.0 years (Sibling 1) to 12.1 + 1.3 years (Sibling 2). The sample consisted of 6 sibling types: 93 monozygotic twin pairs, 99 dizygotic twin pairs, and 95 full sibling pairs from never-divorced families and 182 full-sibling, 109 half-sibling, and 130 unrelated-sibling pairs residing in stepfamilies. Composite child temperament ratings (negative emotionality, activity, shyness, and sociability) were derived from mothers' and fathers' reports. Composite parenting ratings (negativity, warmth) for mothers and fathers were generated from children's and parents' reports. Analyses indicated that at higher levels of negative emotionality and sociability, child-based genetic contributions to mothers' and fathers' negativity increased, whereas the contributions of environmental factors declined. The opposite pattern was observed for child shyness. These same characteristics had less impact on parental warmth. For fathers only, nonshared environmental contributions to fathers' warmth increased in the presence of high child activity and sociability but declined when children were very shy. Overall these findings indicate that child-based effects on negative parenting are enhanced when children demonstrate potentially challenging characteristics but are weaker in the absence of such characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relations of emotionality and regulation to dispositional and situational empathy-related responding.

Examined the prediction of adults' situational and dispositional empathy-related responses from measures of emotionality (emotional intensity and positive and negative affect) and regulation. A multimethod approach including self-reported, facial, and heart rate (HR) responses was used to assess situational vicarious emotional responding; Ss' (and sometimes friends') reports were used to assess the dispositional characteristics. In general, dispositional sympathy, personal distress, and perspective taking exhibited different, conceptually logical patterns of association with indexes of emotionality and regulation. The relations of situational measures of vicarious emotional responding to dispositional emotionality and regulation varied somewhat by type of measure and gender. Findings for facial and HR (for men) measures were primarily for the more evocative empathy-inducing stimulus. In general, the findings provided support for the role of individual differences in emotionality and regulation in empathy-related responding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Life stress, physiological and subjective indexes of negative emotionality, and coping reasons for drinking: Is there evidence for a self-medication model of alcohol use?

Alcohol use is often viewed as means of coping with distress, but support for this model has been inconsistent. The author examined stress and negative emotionality and their interaction as predictors of drinking motives in a sample of college drinkers. Both physiological and self-reported reactivity to a mood induction, and self-reported trait negative affect, were assessed. High stress was associated with coping motives, particularly among individuals who exhibited electrodermal reactivity to the mood induction. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity was associated with coping motives. Electrodermal and RSA reactivity and stress were unrelated to enhancement and social motives. Self-reported mood reactivity and trait negative affect were not associated with any of the drinking motives. These findings offer some support for the self-medication model of alcohol use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotion regulation as a mediator of associations between mother–child attachment and peer relationships in middle childhood.

Although a link between attachment and peer relationships has been established, the mechanisms that account for this link have not been identified. The 1st goal of this study was to test emotion regulation as a mediator of this link in middle childhood. The 2nd goal was to examine how different aspects of emotion regulation relate to peer competence. Fifth graders completed self-report and semiprojective measures to index mother–child attachment, mothers reported on children's emotionality and coping strategies, and teachers reported on children's peer competence. Constructive coping was related to both attachment and peer competence, and mediated the association between attachment and peer competence, suggesting that emotion regulation is one of the mechanisms accounting for attachment-peer links. Constructive coping was more strongly associated with peer competence for children high on negative emotionality than for children low on negative emotionality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expressions of positive emotion in women's college yearbook pictures and their relationship to personality and life outcomes across adulthood.

To test hypotheses about positive emotion, the authors examined the relationship of positive emotional expression in women's college pictures to personality, observer ratings, and life outcomes. Consistent with the notion that positive emotions help build personal resources, positive emotional expression correlated with the self-reported personality traits of affiliation, competence, and low negative emotionality across adulthood and predicted changes in competence and negative emotionality. Observers rated women displaying more positive emotion more favorably on several personality dimensions and expected interactions with them to be more rewarding; thus, demonstrating the beneficial social consequences of positive emotions. Finally, positive emotional expression predicted favorable outcomes in marriage and personal well-being up to 30 years later. Controlling for physical attractiveness and social desirability had little impact on these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Positive and negative emotionality: Trajectories across six years and relations with social competence.

The goals of the present study were to examine (1) the mean-level stability and differential stability of children's positive emotional intensity, negative emotional intensity, expressivity, and social competence from early elementary school-aged to early adolescence, and (2) the associations between the trajectories of children's emotionality and social functioning. Using four waves of longitudinal data (with assessments 2 years apart), parents and teachers of children (199 kindergarten through third grade children at the first assessment) rated children's emotion-related responding and social competence. For all constructs, there was evidence of mean-level decline with age and stability in individual differences in rank ordering. Based on age-centered growth-to-growth curve analyses, the results indicated that children who had a higher initial status on positive emotional intensity, negative emotional intensity, and expressivity had a steeper decline in their social skills across time. These findings provide insight into the stability and association of emotion-related constructs to social competence across the elementary and middle school years. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Relation of Children's Everyday Nonsocial Peer Play Behavior to Their Emotionality, Regulation, and Social Functioning.

The relations of children's nonsocial behavior to their emotionality, regulation, and social functioning were examined in a short-term longitudinal study. Parents (primarily mothers) and teachers rated children's effortful regulation, emotionality, asocial behaviors, problem behaviors, and social acceptance, and children's nonsocial play behaviors were observed for two semesters. Peers also rated likability. Children's observed reticent activities were related to adults' ratings of high regulation, low externalizing problems, and high asocial behavior, as well as to low anger and low positive emotion. On the other hand, solitary play was associated with low positive emotion and low regulation over time and with high asocial behavior and high peer exclusion. Peer rejection mediated the relation of internalizing emotions (anxiety, low positive emotion) and regulation to solitary play later in the school year, and asocial play mediated the relation of internalizing emotions to both solitary and reticent play behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and having children: A two-way relationship.

Personality has been implicated in romantic and sexual relationships, but its association with childbearing is poorly understood. The authors assessed whether 3 personality traits--sociability, emotionality, and activity--predicted the probability of having children and whether having children predicted personality change. The participants were women and men from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study (N = 1,839) who were followed for 9 years. High emotionality decreased the probability of having children, whereas high sociability and, in men, high activity increased this probability. Having children predicted increasing emotionality, particularly in participants with high baseline emotionality and two or more children. In men, having children increased sociability in those with high baseline sociability and decreased sociability in those with low baseline sociability. These findings suggest a two-way relationship between personality and having children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Relations of Problem Behavior Status to Children's Negative Emotionality, Effortful Control, and Impulsivity: Concurrent Relations and Prediction of Change.

The relations of children's internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors to their concurrent regulation, impulsivity (reactive undercontrol), anger, sadness, and fearfulness and these aspects of functioning 2 years prior were examined. Parents and teachers completed measures of children's (N = 185; ages 6 through 9 years) adjustment, negative emotionality, regulation, and behavior control; behavioral measures of regulation also were obtained. In general, both internalizing and externalizing problems were associated with negative emotionality. Externalizers were low in effortful regulation and high in impulsivity, whereas internalizers, compared with nondisordered children, were low in impulsivity but not effortful control. Moreover, indices of negative emotionality, regulation, and impulsivity with the level of the same variables 2 years before controlled predicted stability versus change in problem behavior status. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Feeling close: Emotional intensity reduces perceived psychological distance.

The results of 6 experiments indicate that emotional intensity reduces perceived psychological distance. People who described events emotionally rather than neutrally perceived those events as less psychologically distant, including embarrassing autobiographical events (Experiment 1), past and future dentist visits (Experiment 2), positive and negative events (Experiment 3), and a national tragedy (Experiment 6). People also perceived an event (dancing in front of an audience) as less psychologically distant when they were in a more emotionally arousing social role (of performer) than in a less emotionally arousing social role (of observer; Experiment 4). Two findings bolster the causal role of emotional intensity in reducing perceived psychological distance. First, reported emotional intensity was negatively correlated with perceived psychological distance and statistically mediated the effect of being in an emotionally arousing social role on perceived psychological distance (Experiment 4). Second, providing people with an alternative interpretation of their emotions (emotionally ambiguous whale songs) significantly reduced, even reversed, the negative correlation between self-reported emotional intensity and perceived psychological distance (Experiment 5). These findings about emotional intensity are consistent with the broader idea that perceived psychological distance is grounded in and influenced by the phenomenology of objective distance. Implications for theories of psychological distance, emotionality, and choice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Schizotypy facets, cognitive control, and emotion.

This research examined whether facets of schizotypy were differentially related to cognitive control and emotion-processing traits. In a confirmatory factor analysis (N = 261), a 3-factor model of schizotypy exhibited good fit and fit significantly better than a 2-factor model. In addition, only disorganized schizotypy was associated with poor cognitive control (specifically, prepotent inhibition). Moreover, disorganized but not positive schizotypy was associated with increased emotional confusion and increased emotionality. In contrast, negative schizotypy was associated with increased emotional confusion but decreased emotionality. These results suggest that disorganized schizotypy is related to dysregulation of both cognition and emotion and that negative schizotypy might reflect deficits in the experience and processing of emotion and not just in emotional expression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Daily stress, coping, and well-being in parents of children with autism: A multilevel modeling approach.

This study used a repeated daily measurement design to examine the direct and moderating effects of coping on daily psychological distress and well-being in parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Twice weekly over a 12-week period, 93 parents provided reports of their daily stress, coping responses, and end-of-day mood. Multilevel modeling analyses identified 5 coping responses (e.g., seeking support, positive reframing) that predicted increased daily positive mood and 4 (e.g., escape, withdrawal) that were associated with decreased positive mood. Similarly, 2 coping responses were associated with decreased daily negative mood and 5 predicted increased negative mood. The moderating effects of gender and the 11 coping responses were also examined. Gender did not moderate the daily coping?mood relationship, however 3 coping responses (emotional regulation, social support, and worrying) were found to moderate the daily stress?mood relationship. Additionally, ASD symptomatology, and time since an ASD diagnosis were not found to predict daily parental mood. This study is perhaps the first to identify coping responses that enhance daily well-being and mitigate daily distress in parents of children with ASD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characteristics predicting social functioning and treatment response in clients impaired by extreme shyness: Age of onset and the public/private shyness distinction.

52 adults that were functionally impaired by extreme shyness participated in an interview that assessed factors surrounding shyness onset, social functioning, strategies for coping with shyness, and behavioral skill in social interactions. 34 Ss then participated in an 8-wk behavioral treatment program that provided training in social skills. Ss reporting early onset also described their parents as shy, while Ss reporting later onset had a childhood history of emotional or physical abuse. Ss with observable behavioral deficits were more likely to benefit from the behavioral treatment program than were shy Ss with few overt symptoms. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)