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Article Excerpt
Three studies were conducted to explore Chinese children's understanding of shyness. In Study 1 (N = 174, M age = 10.18) interviews with Chinese children revealed a group of diverse attributes that characterized their conceptions of shyness. In Study 2 (N = 273, M age = 10.19) a rating procedure was used to identify attributes that were prototypical of a Chinese shy child. Study 3 (N = 216, M age = 10.24) explored the typology and dimensions underlying Chinese children's descriptions of a shy child by asking them to compare and rate the similarity of shyness attributes derived in Study 1 and Study 2. The findings suggest that there are both cultural similarities and variations in children's conceptions of shyness.
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Recently there has been increasing interest in understanding shyness in non-Western settings such as Mainland China. While research carried out in North American contexts has generally shown that children who are shy and reserved are at risk for adjustment problems (Rubin & Asendorpf, 1993), studies of Chinese children have yielded inconsistent findings. For instance, Chert and his colleagues (Chert, Rubin & Li, 1995; Chen, Rubin, Li, & Li, 1999; Chen, Rubin, & Sun, 1992) found that shyness/sensitivity--rated by peers as someone who is very shy, who is usually sad, and whose feelings get hurt easily--was associated with peer acceptance and positive school adjustment in Chinese children aged 8-14 years old. In contrast, Schwartz, Chang, and Farver (2001) found that Chinese fourth- to sixth-grade children who were nominated by their peers as shy, timid, and avoidant of social contacts were disliked and victimized at school. In a more recent study, Chert, Cen, Li, and He (2005) also identified a negative rather than a positive association between peer nominations of shyness/sensitivity and Chinese third- and fourth-grade children's school adjustment.
Despite these conflicting findings, few studies have paid attention to how shyness is understood by Chinese children. The item "someone who is very shy" has been frequently included in measures of shyness (Chang, 2003, 2004; Chen et al., 1992, 1995, 2005; Schwartz et al., 2001). However, little attempt has been made to examine what it means to be shy (hai xiu in Mandarin) to Chinese children, why they would nominate a peer as being shy, and how their understanding of shyness may be similar to or differ from that of Western children. Therefore, the purpose of the current studies was to explore Chinese children's conceptions of shyness by examining their reasons for nominating their peers as being shy using a prototype approach.
Conceptions of Childhood Shyness
In studies of North American children, shyness has been defined as "wariness and anxiety in the face of social novelty and perceived social evaluation" (Coplan et al., 2007, p. 7). This definition encompasses two forms of shyness: shyness toward strangers (Asendorpf, 1990) and anxious shyness toward negative social evaluation (Asendorpf, 1990; Xu, Farver, Chang, Zhang, & Yu, 2007). Shyness toward strangers refers to a fearful and inhibited reaction toward unfamiliar individuals, is possibly biologically based, and is relatively stable over time (Kagan, 1994). On the other hand, anxious shyness refers to passive withdrawal, social avoidance, and a fear of negative social evaluation with familiar peers; this pattern of behavior is also known as anxious solitude (Gazelle et al., 2005). In a four-year longitudinal study of German children, Asendorpf (1990) found that children's social inhibition with strangers and their classmates was initially moderately correlated in preschool years. Yet when children became familiar with their classmates, the correlation gradually decreased over time. In addition, social inhibition associated with familiar classmates, presumably resulting from constant negative evaluations from peers, became increasingly correlated with children's experience of peer rejection, whereas social inhibition toward strangers was not.
Buss and Plomin (1984) categorized shyness as fearful and self-conscious. Fearful shyness resembles shyness toward strangers (as mentioned above), emerges early in life, and is characterized by social wariness and fear of novelty. In contrast, self-conscious shyness refers to sensitivity or inhibition in response to public attention or scrutiny (Buss, 1986; Crozier, 1999). Self-conscious shyness develops in parallel with the self-concept and involves a process of internal self-focusing within the context of others. Self-conscious shyness is likely to be elicited in response to public attention or scrutiny and occurs in situations such as when a child makes a class presentation or responds to a teacher's question in front of classmates.
Researchers have also differentiated shyness from the broad construct of social withdrawal, an umbrella term that encompasses various forms of behavioral solitude in children (Rubin, Burgess, & Coplan, 2002). In several studies, shyness was inferred from only one form of social withdrawal: social reticence (Coplan, Rubin, Fox, Calkins, & Stewart, 1994; Hart et al., 2000). Coplan, Prakash, O'Neil, and Armer (2004) suggested that reticent young children commonly display an onlooker pattern of behavior and are often unoccupied during peer free play. They are motivated to engage in peer interaction but are inhibited by a fear of social encounters. This high approach-high avoidance motivational conflict distinguishes shy children from two other groups of withdrawn children: those who are unsociable and prefer to be alone without a strong motivation to interact with others (Coplan et al., 2004; Coplan et al., 2007) and those who are actively isolated and are left out by their peers (Ladd & Profilet, 1996; Rubin & Mills, 1988).
Children's Understanding of Shyness in the Western Contexts
Research conducted in the Western settings has shown that children use the word "shy" early in life (Ridgeway, Waters, & Kuczaj, 1985), and their definitions or descriptions were similar to what has been reported in the Western psychological literature (Crozier, 1995; Crozier & Burnham, 1990; Yuill & Banerjee, 2001). Crozier and his colleagues (Crozier, 1995; Crozier & Burnham, 1990) asked 5- to 11-year-old British children, "What do you think shyness is?" A content analysis provided some support for Buss et al.'s (1984) model, which showed that children's descriptions of shy behavior could be classified as either fearful or self-conscious shyness. In addition, children's references to behaviors and experiences that were associated with self-conscious shyness were more prevalent among older (10-11-year-olds) than younger children (5-8-year-olds).
Crozier (1995) also examined children's conceptions of shyness using a prototype approach. This approach maintains that concepts are organized around their clearest or prototypical examples (Cantor, Mischel, & Schwartz, 1982; Fehr & Russell, 1984). Because prototypical descriptors are more quickly and more frequently identified as examples of a target concept than are less prototypical ones, individuals often perceive or evaluate a person by comparing the person's characteristics to the prototypical features that are consistent with the target concept (Rosch, Simpson, & Miller, 1976). For instance, children may evaluate whether a peer is shy or not by comparing his or her behaviors to the attributes they believe represent the key features of being shy. Therefore, the first step in using this approach involves identifying descriptors of a target concept, and then the typology and/or dimensions underlying the descriptors are examined using exploratory methods, such as cluster analysis or multidimensional scaling. This approach has been used to categorize person perception (Rosenberg, 1982), morality (Walker & Pitts, 1998), psychopathology (Rosch, 1977), emotions (Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O'Connor, 1987), personality (Haslam, Bain, & Neal, 2004), situations (Yang, Read, & Miller, 2006), and implicit interpersonal relationships (Haslam & Fiske, 1992).
To identify the prototypical behavioral features that were associated with childhood shyness, Crozier (1995) asked 9- to 12-year-old children to write down the first things they thought of when they heard the words "being shy." Children produced an average of 5.55 shyness descriptors, and most of their responses could be classified into the fearful and self-conscious forms of shyness proposed by Buss et al. (1984). However, in Crozier's (1995) study the prototypical shyness descriptors were categorized using a coding method based on Buss et al.'s (1984) theory of fearful and self-conscious shyness rather than on exploratory data analyses.
There is also evidence to suggest that school-age children can differentiate shyness from some forms of social withdrawal such as active isolation. Younger and Daniels (1992) asked first-, third-, and fifth-grade children to nominate up to three classmates who were best represented by items that described withdrawn behavior, such as "being shy" or "being left out," and to provide an explanation for their nominations. The results indicated that most children responded to the item "someone who is very shy" by mentioning behaviors that reflected fear and inhibition in unfamiliar or familiar situations (e.g., "she's always afraid when she meets someone for the first time"). In contrast, when responding to the item "someone who is often left out" most children nominated peers who were actively isolated (e.g., "the other kids won't let her play with them").
Shyness in Chinese Children
Few studies have examined how shyness is understood in non-Western settings. China presents an interesting case because the traditional value system differs from most Western societies in the emphasis that is placed on group orientation and social harmony (Ho, 1986). These values originate primarily from Confucian philosophy, which views the self as a part of a larger whole that comprises natural, human, and spiritual entities and considers individual behavior inextricably linked to a responsibility for the group and relative status within the social hierarchy. Thus, the meaning of shy behavior is not only construed at the individual level (e.g., whether such behavior reflects fear or social anxiety) but is also understood in terms of the relevance for group functioning (e.g., whether such behavior prevents the child from appearing bold and overly assertive or standing out in the group). Consequently, the...
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