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Relations of Shyness and Unsociability with Adjustment in Migrant and Non-migrant Children in Urban China

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Abstract

The present study examined the relations of shyness and unsociability with indexes of adjustment in migrant and non-migrant Chinese children. Participants were migrant (n = 413) and non-migrant students (n = 513) in fourth to seventh grades (M age = 11.4 years) in urban China. Data on shyness, unsociability, and adjustment were collected from multiple sources, including peer evaluations, teacher ratings, self-reports, and school records. The results showed that shyness was associated with social and school adjustment problems more evidently in non-migrant children than in migrant children, whereas unsociability was associated with social adjustment problems more evidently in migrant children than in non-migrant children. The results indicate that the functional meanings of children’s social behaviors may differ across contexts.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the children and teachers for their participation.

Funding

This research was supported by the Humanity and Social Science Youth Foundation of the Ministry of Education in China (17YJC190002) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017 M621508).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, 200234, China

    Xuechen Ding & Dan Li

  2. Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104-6216, USA

    Xinyin Chen

  3. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, USA

    Rui Fu

  4. School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Junsheng Liu

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  1. Xuechen Ding
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Correspondence to Xinyin Chen or Dan Li.

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Ding, X., Chen, X., Fu, R. et al. Relations of Shyness and Unsociability with Adjustment in Migrant and Non-migrant Children in Urban China. J Abnorm Child Psychol 48, 289–300 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-019-00583-w

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