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Age-related differences in behavioral problems between shy adults and shy children

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Abstract

Although both concurrent and longitudinal relations between shyness and behavioral problems are well-established in childhood, there is relatively less work exploring these associations in emerging adulthood. In addition, age-related differences in the strength of these relations in child and adult samples have not been fully explored within the same study. We collected measures of shyness, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and social problems in a sample of 94 typically developing 6-year-old children (50 female; Mage = 78.3 months, SD = 3.1 months) and 775 undergraduate students (633 female, Mage = 18.2 years, SD = 0.9 years) from parent-reported and self-reported questionnaires, respectively. Shyness interacted with age in predicting internalizing behaviors and social problems, but not externalizing behaviors. Specifically, shyness was concurrently and positively related to internalizing and social problems in young adulthood, but this relation was not found in childhood. Findings are discussed in terms of developmental consequences of shyness across the lifespan and limitations of relying on ratings from different informants when examining age-related differences.

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Notes

  1. i While the existing literature tends to explore shyness as homogenous construct, it is important to consider that some shy children and adults who are particularly sociable, and therefore experience competing motivations regarding social interaction (i.e., interested in interacting with others, but while experiencing social inhibition), appear to be at particular risk for a range of internalizing and externalizing behaviors [21, 47,48,49,50,51].

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Funding

Funding was provided by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant No.: 20006816), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Grant No.: 10538734) awarded to LAS.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behavior, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Taigan L. MacGowan & Louis A. Schmidt

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MacGowan, T.L., Schmidt, L.A. Age-related differences in behavioral problems between shy adults and shy children. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-022-01456-y

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