Louis A. Schmidt - Adaptive Shyness: Multiple Perspectives on Behavior and Development

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Shyness is defined as inhibition and anxiousness in social situations. Shyness is an inherently interesting phenomenon to study because social interaction and social connection are so fundamental to human existence. Although a ubiquitous part of the human condition that has transcended time, as reflected with abundant references to it noted in religion, literature, poetry, music, and other arts over the years, we know little about the reasons for shyness. To date, much of the scientific work on shyness has been directed towards understanding the negative correlates and consequences of it. However, this deficit approach to the study of shyness began to change 20 years ago in which my colleague, Jay Schulkin and I, in the epilogue of an edited volume on shyness (Schmidt & Schulkin, 1999; see also, Schmidt & Tasker, 2000), recommended that future work should consider the positive and adaptive aspects of shyness. A number of the contributors to that volume also have contributions to this volume. Importantly, the de-pathologizing of shyness has continued to remain active in still more recent years (e.g., Crozier, 2014; Lane, 2008) in which researchers have begun to further question the pathologizing and over medicalization of normal variation in human personality behaviors and traits such as shyness. The reasons for pathologizing shyness are many, and beyond the scope of this volume for a detailed coverage of them, but they include societal and medical shifts in defining what constitutes emotional health and illness, the advent of the internet and social media, and the conceptualization and scientific study of the phenomenon from largely a Western and North American cultural view, to name a few.

is Professor and Director of the Child Emotion Laboratory in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour at McMaster University where he holds a Faculty of Science Research Chair in Early Determinants of Mental Health. His research interests are in the areas of temperament, socioemotional development, and developmental psychophysiology. He is particularly interested in how biology and early experiences shape the development of individual differences in temperament and socioemotional processes in typical and atypical populations.