Adaptive Shyness: Multiple Perspectives on Behavior and Development

This book examines the adaptive aspects of shyness. It addresses shyness as a ubiquitous phenomenon that reflects a preoccupation of the self in response to social interaction, resulting in social inhibition, social anxiety, and social withdrawal. The volume reviews the ways in which shyness has traditionally been conceptualized and describes the movement away from considering it as a disorder in need of treatment. In addition, it examines the often overlooked history and current evidence across evolution, animal species, and human culture, demonstrating the adaptive aspects of shyness from six perspectives: developmental, biological, social, cultural, comparative, and evolutionary.

Topics featured in this book include:

• The study of behavioral inhibition and shyness across four academic generations.
• The development of adaptive subtypes of shyness.
• Shy children’s adaptation to academic challenges.
• Adaptiveness of introverts in the workplace.
• The role of cultural norms and values in shaping shyness.
• Perspectives of shyness as adaptive from Indigenous Peoples of North America.
• The role that personality differences play on ecology and evolution.

Adaptive Shyness is a must-have resource for researchers and professors, clinicians and related professionals as well as graduate students in developmental psychology, pediatrics, and social work as well as related disciplines, including social/personality, evolutionary, biological, and clinical child psychology, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies.

Louis A. Schmidt is Professor and Director of the Child Emotion Laboratory in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour at McMaster University. 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 in typical and atypical development.

Kristie L. Poole is a PhD candidate in Developmental Psychology in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour at McMaster University. Broadly, her research investigates the interaction among temperamental, physiological, and contextual factors involved in socio-emotional development. She is particularly passionate about studying the developmental origins and biological foundations of shyness, as well as investigating factors that maintain or alter shyness across development.