Practice Can Overcome Shyness : Experts Say Inborn Trait Is Not a Permanent Condition

Shyness apparently is an inborn trait that emerges in response to stress, but can be overcome with practice, researchers from Harvard and Yale reported Thursday.

Children who show signs of shyness as early as age 2 have different biochemical reactions to unexpected change or newness compared to outgoing children, indicating their nervous systems are more sensitive to novel events, the scientists reported.

Exposure to stress early on in life--fighting with a brother or sister, for example--apparently acts as a trigger to bring out shy behavior, the researchers wrote in the journal Science.

But being born with a tendency to shyness does not mean a youngster will behave shyly later on.

“The child begins life with a slight bias,” said Jerome Kagan, a professor of psychology at Harvard University.

“As with any disease where there’s a slight genetic contribution, like diabetes or cancer, just because you have the tendency doesn’t mean you’ll get it (the disease). It doesn’t mean you’ll become a shy child.”

Nor is it bad to be shy, Kagan said. He gave the example of a shy child who dislikes large groups of people, who comes from an intellectual family and spends time studying instead of partying--becoming class valedictorian.

Shyness is not a fixed quality, either, he said. In the study, 40% of children who were shy in early years overcame their inhibitions by age 10.

The researchers drew their conclusions from a study of 28 shy and 30 extroverted children. They were chosen at either 21 or 31 months of age as either consistently shy, quiet, timid or sociable, talkative and spontaneous when exposed to unfamiliar people or procedures in laboratory settings.

Various Points

Both groups were observed at various points over the years, with the last observation occurring when they were 7 1/2 years old. By then, dropouts had brought the group down to a total of 41 participants.

The participants were tested in a laboratory play situation involving unfamiliar children of the same age and sex, and individual testing sessions with an unfamiliar female examiner.

The team noticed the following characteristics:

--Those who where shy in testing had higher heart rates, more widely dilated pupils and increased tension in muscles of vocal cords and the larynx than those who remained outgoing. Also noticed was that inhibited children’s heart rates remained elevated longer when the children stood up after sitting, indicating a brisker response to the normal drop in blood pressure that accompanies a rise to standing position.

--Shy children with the highest heart rates were more likely to be fearful of things such as TV violence, kidnaping or going to the bedroom alone in the evening at ages 5 1/2 and 7 1/2.

--Shy children had modest increases in stress-related hormones, norepinephrine and cortisol, during testing.

The researchers pointed out their study was based on children specially selected because of extreme behavior, and that many children fall somewhere in between.

Kagan also said shyness may be caused by strictly environmental--and not hereditary--factors.

He said parents can help shy children by not blaming them for their behavior, not assuming the children can easily conquer shyness and gradually coax the child into more outgoing behavior.

“I think someday there will be pharmacological treatments as there are now for phobic adults,” Kagan said, explaining there are drugs that can be prescribed for extreme fearfulness.

Working with Kagan were Nancy Snidman of the Harvard psychology department and J. Steven Reznick from Yale University’s psychology department.