The Secret Science of Shyness

The word shy has a number of different meanings, none of which are flattering. To ‘shy away from’ something implies avoidance. ‘To shy’ can also mean to move suddenly in fright. To ‘be shy of’ something can mean to come up short, or be insufficient. And to be a shy person in our extrovert-worshipping age can be seen as being inadequate for the task of relentlessly positive self-presentation.

I have recently written a memoir called Shy (2014) as part of a PhD in Creative Writing at RMIT University. I have been exploring these different definitions of the word ‘shy’ as part of a quest to understand the impact of shyness on my own life story. Psychologists would say it is a temperament trait, one that can induce feelings of social anxiety ranging from mildly distressing to severely debilitating. I have been relieved to discover, though, that shyness is also accompanied by a range of socially useful and positive character attributes.

Part of my research involved interviewing my mother, Melbourne University psychologist Professor Margot Prior, who has been studying temperament for over three decades. According to Margot, all children fit somewhere on a spectrum called ‘approach-withdrawal’, ranging from the most engaged and extroverted kids to the most withdrawn, fearful and anxious kids. For the shy ones amongst us, this fear comes from our biology, specifically from the reactivity of our nervous systems. Some kids grow out of shyness but many of us carry this anxiety into adulthood.

I had two shy parents so it is hardly surprising that I inherited a large dose of shyness. As a child and teenager this shyness often got in the way of me initiating social contact for fear of rejection. As an adult I have grappled with social anxiety and been forced to find strategies to overcome my irrational fears. One such strategy has been to create professional personas for myself, enabling me to function as an apparent extrovert in the workplace. In the memoir I label this persona ‘Professional Sian’ and analyse how she has managed to perform the roles of environment campaigner, choral conductor, opera singer, broadcaster, arts critic and university lecturer.

Managing anxiety often comes at a cost, though, particularly to the shy person’s body. Swinburne University psychologist Dr Simon Knowles has studied the ‘brain-gut axis’ and its role in the fraught relationship between anxiety and the gastro-intestinal system. Many of Dr Knowles’ anxious patients present with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), an inflammatory bowel disease cause by the interaction between the gut’s nervous system and the brain. My own digestive system has reacted to decades of nervous stress by developing a broad range of food intolerances.

While the symptoms of shyness can be difficult to control, the distress of social anxiety can be compounded by feelings of shame and embarrassment. We shy people often feel like incompetent idiots in social situations. English sociologist Dr Susie Scott believes that this feeling of relative incompetence is central to the experience of shyness. However she blames these feelings on what she calls ‘the illusion of competence’; the mistaken belief that we all have to present ourselves as socially competent all the time. In her book Shyness and Society: The Illusion of Competence (2007) Dr Scott argues that shy people are perceived as failing to pull their weight in social situations, and that while non-shyness is seen as normal and acceptable, shyness is seen as deviant and undesirable. The misperception of shyness as rudeness or aloofness plagues shy people, but in fact we long for social inclusion and connection.

However the news is not all bad. According to Macquarie University psychologist Professor Ron Rapee, shyness usually comes with a range of positive attributes, including greater sensitivity and greater levels of honesty. Shy people are often reliable, conscientious, good listeners who demonstrate high levels of empathy. Many shy people can be found in the caring professions, working in roles that are generally non-self-aggrandising and non-domineering.

The social acceptability of shyness is also somewhat dependent on the culture in which you’re living. According to Canadian psychologist Xinyin Chen (2010), whilst in North America parents typically react to their children’s shy-inhibited behaviour with disappointment, in group-oriented societies like China, shy-inhibited behaviour may be encouraged because it is conducive to group organization.

Back in the 1980s the lead singer of British band The Smiths offered a succinct summary of the situation for shy people. In the song Ask Morrisey sang: ‘Shyness is nice and shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you’d like to’. My autobiographical quest to understand shyness has not ‘cured’ me of this temperament trait, as I had hoped. It has, however, erased my shame and embarrassment about my social anxiety and reassured me that without shy people the world would be a much less compassionate place.

This column was first published in The Washington Post in 2014.