Causes of Shyness

[Certain Hope]

Wow!

I started out looking for info on the topic of shy extraverts/extroverts and didn't get far... yet. This article caught my eye and provides so much insight, I had to share it here. Excerpts only... it's 9 pages... but the whole thing is well worth reading.

The very first statement grabbed me:  " Shyness is an over generalized response to fear--and its easy to beat, once you understand this. "
from Are You Shy?  by Bernardo Carducci & Philip G. Zimbardo


http://psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-19951101-000030&page=1

If only 15 to 20 percent of infants are born shy and nearly 50 percent of us are shy in adulthood, where do all the shy adults come from? The only logical answer is that shyness is acquired along the way.

One powerful source is the nature of the emotional bond parents forge with their children in the earliest years of life. According to Paul Pilkonis, children whose parenting was such that it gave rise to an insecure attachment are more likely to end up shy. Children form attachments to their care givers from the routine experiences of care, feeding, and caressing. When caretaking is inconsistent and unreliable, parents fail to satisfy the child's need for security, affection, and comfort, resulting in insecure bonds. As the first relationship, attachment becomes the blueprint for all later relationships. Although there are no longitudinal studies spotlighting the development of shyness from toddlerhood to adulthood, there is research showing that insecure early attachment can predict shyness later on.

"The most damnable part of it is that this insecure attachment seems to become self-fulfilling," observes Pilkonis. Because of a difficult relationship to their parents, children internalize a sense of themselves as having problems with all relationships. They generalize the experience--and come to expect that teachers, coaches, and peers won't like them very much.

These are the narcissistically vulnerable--the wound to the self is early and deep, and easily evoked. They are quick to become disappointed in relationships, quick to feel rejection, shame, ridicule. They are relentlessly self-defeating, interpreting even success as failure. "They have negative perceptions of themselves and of themselves in relation to others that they hold onto at all costs," says Pilkonis.    (Sounds like the early stages of what can develop into NPD to me!)

And check this out, please:

Biology and relationship history are not the sole creators of shyness.
Culture counts, too. Shyness exists universally, although it is not experienced or defined the same way from culture to culture.
Even Zimbardo's earliest surveys hinted at cultural differences in shyness: Japanese and Taiwanese students consistently expressed the highest level of shyness, Jewish students the lowest. With these clues, Zimbardo took himself to Japan, Israel, and Taiwan to study college students. The cross-cultural studies turned up even greater cultural differences than the American survey. In Israel, only 30 percent of college-age students report being shy--versus 60 percent in Japan and Taiwan.

From conversations with foreign colleagues and parents, Zimbardo acquired unprecedented insights into how culture shapes behavior in general, and more specifically the cultural roots of shyness. The key is in the way parents attribute blame or praise in the performance of their children. When a child tries and fails at a task, who gets the blame? And when a child tries and succeeds, who gets the credit?

In Japan, if a child tries and succeeds, the parents get the credit. So do the grandparents, teachers, coaches, even Buddha. If there's any left over, only then is it given to the child. But if the child tries and fails, the child is fully culpable and cannot blame anyone else. An "I can't win" belief takes hold, so that children of the culture never take a chance or do anything that will make them stand out. As the Japanese proverb states, "the nail that stands out is pounded down." The upshot is a low-key interpersonal style. Kids are likely to be modest and quiet; they do little to call attention to themselves. In fact, in studies of American college students' individuation tendencies--the endorsement of behaviors that will make a person stand out, unique, or noticed--Asian students tend to score the lowest. They are much less likely to speak or act up in a social gathering for fear of calling attention to themselves.

In Israel, the attributional style is just the opposite. A child who tries gets rewarded, regardless of the outcome. Consider the Yiddish expression kvell, which means to engage in an outsize display of pride. If a child tries to make a kite, people kvell by pointing out what a great kite it is. And if it doesn't fly, parents blame it on the wind. If a child tries and fails in a competitive setting, parents and others might reproach the coach for not giving the child enough training. In such a supportive environment, a child senses that failure does not have a high price--and so is willing to take a risk. With such a belief system, a person is highly likely to develop chutzpah, a type of audacity whereby one always take a chance or risk--with or without the talent. Children of such a value system are more apt to speak up or ask someone to dance at a party without overwhelming self-consciousness.

*****************************************************
And this:

Without a circle of close friends or relatives, people are more vulnerable to risk. Lacking the opportunity to share feelings and fears with others, isolated people allow them to fester or escalate. What's more, they are prone to paranoia; there's no one around to correct their faulty thinking, no checks and balances on their beliefs. We all need someone to tell us when our thinking is ridiculous, that there is no Mafia in suburban Ohio, that no one is out to get you, that you've just hit a spate of bad luck.

Research continues...

Hope

[Overcomer]

I know one thing.  I am an extrovert and am a bit shy.  My mom is an introvert and goes out of her way to connect with people-especially those of importance.  My H is shy and I am convinced it is because he was forced to be silent as a child.  Me?  My self esteem was eroded throughout my life and I am afraid of being ridiculed and hushed.  I am getting over it and my H is trying too as he was put into a position to sell his services at his job.  As we push through those insecurities we win.

[BonesMS]

The Attachment Theory makes a LOT of sense!  Imagine a newborn attempting to attach to an Nmother...especially if the newborn has birth defects.  That is a formula for the child to potentially wind up shy from the non-stop abuse (mental, physical, emotional, etc.) from the Nmother because a "DEFECTIVE makes her look bad" to her friends and neighbors.

No wonder I tend to hide when confronted with new situations!

Bones

[isittoolate]

Hi hope,
I know you read this on my thread but even though it describes me and about buried emotions, I was painfully shy--had nothiing to say, as I would suspect my feelings were not taken into consideration as 1/5 kids.
Love Izzy

1.)
To this day, his anger is so deeply buried that his surface is passive, sometimes like there's no life in him. He’s terrified of his own or anyone's anger. All his life's energy, his spirit, is buried deeply with his anger.
 
2.)
The pain of shame comes when you believe that something in life has damaged you, perhaps permanently and beyond repair. Maybe you were abused, ridiculed, or neglected as a child. Maybe your family hides some dark secret, or you have been involved in some activity you deem subhuman. Whatever the cause, you see yourself as defective and worthless, and every day for you is a "walk of shame."

The pain of shame forces you to fear being exposed for who you really are. Thus you do one of two things: you work desperately to be perfect, to be above scrutiny, or you withdraw from life and don't even try to measure up.
 
3.) Emotions are feelings that have been suppressed/repressed in our very early years, primarily during our infancy and toddler years.   

A major inner turmoil forms early when we are taught by our adult caregivers actions not to allow our self to feel our feelings

4.) In the recovery process dealing with feelings IS NOT A " BLAME GAME". Even though the origin of emotional trauma can be traced to our early childhood as a result of actions of our caregivers the original " act " can be attributed to in most cases as “Innocent Ignorance". 

 "The responsible course of action is to take the responsibility ourselves to heal our emotional trauma and do not pass the abuse onto anyone else!  Not even the alleged originator and especially do not dump it on innocent children!"
I am not blaming anyone, as we do the best we can with what we know and what to do with it. I know I made mistakes with my daughter, and I’m not sure the therapist can connect my head thoughts to all the emotions that are trapped inside.

[enough]

i, too, was painfully shy.  i remember vividly being in the supermarket with my M. i was small enough to be in the front of the shopping cart,  you know, where kids sit and their legs stick out.  the woman at the deli counter said, 'oh! aren't you cute!' and i barfed all over my M.

i also threw up for half the year in kindergarten; every single day when i got to school.
good heavens.

i'm still shy, but thank goodness stopped throwing up on people.

[Certain Hope]

Kelly,

Yup... pushing through.

I know how I was as a child, and what I became as an adult,
but I don't believe that either of those models is my God-given personality and
the Myers-Briggs type testing only creates more questions in my mind.

The results of one such online assessment gave me 82% ISFP and 83% ESFP..
okay, so I am both? So it feels.
Then there's 74% ESTP and 62% ISTP...
yeah huh.  lol.

I take all of these tests and theories with a grain of salt, and yet, I do sense alot of internal changes
in the way I'm functioning. My thought is that shyness, some inherent, but most a consequence of parenting,
is the confusion-factor here. So... tracing that shyness back to its roots and understanding its effects
seems to be the way to allow for greater expression in life... and more satisfying relationships!
Good theory?

To the best of my recollection, in the midst of extreme turmoil in dealing with my kids' dad and his
mess years ago, my "type" was INFJ.  Now, that particular profile fits me only to 34%... that's quite a shift.
Rather than just floating through the rest of my life as I've always done, I'd like to take a more deliberate approach
toward directing the flow... because, so far, it's sure not been too positively productive.


Bones,

Yes! In my situation, I know that having any personality unique and separate from my mother would be considered a "defect" in her eyes.
Dear Bones, I hope it's okay to say... if you've spoken of it here on the board, I've missed it... is the example you mentioned
of "birth defects" relative to you personally? Hugs to you... I'll wait to hear more (or less) before plunging blindly on here...

Izzy,

Thank you for posting that summary here... it all ties in directly here. I'm trying to take an objective look at the different
circumstances which work together to create such shy withdrawal and also to look deeper into the aspects of shame which may be involved.

"The pain of shame forces you to fear being exposed for who you really are..."

See, I'm not sure who I thought I really was then... it's all very fuzzy and I don't have the more direct, obvious forms of abuse to to which to connect and relate it all. I need a deeper understanding, I guess... must be tied in with my 50/50 needing-so-many-words- to-express-myself disability. I don't feel like I outgrew my shyness like some folks may do. Feels more like it was always an artificial thing from the beginning... not so inborn. I can't explain.

Enough,

That really is so painful... almost like your whole body worked together to expel the attention being directed your way.
Hugs to you... you must have been so frightened! I wish that we could remember what went through our minds at those times.
Maybe it wasn't a matter of thoughts, but surely there were some... some ideas behind the fear.
Trying to understand something with the brain that is so far beyond the intellectual realm is boggling, I know... and maybe
not even possible... but I just feel like I have to try.

Love to all... more info coming soon.

Hope

[isittoolate]

hi

I use this example for me to understand shame.

Dad beats one of us kids. Kid cries. We see it happen. Mom doesn't stop him. It's all over

We sit down to dinner together as though nothing happened, and not a word is said about the beating, then or ever.

We know something is wrong, but it's never talked about!

repeat and repeat for all five of us.

Part of everyday growing up, but sure feels wrong. I feel my shame caused my shyness and inability to voice an opinion.

Izzy

[Certain Hope]

Iz,

Right away, I sense that reading your post puts me into my "head" mode and I think...

didn't anyone get angry? Didn't anyone fight back?

Then I feel... I had emotional beatings and didn't "know" it was wrong, in my head... only felt smaller and smaller and more invisible...

a young child can't reason her way out of what feels so bad.

When nobody says, Stop! and nobody comforts the beaten child, all the wrongness of it gets absorbed... it has to go someplace.

Some seem to click over into anger. I wonder whether those are the "not shy" ones... like my brother, "the star".

He could throw a bigger and much more lively temper tantrum than my mother, whose rage was icy.

I guess your siblings did get angry, but they used you as the object of their tantrums... you didn't fight back...

and neither did I when my brother mocked me and dad called me knucklehead. I just put on my stone face and,,,
"hardy-har-har,"  they'd say... "c'mon, smile... I thought you and me wuz buddies"

Same shame, different reason, I guess.

[isittoolate]

Hi Hope,

I know *I* didn't fight back. I know one sister did, so maybe two, but one of them said she felt that I was the family scapegoat.

So you are on target there!!!!

......and the other I'm sure is an N. We have no contact.

The sis add bro who came out here were the youngest and I know they received their share, but Not as much, if memory serves.

oh the horrors of childhood!

Lovve
Izzy

[enough]

ugh, izzy, your story rings so true!
i've been thinking about all that; i know that i came to the defense of my younger brothers (7 and 9 years younger than me) when i was a teenager, but i certainly felt even more wrath for having done that.
so strange; one brother committed suicide at 16 and the other is EXACTLY like our F.

[pennyplant]

the woman at the deli counter said, 'oh! aren't you cute!' and i barfed all over my M.

Maybe I should have barfed all over my parents  .  But I always "behaved".  I have a baby picture from when I was one year old.  My mother is sitting on the floor laughing hysterically and I am next to her with my face twisted up into a hideous scowl.  That was the face I made any time anyone, friend or stranger, said, "Isn't she cute?" to me.  So, my mother had said it in order to get a picture of this face I would make.  I guess I was pretty uncomfortable with any kind of attention, even positive attention, from a very early age.

Hope, this research is very, very interesting.  Especially the cultural differences.  That makes it seem to me that shyness must be learned, at least partly.  I think my shyness is from fear.  It may have started out as a personality quirk, but I didn't get to fully outgrow it before I got shamed and ridiculed back into my shell.

My youngest son had a friend in high school who was painfully shy and quiet.  Her parents were quite worried about her.  But they let her do her own thing and over time she came out of her shell.  She is still soft-spoken but has self-confidence and many friends.  She started out as a smart little girl who would barely speak and ended up as a cheerleader and Jr. Miss contestant by senior year.  Now she has a nursing degree and is working as a nurse and living on her own at the age of 21.  Her parents just let her be and supported her as she grew and found her voice.

Pennyplant

[Certain Hope]

(((((((((Izzy))))))))  

I'm sorry that no one stood up on your behalf... or on behalf of your siblings... to stop the beatings and abuse.
People get frozen in passivity for different reasons... helplessness and hopelessness combined, or just completely dissociating... God only knows.

In my small family of origin, my mother and dad were capable of presenting a united front against me, on occasion.
This would be appropriate, I think, except - on the other hand - whenever it suited them, each would take her/his turn at making me their ally against the other.
And my dad continues this same routine to this day... constantly. I'm back to letting their letters pile up, because I simply don't want to hear it. I'm just beginning to understand the concept of emotional incest.

Mother seems to have dropped it, at last...  she now appears to be fully occupying her self-appointed martyr role.
By the way, one of her favorite things now, it seems (past year or so)... she likes to tell me of all her physical problems while pointing out that I'll be just as decrepit as she, all in good time. What the heck. Truly a miserable woman.

Then there were other dynamics...
 Once my brother married and was out of the home (when I was 10) he and dad took every opportunity at "family gatherings" to join forces against mother and commiserate with each other about the wicked females in their lives. Also each, in turn, used me as the verbal/emotional punching bag for their anger against my controlling mother...
"you're just like your mother". Why? I didn't say anything. I didn't do anything. I was just a female who breathed and happened to get caught in their crossfire. Brother would make all sorts of outrageous statements against me and nobody ever said a word, including me. I'd just laugh it off... ha ha  
This is so lame, Izzy... next to all you've been through... but it hurt...  years ago, at my oldest daughter's 10th bday party, all the family was at our house. It was a really nice gathering and I was tending to everyone's drinks, etc, picnicing outside... and they were singing. Big show, especially dad and brother... huge, deep voices... and when they finished one song, I asked (hard for me to ask anything...) would they sing "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling"? Arrogant brother looked straight at me with the same evil sneer I've seen on npd-ex and said, "No!".  I'm not part of the fun... the in-group... the superior-male-dominated-freak-zone they consider their family. Not belligerent enough for them, not perfect enough for my mother, not anything. Just a servant.

I don't know what it would be like now, if the 4 of us got together.
I know when I was there with just my parents recently, I was completely detached - like a house-guest who did dishes and repaired things in payment for room/board.
I didn't feel like their daughter at all and I wonder whether my mother even noticed. Pretty sure dad did... but of course, no one says a word.
I'm glad that I'm not a part of family gatherings... if there is such a thing anymore... and then I feel guilty because I'm glad.
Much like  I felt guilty about being so relieved when npd-ex was gone.
I'm just trying to sort/figure/decide/whatever...
whether it's okay with me that the three of them have no clue how their dysfunction affected me. Better yet, is it okay with God?
Awfully late to even bring it up...  what would be the point? After all, it's no big deal for a "normal" person who's not so sensitive.
They never wanted to know me before. Too much trouble, I guess.

So now I just put this down into words and I feel it... because I never did before, completely... Iphi's cerebral N thread brought it out full force and talking with you about feelings has worked it out. I feel it big time.
I've never before in my life been equipped to face what I'd become... and why.
And now there's no relationship to build on with my family... and not much time to start one... and I'd rather not try... because I'm shy.
heh
Or am I?

Love,
Hope

[Certain Hope]

Well, after all that, now I see where the shame came from... the part of the shame that I could reason out, anyway...

I was ashamed at being so stupid, as I saw it, for feeling hurt by such silly things.

That particular shame doesn't come from my mother's issues at all... but it still makes my ears red and leaves me feeling very small.

on edit: Wait, yes it does come from her... she's the one who enforced the stoic image... but dad and brother are the ones who brought out the shame with their crass, hateful, passive-aggressive "humor" and... oh sheesh, maybe they're all 3 N's. No empathy?
Yeah, that about covers it.

[teartracks]

Hi Hope,

Yes, I believe fear is at the root of shyness.  I lost almost all my memories from childhood.  Was, however, left with a few still pictures in my mind.  One of the still pictures was a snapshot of that awful moment in time when my personhood was taken from me.  I am introverted by nature.  I like that about me.  I think I was made that way, meant to be that way, but the  anxiety, the fear, the shyness that was pounded/planted in me  that fateful day, has bedeviled me since I was 2 1/2 years old.  It is awful.  

tt

[isittoolate]

hi Hope,
whatever.....a hurt is a hurt is a hurt. There must be an end to it, or it settles someplace inside where you can't get at it ....(I think it is in the small intestine somewhere, clinging, like red meat, to the walls.....we all need a high colonic.... I heard that John Wayne had 69# of red meat clinging to his walls, when he died)

...oops off topic...
Today I keep going over and over how I put that man in his place and have saved me years of heartache. The words just flowed out naturally and not angrily, and I wish I had done it 12 years ago. We need to speak up for others and for ourselves and it takes good, loving parents to raise us, love us, and teach us the right ways, so we can get on with life.

I sure wish I had that ability all my life rather than at the tail end of it....

...and fear? well I believe I have been motivated by fear...to do a good job, to be punctual, to never give up, to be honest & trustworthy or..................(thinking back to the beatings.)

wow Lookkee me telling myself I have good points!

hiya tt

I am not sure I understand your post, but a "fateful day, has bedeviled me since I was 2 1/2 years old.  It is awful. that is awful....when bad memories that won't go away.....

God help us all!

Love Izzy

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