Parental cultural orientation, shyness, and anxiety in Hispanic children: An exploratory study

a r t i c l e i n f o This study examined associations between parental cultural orientation, childhood shyness, and anxiety symptoms in a sample of Hispanic American children (N = 127). Parents completed measures of their level of acculturation, collectivism, and socialization goals, while children provided self-reports of anxiety symptoms and both parents and children provided reports of children's shyness. Results provided some support for the relationship between parental cultural orientation and expressed shyness in children. Additionally, results suggested that although increasing levels of parental collectivism are associated with more consistent levels of child shyness across social contexts; shyness with peers is uniquely associated with anxiety symptoms. Implications of these results for future research on social development and internalizing problems in Hispanic children are discussed. Introduction Shyness refers to feelings of discomfort and inhibition that are specific to social situations (Van Ameringen et al., 1998). Shy children lack social initiative when in the presence of others and consistently exhibit quietness and self-consciousness. Conceptions of shyness have highlighted feelings of fear when encountering novel social situations as well as concerns about negative evaluation across familiar and unfamiliar social contexts (Rubin, Burgess, & Coplan, 2002). The related construct of behavioral inhibition focuses on a disposition to be wary and fearful of novel social and nonsocial situations whereas the construct of social withdrawal refers to isolating oneself from both Research conducted with North American children of European descent suggests an association between shyness and inhibition in early childhood and poor functional outcomes in later development, including peer rejection, isolation, and school failure (Rubin, Chen, McDougall, Bower & McKinnon, 1995). Inhibited children are often viewed as being less socially competent and mature relative to more suggest that shyness and inhibition are predictive of later anxiety shyness-inhibition is generally related to social difficulties and psychopathology in childhood and adolescence. Conversely, studies of Chinese children suggest that shyness and inhibition may actually be adaptive. In Chinese culture, shy children are regarded as socially competent and understanding (Chen et al., 1998) and shy behavior is positively related to general self-esteem, leadership, school adjustment, academic achievement, peer acceptance , and teacher assessed competence studies of shyness in Western cultures, studies of shyness in Chinese culture suggest that childhood shyness is associated with adequate school and social adjustment and positive developmental outcomes. These contradictory findings suggest that shyness may be a culturally bound construct with differing …