Shyness and psychological adjustment: the moderating role of friendship relationships

Methods A total of 683 adolescents who were attending secondary and high schools in Florence were enrolled: 398 early adolescents (220 males and 178 females) aged 11 to 13 (M = 12.32; SD = 0.71) and 285 late adolescents (161 males and 124 females) age 17 to 19 (M = 17.71; SD = 0.68). Subjects completed a battery of questionnaires that included measures of shyness, quantitative and qualitative aspects of friendship and internalising problems. Shyness was assessed using the Italian version (Ponti & Tani, 2009) of the Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale (RCBS; Cheek, 1983). Reciprocal friendships were measured using friendship nominations (Bukowski, Hoza, & Boivin, 1994) and friendship qualities were assessed via the Italian version (Ponti, Guarnieri, Smorti, & Tani, 2010) of the Friendship Qualities Scale (FQS; Bukowski et al., 1994), which assesses 5 dimensions: conflict, companionship, help, security and closeness. Internalising problems were assessed using the Italian version (Pastorelli, Gerbino, Vecchio, Steca, Picconi & Paciello, 2002) of the Youth Self Report (YSR) developed by Achenbach (1991). Two analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted to assess between group differences in the number of reciprocal friendship and in levels of social rejection. Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) were conducted to assess between group differences in friendship relationship qualities. Finally, a series of hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to explore the moderating role of the quality of friendship relationship on the correlation between shyness and psychological adjustment.