Shyness, Unsociability, and Social Avoidance in Adolescence and Associations with Peer, Psychological, and School Adjustment

• In Event: 1-150 - Novel Investigations of Social Withdrawal Variations and Associations with Socio-emotional Adjustment During Adolescence

Integrative Statement

Understanding how social withdrawal relates to mental health, peer relationships, and school adjustment helps interventionists identify “red flags” and mechanisms that confer risk for maladjustment. People withdraw for different reasons: 1) shyness– wanting to socialize but being inhibited by anxiety, 2) unsociability– a non-fearful preference for solitude, and 3) social avoidance– disliking and wanting to avoid socializing (Asendorpf, 1990; Coplan et al., 2015). Shyness and unsociability have been well studied. Shyness is associated with maladjustment, whereas unsociability appears less problematic. Research on social avoidance, which is in its infancy, suggests it may be maladaptive in peer and psychological domains (Bowker & Raja, 2011; Coplan et al., 2018; Nelson, 2013; Sang et al., 2018). This is the first investigation of early adolescents’ shyness, unsociability, and social avoidance, and their unique relations with adjustment problems in the U.S. We hypothesized that shyness and avoidance (but not unsociability) would predict peer, internalizing, and school problems.

Parents were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk, and completed an online survey about their sixth- to eight-graders (N = 294; 54.1% boys; M age = 12.43 years). Adolescents were White (65.0%), Hispanic/Latinx/Spanish (3.4%), Black/African American (9.5%), Asian (4.4%), American Indian/Alaskan Native (0.7%), or multiple races/ethnicities (16.3%; 0.7% missing). Median household income was $65,000 and the mode of parents’ and partners’ education was college degree. Table 1 gives descriptive statistics.

Withdrawal subtypes were correlated, rs = .35 to .66, ps < .001. Thus, we used structural equation modeling to examine non-unique (Model 1, 2, 3) and unique (Model 4) prediction of latent peer problems (bullied, rejected, victimized), latent internalizing (depressed, overanxious, separation anxiety), school engagement, and academic competence. Sex, age, and SES were covariates (see Table 2).

Shyness, unsociability, and avoidance predicted similar patterns of maladjustment when examined individually. When outcomes were regressed on subtypes simultaneously to test unique relations, results were mostly consistent with hypotheses. Shyness and social avoidance predicted peer problems, internalizing, and low school engagement (but not academic competence).

Results provide novel insight into social avoidance and maladjustment at school. While avoidant adolescents may not have concurrent academic deficits, their school engagement is low. The relation between avoidance and low engagement was significantly stronger than between shyness and low engagement (which was marginal). Although speculative, low engagement may harm academic competence over time. Results also support the notion that avoidance is associated with poor peer relationships and mental health. Our findings suggest that shyness and avoidance are associated with independent risks for maladjustment in multiple domains.

Unsociability by itself was benign, consistent with previous studies. However, descriptive analyses suggested that adolescents in the top quartile of unsociability were more likely to be in the top quartile of social avoidance, shyness, or both (66%) than to be exclusively unsociable.

Overlap among withdrawal subtypes is not unique to these data (e.g., Bowker & Raja, 2011; Nelson, 2013), and deserves further attention. Another important future direction is to investigate the mechanisms responsible for withdrawn adolescents’ maladjustment in other domains.

Authors

• Natalie D. Eggum-Wilkens, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author

• Danming An, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sierra Clifford, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathryn Lemery-Chalfant, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author