A recent study suggests that shy people are better at reading faces than people who are not shy
For a shy person, hyper-social settings like a university campus can create an incredibly daunting experience.
The averted gaze, closed-off body language, and quiet, short replies: their unease in social situations is easy to recognize.
This behaviour can make a shy person seem uninterested and even standoffish.
But a recent breakthrough in scientific research suggests that shyness may not be a character flaw, as most people would think.
In April 2003, a study conducted by Israeli scientists Shoshana Arbelle, Richard Ebstein, and associates found that some individuals may have a genetic predisposition for developing shyness.
In the study, 100 second-grade children along with their parents and teachers were assessed for shyness through the use of questionnaires.
The researchers discovered a variation of the 5-HTTLPR gene contributed to a higher level of shyness among the children.
A recent study from August 2012 suggests that shy people are better at recognizing certain facial expressions.
Researchers at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale found shy people are able to identify fear and sadness more easily than those who are not shy.
The results of the study, however, contradict previous studies that concluded that shy people often misinterpret facial expressions.
The participants in those studies, however, were children, while those in the latest study conducted at Southern Illinois University were college-aged students.
This difference in age suggests that the ability to read facial expressions changes as one gets older.
Frank Marchese, professor of psychology at York, says, “Shy individuals are very attentive to their social environment, and are especially sensitive to the face, which is a very revealing feature that we all take into account as a source of information about others’ feelings or mood state.”
He says shy individuals, not wanting to draw attention to themselves or engage in inappropriate social behaviour, pay careful attention to faces.
According to a study conducted by researchers at Stony Brook University of New York, Southwest University, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, shy individuals have an especially reactive nervous system, easily activated by social cues. This is referred to as the arousability hypothesis. This hypothesis may explain why shy people are better at reading faces: they pay more attention to subtle social cues.
Marchese says that the arousability hypothesis can be linked to another theory that 20 per cent of people are born with a trait called sensory perception sensitivity, which can express itself as shyness.
“Genetic predispositions are not all-or-nothing,” says Marchese, adding that they are sometimes very high, and at other times, low.
Environmental factors may play a role in the manifestation of one’s predisposition to shyness. These factors include shy parents, or an older sibling making the individual with the genetic predisposition for shyness feel inadequate, and thus causing them to become inhibited.
Are there ways to overcome shyness? For adults, cognitive talk therapy can often help patients to see their anxieties more clearly, placing less importance on social situations. Behavioural therapy is another option which gradually exposes patients to social situations.
Marchese says while parents can make children less inhibited at home, once they become more independent and spend more time outside the home, their genetic predisposition may re-assert itself in the form of shyness.
So while scientists argue that it is unlikely shyness can be completely erased, shy individuals can take comfort in some of the upsides of their inhibitions.
In addition to being better at reading facial expressions, shy people usually do better in school, and are less likely to be involved in any kind of violence or crime.
Scientists have also suggested that the sensitivity trait associated with shyness may have an evolutionary advantage because it has been found in over 100 other species.
This may be because this trait is useful in dangerous situations where thought and observation is required before taking action.
Lastly, shy individuals can find some relief in the fact that many of the most accomplished people in all of history have been described as shy and introverted.
Shyness did not stop Albert Einstein from coming up with the theory of relativity, or prevent Abraham Lincoln from abolishing slavery, and there is no reason why being a little shy should stop someone from living a happy and fulfilling life.
Tamara Khandaker
Copy Editor
