Affiliation:
1. Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour McMaster University Ontario Hamilton Canada
2. College of Preschool Education Shanghai Normal University Shanghai China
Abstract
AbstractPrevious research has shown that there are distinct types of children's shyness within eastern and western cultures, with different origins, developmental courses, and outcomes. However, the measures used to examine children's shyness in eastern contexts have been developed almost exclusively in the North American context. Whether shyness subtypes and their predictive associations are conserved between western and eastern cultures on a children's shyness measure developed in an eastern context is an empirical question. Here we examined (a) whether two subtypes from the Chinese Shyness Scale (i.e., anxious and regulated) were identified in a western context, and (b) whether cultural context moderated the relation between the two subtypes of shy behavior and a widely used western characterized social anxiety measure. The participants were children aged 3–5 years from China (Mage = 4.46 years, SD = 0.64, n = 182, 53.8% boys) and Canada (Mage = 3.99 years, SD = 0.82, n = 201, 42.3% boys). The results indicated that the two shyness subtypes and the one‐factor social anxiety construct were identified in both cultures. Subsequently, latent moderation structural equation modelling revealed that anxious shyness was significantly and positively related to social anxiety in children from both countries, but more strongly in Canada. Conversely, regulated shyness was significantly and positively related to social anxiety in Canadian children, but not in Chinese children. Findings are discussed regarding possible cultural explanations for why the relations between two Chinese shyness subtypes and social anxiety are different in Chinese and Canadian contexts and their implications to understanding cross‐cultural differences in developmental shyness.Research Highlights
Two subtypes of shyness (anxious and regulated shyness) reported in China were identified in both China and Canada
Country/culture moderated the relation between shyness subtypes and social anxiety
Anxious shyness was positively related to social anxiety in both countries
Regulated shyness was positively related to social anxiety in Canadian children, but not in Chinese children
Subject
Cognitive Neuroscience,Developmental and Educational Psychology
Cited by
3 articles.
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