Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Shyness, Unsociability, and Socio-Emotional Functioning at Preschool: The Protective Role of Peer Acceptance

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Child and Family Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In present study, we examined the protective role of peer acceptance in the links between two subtypes of social withdrawal (shyness, unsociability) and indices of young children’s socio-emotional functioning. Participants were N = 112 Italian preschool children (n = 54 boys) aged 36–74 months (M = 56.85 months, SD = 10.14). Multi-source assessments included: (1) parental ratings of children’s shyness and unsociability; (2) teacher ratings of children’s internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and social competence; (3) child interview assessments of preference for solitary play; and (4) peer (sociometric) ratings of peer acceptance. Among the results, shyness was associated with internalizing problems at preschool, whereas unsociability was related to a preference for solitary play. In addition, results from multiple regression analyses indicated significant interactions between peer acceptance and both shyness and unsociability in the association with indices of socio-emotional functioning. For example, at lower levels of peer acceptance, shyness was positively related to children’s preference for solitary play, whereas children’s unsociability was associated with externalizing problems. In contrast, these relations were attenuated at higher levels of peer acceptance. Findings are discussed in term of the potential protective role of young children’s peer acceptance for different subtypes of social withdrawal during early childhood.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Arbeau, K. A., Coplan, R. J., & Weeks, M. (2010). Shyness, teacher—child relationships, and socio-emotional adjustment in grade 1. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 34, 259–269. doi:10.1177/0165025409350959.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Asendorpf, J. B. (1990). Beyond social withdrawal: Shyness, unsociability, and peer avoidance. Human Development, 33, 250–259. doi:10.1159/000276522.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Asher, S. R., Singleton, L. C., Tinsley, B. R., & Hymel, S. (1979). A reliable sociometric measure for preschool children. Developmental Psychology, 15, 443–444. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.15.4.443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bohlin, G., Hagekull, B., & Andersson, K. (2005). Behavioral inhibition as a precursor of peer social competence in early school age: The interplay with attachment and nonparental care. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 51, 1–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23096047.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chronis-Tuscano, A., Rubin, K. H., O’Brien, K. A., Coplan, R. J., Thomas, S. R., & Dougherty, L. R., et al. (2015). Preliminary evaluation of a multimodal early intervention program for behaviorally inhibited preschoolers. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 83, 534–540. doi:10.1037/a0039043.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Clauss, J. A., & Blackford, J. U. (2012). Behavioral inhibition and risk for developing social anxiety disorder: A meta-analytic study. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 51, 1066–1075. doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2012.08.002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coplan, R. J., Arbeau, K. A., & Armer, M. (2008). Don’t fret, be supportive! Maternal characteristics linking child shyness to psychosocial and school adjustment in kindergarten. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 36, 359–371. doi:10.1007/s10802-007-9183-7.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Coplan, R. J., DeBow, A., Schneider, B. H., & Graham, A. A. (2009). The social behaviours of inhibited children in and out of preschool. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27, 891–905. doi:10.1348/026151008X396153.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Coplan, R. J., Girardi, A., Findlay, L. C., & Frohlick, S. L. (2007). Understanding solitude: Young children’s attitudes and responses toward hypothetical socially withdrawn peers. Social Development, 16, 390–409. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9507.2007.00390.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coplan, R. J., Ooi, L. L., & Nocita, G. (2015). When one is company and two is a crowd: Why some children prefer solitude. Child Development Perspectives, 9, 133–137. doi:10.1111/cdep.12131.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coplan, R. J., Ooi, L. L., Rose-Krasnor, L., & Nocita, G. (2014). ‘I Want to play alone’: Assessment and correlates of self-reported preference for solitary play in young children. Infant and Child Development, 23, 229–238. doi:10.1002/icd.1854.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coplan, R. J., Prakash, K., O’Neil, K., & Armer, M. (2004). Do you ‘want’ to play? Distinguishing between conflicted shyness and social disinterest in early childhood. Developmental Psychology, 40, 244–258. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.40.2.244.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Coplan, R. J., Rose-Krasnor, L., Weeks, M., Kingsbury, A., Kingsbury, M., & Bullock, A. (2013). Alone is a crowd: Social motivations, social withdrawal, and socioemotional functioning in later childhood. Developmental Psychology, 49, 861–875. doi:10.1037/a0028861.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Coplan, R. J., Schneider, B. H., Matheson, A., & Graham, A. A. (2010). “Play skills” for shy children: Development of a social skills-facilitated play early intervention program for extremely inhibited preschoolers. Infant and Child Development, 19, 223–237. doi:10.1002/icd.668.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coplan, R. J., & Weeks, M. (2010). Unsociability in childhood. In K. H. Rubin, & R. J. Coplan (Eds.), The development of shyness and social withdrawal (pp. 64–83). New York: Guilford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curran, P. J., West, S. G., & Finch, J. F. (1996). The robustness of test statistics to nonnormality and specification error in confirmatory factor analysis. Psychological Methods, 1, 16–29. doi:10.1037//1082-989X.1.1.16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ding, X., Weeks, M., Liu, J., Sang, B., & Zhou, Y. (2015). Relations between unsociability and peer problems in Chinese children: Moderating effect of behavioural control. Infant and Child Development, 24, 94–103. doi:10.1002/icd.1864.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Doey, L., Coplan, R. J., & Kingsbury, M. (2014). Bashful boys and coy girls: A review of gender differences in childhood shyness. Sex Roles, 70, 255–266. doi:10.1007/s11199-013-0317-9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dyson, M. W., Klein, D. N., Olino, T. M., Dougherty, L. R., & Durbin, C. E. (2011). Social and non-social behavioral inhibition in preschool-age children: Differential associations with parent-reports of temperament and anxiety. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 42, 390–405. doi:10.1007/s10578-011-0225-6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eggum-Wilkens, N. D., Valiente, C., Swanson, J., & Lemery-Chalfant, K. (2014). Children’s shyness, popularity, school liking, cooperative participation, and internalizing problems in the early school years. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 29, 85–94. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2013.10.002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., & Knafo, A. (2015). Prosocial development. In M. Lamb, C. Garcia-Coll, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (7th ed.), New York, NY: Wiley. (Vol. Ed.),

    Google Scholar 

  • Gazelle, H., & Ladd, G. W. (2003). Anxious solitude and peer exclusion: A diathesis-stress model of internalizing trajectories in childhood. Child Development, 74, 257–278. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3696355

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gazelle, H., & Rudolph, K. D. (2004). Moving toward and away from the world: Social approach and avoidance trajectories in anxious solitary youth. Child Development, 75, 1–21. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00709.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodwin, R. D., Fergusson, D. M., & Horwood, L. J. (2004). Early anxious/withdrawn behaviours predict later internalising disorders. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 874–883. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.00279.x.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Graham, A. A., & Coplan, R. J. (2012). Shyness, sibling relationships, and young children’s socioemotional adjustment at preschool. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 26, 435–449. doi:10.1080/02568543.2012.711802.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrist, A. W., Zaia, A. F., Bates, J. E., Dodge, K. A., & Pettit, G. S. (1997). Subtypes of social withdrawal in early childhood: Sociometric status and social-cognitive differences across four years. Child Development, 68, 278–294. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1131850.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, K. M., Schulkin, J., & Schmidt, L. A. (2014). Shyness: Subtypes, psychosocial correlates, and treatment interventions. Psychology, 5, 244–254. doi:10.4236/psych.2014.53035.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kagan, J. (1997). Temperament and the reactions to the unfamiliarity. Child Development, 68, 139–143. doi:10.2307/1131931.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Karevold, E., Coplan, R., Stoolmiller, M., & Mathiesen, K. S. (2011). A longitudinal study of the links between temperamental shyness, activity, and trajectories of internalising problems from infancy to middle childhood. Australian Journal of Psychology, 63, 36–43. doi:10.1111/j.17429536.2011.00005.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karevold, E., Ystrom, E., Coplan, R. J., Sanson, A. V., & Mathiesen, K. S. (2012). A prospective longitudinal study of shyness from infancy to adolescence: Stability, age-related changes, and prediction of socio-emotional functioning. Journal of abnormal child psychology, 40, 1167–1177. doi:10.1007/s10802-012-9635-6.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kopala-Sibley, D. C., & Klein, D. N. (2016). Distinguishing types of social withdrawal in children: Internalizing and externalizing outcomes of conflicted shyness versus social disinterest across childhood. Journal of Research in Personality. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2016.01.003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ladd, G. W., & Troop-Gordon, W. (2003). The role of chronic peer difficulties in the development of children’s psychological adjustment problems. Child Development, 74, 1344–1367. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00611.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • LaFreniere, P. J., & Dumas, J. E. (1996). Social competence and behavior evaluation in children ages 3 to 6 years: The short form (SCBE-30). Psychological Assessment, 8, 369–377. doi:10.1037/10403590.8.4.369.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li, Y., Coplan, R. J., Wang, Y., Yin, J., Zhu, J., Gao, Z., & Li, L. (2016). Preliminary evaluation of a social skills training and facilitated play early intervention program for extremely shy young children in China. Infant and Child Development. doi:10.1002/icd.1959.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, Y., Zhu, J. J., Coplan, R. J., Gao, Z. Q., Xu, P., Li, L., & Zhang, H. (2016). Assessment and implications of social withdrawal subtypes in young Chinese children: The Chinese version of the Child Social Preference Scale. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 177, 97–101. doi:10.1080/00221325.2016.1174100.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, J., Chen, X., Coplan, R. J., Ding, X., Zarbatany, L., & Ellis, W. (2015). Shyness and unsociability and their relations with adjustment in Chinese and Canadian children. Journal of Cross- Cultural Psychology, 46, 371–386. doi:10.1177/0022022114567537.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, J., Coplan, R. J., Chen, X., Li, D., Ding, X., & Zhou, Y. (2014). Unsociability and shyness in Chinese children: Concurrent and predictive relations with indices of adjustment. Social Development, 23, 119–136. doi:10.1111/sode.12034.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malti, T., Gummerum, M., Keller, M., Chaparro, M. P., & Buchman, M. (2012). Early sympathy and social acceptance predict the development of sharing in children. Plos One, 7, e52017. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0052017.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Markovic, A., & Bowker, J. C. (2015). Shy but funny? An examination of peer-valued characteristics as moderators of the associations between anxious-withdrawal and peer outcomes during early adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 44, 833–846. doi:10.1007/s10964-014-0113-z.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Okada, R., Tani, I., Ohnishi, M., Nakajima, S., & Tsujii, M. (2012). Development of a Japanese version of Child Social Preference Scale. Japanese Journal of Psychology, 83, 44–50.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rubin, K. H., Bukowski, W. M., & Bowker, J. C. (2015). Children in peer groups. In R. M. Lerner (Series Ed.), M. H. Bornstein, & T. Leventhal (Vol. Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science: Ecological settings and processes in developmental systems. 7th ed. (Vol. 4, pp. 175–222). New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubin, K. H., Coplan, R. J., & Bowker, J. (2009). Social withdrawal in childhood. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 141–171. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163642.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Rubin, K. H., Wojslawowicz, J. C., Rose-Krasnor, L. R., Booth-LaForce, C., & Burgess, K. B. (2006). The best friendships of shy/withdrawn children: Prevalence, stability, and relationship quality. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 34(3), 139–153. doi:10.1007/s10802-005-9017-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sette, S., Baumgartner, E., & MacKinnon, D. P. (2015). Assessing social competence and behavior problems in a sample of italian preschoolers using the social competence and behavior evaluation scale (SCBE). Early Education and Development, 26(1), 46–65. doi:10.1080/10409289.2014.941259.

  • Sette, S., Baumgartner, E., & Schneider, B. H. (2014). Shyness, child–teacher relationships, and socio‐emotional adjustment in a sample of Italian preschool-aged children. Infant and Child Development, 23, 323–332. doi:10.1002/icd.1859.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spangler, T., & Gazelle, H. (2009). Anxious solitude, unsociability, and peer exclusion in middle childhood: A multitrait–multimethod matrix. Social Development, 18, 833–856. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9507.2008.00517.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Torres, M. M., Domitrovich, C. E., & Bierman, K. L. (2015). Preschool interpersonal relationships predict kindergarten achievement: Mediated by gains in emotion knowledge. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 39, 44–52. doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2015.04.008.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Walker, O. L., Henderson, H. A., Degnan, K. A., Penela, E. C., & Fox, N. A. (2014). Associations between behavioral inhibition and children’s social problem-solving behavior during social exclusion. Social Development, 23, 487–501. doi:10.1111/sode.12053.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy

    Stefania Sette, Federica Zava, Emma Baumgartner & Roberto Baiocco

  2. Department of Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

    Robert J. Coplan

Authors
  1. Stefania Sette
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Federica Zava
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Emma Baumgartner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Roberto Baiocco
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Robert J. Coplan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefania Sette.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sette, S., Zava, F., Baumgartner, E. et al. Shyness, Unsociability, and Socio-Emotional Functioning at Preschool: The Protective Role of Peer Acceptance. J Child Fam Stud 26, 1196–1205 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-016-0638-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-016-0638-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation