Informed by past theory and research on social withdrawal, the aims of this study were to investigate whether three subtypes of social withdrawal (shyness, avoidance, unsociability) are related with BIS and BAS, as hypothesized by leading theories. Also of interest was whether these three withdrawal subtypes are related uniquely to different theoretically-indicated outcomes during emerging adulthood, a developmental period that has received very little empirical attention.
Exploring shy minds: Relations between shyness and creativity
Existing research supports that the structure of personality is hierarchical – i.e., there are broad Big Five domains and each of them subsumes several more narrow and specific facets (Costa & McCrae, 1995).
- Recent work has synthetized the existing research and provided a new description of the personality hierarchy balancing bandwidth and fidelity, in which each domain was represented by three facets.
Does it matter when we want to Be alone?
Bowker et al. (2017) reported that unsociability in a sample of emerging adults (Mage = 19.31 years) was not significantly associated with anxiety sensitivity or social anhedonia.
- Unsociability was also found to be significantly and negatively associated with relational and physical aggression, as well as significantly and positively related to creativity.
Behavioral inhibition system and self-esteem as mediators
BIS was positively correlated with shyness and social anxiety, indicating that individuals with stronger BIS activity might show high shyness/social anxiety.
- This observation was consistent with previous empirical studies, which showed that BIS could predict shyness in undergraduate students and child social anxiety among children.
