When Heather Henderson, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Waterloo, lectures to students about her shyness research, she often shows videos of young kids playing. The response is predictable. "People laugh and smile at outgoing kids, and they become uncomfortable watching shy kids," she says.
Were she to show that same video in rural China, she might get a very different response. In any culture, there's a range of temperaments from very reserved to more outgoing. But culture strongly affects how those temperamental differences are judged.
In the 1990s, Xinyin Chen, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that while shy behaviors were linked to problems such as anxiety in North America, they were associated with positive school adjustment outcomes in China. Behaviorally inhibited students in China were held up as leaders in the classroom and rated as more likable by peers, says Robert J. Coplan, PhD, a psychologist at Carleton University in Ottawa who has collaborated on cross-cultural studies with Chen and colleagues in China.
But China has changed dramatically since the 1990s, with rapid modernization and strong influences from the West. Correspondingly, in large urban areas, shyness is starting to be seen as a detriment. "The same behavior, in a very short period of time, seems to have done an about-face in terms of its perceived adaptiveness in Chinese culture," Coplan says.
While social inhibition is still praised in many rural areas, he says, "assertiveness and independence have now become more positively valued in the big urban centers." The rapid turnabout could have major implications for Chinese society. Whereas an older teacher might admonish an outgoing child, the younger teacher down the hall might offer praise. Children born in cities versus rural villages may receive very different messages about how to behave.
For psychologists interested in the influence of culture on behavior, the change is astounding. Little more than a decade ago, Chinese teachers wished more children would act more reserved, Coplan says. And now? "On my latest visit, they were talking about setting up intervention programs to help young shy children."
— Kirsten Weir
