SuperCashBrother: This is great. Now I can tell people that I’m not shy, I just ~~have anxiety~~ tend to display patterns of brain activity in social situations that manifests in the form of increased distress when anticipating unpredictable social feedback.
Tossthebudaway: As interesting as this might be i cant help processing this as “people who are historically anxious will continue to be anxious”
RascalBSimons: Anyone have any tips on how to help a child(9 y.o.) who exhibits these behaviors?
Mitsuman77: Can confirm.
Source: I was a shy child.
dontknowhowtoprogram: had a room mate like that. He told me later that the best thing to ever happen to him was going shopping with me because I was so open and would spark a conversion with strangers. It was pretty cool seeing how much he changed in two years from a room hermit who only ever went out to go for food or whatever he needed to becoming someone who genuinely enjoyed going out with a few close friends. I’m not saying this will work for everyone who suffers from social anxiety but in this case having my overly outgoing happy go lucky ass forcing my room mate to interact with people worked. He said that seeing how often I got positive reactions from strangers who I interacted with made him feel more confident in social situations with strangers.
Mmmurl: Oh hey that’s me
Nan_The_Man: “Shy people are shy”. More at 11.
chevymonza: I was a very outgoing kid, but with a severely dysfunctional family that seemed to get worse as I got older. Went from being very social to being a complete introvert within a few years.
Remained an introvert because I moved a bunch, changed jobs, and realized people can be very difficult, so introversion is my default comfort zone now.
KypDurron: How do you anticipate something that’s unpredictable?
randomusefulbits: Direct link to the study:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797616638319
Abstract:
> Social reticence is expressed as shy, anxiously avoidant behavior in early childhood. With development, overt signs of social reticence may diminish but could still manifest themselves in neural responses to peers. We obtained measures of social reticence across 2 to 7 years of age. At age 11, preadolescents previously characterized as high (n = 30) or low (n = 23) in social reticence completed a novel functional-MRI-based peer-interaction task that quantifies neural responses to the anticipation and receipt of distinct forms of social evaluation. High (but not low) social reticence in early childhood predicted greater activity in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and left and right insula, brain regions implicated in processing salience and distress, when participants anticipated unpredictable compared with predictable feedback. High social reticence was also associated with negative functional connectivity between insula and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a region commonly implicated in affect regulation. Finally, among participants with high social reticence, negative evaluation was associated with increased amygdala activity, but only during feedback from unpredictable peers.
KungFu_Kenny: No shit?
Suuntavilkku: That is why my main mission as a parent will be to encourage my kid to be active and carefree when interacting with others, to be able to stand his ground and to approach social situations as a game instead of a nuisance.
Secondary mission is to make sure he doesnt become a crack addict, but this one takes the cake.
dadfrombrad: Better title:
>Shy kids continue to be shy
GhostofRimbaud: This sounds like my brain lol thanks for breaking it down for me…I guess.
lincoooln: Can confirm.
Was a shy child, not very shy now but when everyones attention is on me i start sweating and my face goes red.
Sulliismywaifu: Water is wet
JericoKnight: I my case I was diagnosed as shy by my family members by a child. They all tried to cure me. This made me aggressively antisocial. Now, in my 50s, no one thinks I’m shy. They just think I’m an asshole.
kevindlt2003: So…
Kids that are shy tend to grow into adults that are shy?…
WHO WOULD’VE GUESSED!.