We all know the wallflowers — the shy people who stand quietly alone at parties but still seem somewhat interested in meeting people. Why else would they be there?
Many of us have probably even experienced wallflower moments or are wallflowers. You may not have realized, but even this author is shy - depression and anxiety certainly don't help. Shyness seems to be a pretty natural occurrence, though it can also be looked down upon in this society. It’s hard to get by in many areas of life if you’re too quiet, not outgoing enough and fear rejection. Some experts have realized how painful shyness can be and have delved into the reasoning behind shyness.
What is shyness?
Bernardo J. Carducci, a psychology professor, is the director of the Shyness Research Institute at Indiana University Southeast.
He said shyness can be defined by excessive self-consciousness, excessive negative self-critical evaluation and excessive negative self-preoccupation.
“Shy people tend to be overly concerned with their sense of self and they tend to evaluate that sense of self in a negative way,” Carducci said. “When you’re overly concerned with yourself, when you’re overly self-focused, that kind of gets in the way of social performance. As a result of that, shy people fail to respond because they worry that anything they do is going to be evaluated negatively.”
Shy people are also hypercritical, he said.
“In a sense, what they do is they take themselves out of the game,” Carducci said.
Shyness is different from people who want to be alone, he said.
“Shy people truly want to be with others,” Carducci said. “Introverts are individuals who prefer to be alone. Shy people feel that they have to be alone because they don’t know what to do.”
There are different forms of shyness, and he said there is a “continuum of anxiety.” There is situational shyness, normal shyness, social anxiety disorder and social phobia to name a few.
Situational shyness is when a person is only shy in certain situations, like when meeting a celebrity. Normal shyness is the typical wallflower – they go to social events but are held back by shyness. People who have social anxiety disorder can function in everyday life in the sense that they can go to work, but they stay away from social situations. People with social phobia can’t leave their houses because of that anxiety, according to Carducci. The latter two generally need medication, but that’s not so for the former two.
Carducci said normal shyness is experienced by around 40 percent of the general population, as compared to around 95 percent for situational shyness. The percent is much smaller for anxiety disorders and phobias.
There are also shy extroverts – these are people who are outgoing in the limelight for a job for example, like actresses, but in “spontaneous social situations … they can’t do it.”
Shyness is “the fear of social judgment,” said Elaine Aron, a licensed clinical psychologist.
She said shyness can be learned. Some people avoid overstimulation, which happens by meeting new people.
“Next thing you know, you don’t have very good social skills,” Aron said. “You begin to get mixed up and think you’re being rejected, and then you actually are rejected because people who are less sociable and even people who are shy are not as attractive to other people.”
Shyness can be a cycle, but it can also be broken.
“If people expect rejection, people generally don’t like them as much,” Aron said. “If they pretend or if they just force themselves to be warm, people like them … if a person is anxious and fears rejection, they usually are not warm, and it’s that that really gets them in trouble socially.”
How to be “successfully shy”
Some ways Carducci said people can be successfully shy are:
1) Show up early to social events. “When you go to a party late, the level of … ambient arousal is already very high – lots of noise, lots of talking. If you walk in there late and you’re a little nervous, that’s going to make you even more nervous. If you walk in late, people have already started to bond, form groups, and it’s very hard to break into an ongoing group or conversation.”
2) Listen to conversations around you. “While you’re warming up, rather than focus on how nervous you are … and how self-conscious you feel … look around for cues that you might be able to use to initiate a conversation when you’re ready.”
3) Prepare for specific events. “Think about where you’re going to be and what you’re going to be doing and prepare for that. If you’re going to go to an art reception, make it a point to read about the artist … so that when you go to this art gallery … you’ll have something to say. You’ll have something to get the conversation started.”
4) Engage in “quick talk.” “Quick talk is when you have brief conversations with lots of different individuals. What shy people tend to do is they tend to lock onto one person because they feel comfortable in that position or with that individual … When you have these quick talk conversations, what you have the opportunity to do is to talk to lots of different individuals without having to be critically evaluated.” People will also start to view you as approachable after seeing you talk to so many people and will come to talk to you.
5) Don’t drink alcohol. “It slows your thinking down so you can’t process information as quickly so you fall behind. When you drink, you give the credit to the alcohol instead of taking credit for yourself. If you have to drink to have a good time, you have a drinking problem.”
Aron said people with low self-esteem tend to rank themselves compared to others. Shy people tend to place themselves in a hierarchy of people overall. For example, they might focus on one person being better than they are at something, rather than focusing on making a connection with that person.
“You have to switch your head somehow from a ranking state of mind to a linking state of mind,” Aron said.
Shy people can do this by: smiling, having eye contact, having empathy and kindness, she said.
Is being shy a bad thing?
Shyness is not always negative. Carducci said some positive qualities associated with shy people are that they are good listeners, cautious and kind. However, the positive qualities don’t always win out.
“What happens is their shyness controls them instead of them controlling their shyness,” Carducci said. “We try to get people to become what we call successfully shy. The successfully shy person is somebody who is shy and understands the nature and the dynamics of their shyness and they use that to their advantage.”
He said there’s nothing wrong with being shy if people successfully control their shyness.
Sometimes being overly outgoing can have the same consequences as being shy.
“It depends upon how you use that outgoingness,” Carducci said. “If you use it to call attention to yourself, to help make yourself stand out … if it’s self-serving, that’s going to be problematic … it can be problematic at both ends. Both of those things involve a sense of being overly self-focused. The solution to shyness is to focus on others and focus less on yourself.”
Shyness can be useful, like when fears are justified, Aron said.
“As long as you’re not shy everywhere, then that might be a good thing to have,” Aron said.
Shy people also have empathy for other shy people and they won’t judge them as harshly as non-shy people.
Society and gender roles
Carducci said there is no proof that women are more shy than men.
“What we find is that shyness tends to be experienced more negatively by men than by women,” Carducci said. “If you’re a shy woman, then men will come to you. Typically in social exchanges, men have to be the social initiators.”
He agreed that today’s society puts more of an emphasis on more outgoing behavior.
“What’s happening is that as the culture gets faster and faster and faster … it’s becoming more difficult for shy people because they need more time to warm up,” Carducci said.
This is because of technology. However, technology can also be useful for shy people if they find groups of people online who share similar interests.
“You still have to go out and meet these people,” Carducci said, so the Internet isn’t a cure-all. “If they truly want to make these meaningful social connections, you have to log off your computer and log into life.”
He said volunteering can be a good way to meet people.
“You are in a low evaluative situation, so that they’re not going to be very critical of you because they’re so happy that you’re there,” Carducci said, as well as having similar interests.
Aron agreed that being shy is worse for men, even though it’s about even in both genders.
Women can have lower self-esteem at times and be more sensitive.
“Women can be very cutting to each other,” Aron said. “Just because they connect so well they can also evoke a lot of jealousy [and other things] … women often get wounded a lot by other women in that way.”
She agrees society tends to put a focus on outgoing people – mental health is linked to extraversion.
“Mental health means being able to form good relationships, but not necessarily a lot of them are with strangers,” Aron said. “It looks mentally healthy, but it’s not a necessity for mental health at all.”
For example, some people can be satisfied with only a few friends.
Share your shy stories – are you fine with being shy? Are outgoing people annoying? Do you wish you were more outgoing? How have you overcome your shyness? How have you accepted your shyness? Do you think society is forcing shy people to become more outgoing? Is that a good thing?