Psychological Assessment of Shyness among Children

Shyness is a common but little-understood emotion. Shyness is not a mental disorder. Common sense indicates that Shyness is a behavior pattern characterized by inhibition in some situations. It is a behavior pattern in which the person does not express (or expresses few) thoughts and feelings do not interact actively, and can have physiological alterations like rapid breathing and heart beating. So shyness is the feeling of withdrawal and ineptness when facing situations a person is unfamiliar with. Shyness is a problem for untold numbers of people. The goal of the present study is to explore the shyness of children. Objectives: 1. To study the gender differences in shyness of children. 2. To study the domicile differences in shyness of children. The sample consisted of 120 children; among 60 were male children and 60 were female children. Selected children were measured on Shyness Assessment Test developed by D’Souza (2006). Results indicated that male and female children did not differ in their shyness scores in all the domains-cognitive/affective, physiological, action oriented domains and total shyness scores. Children from rural area were shyer than children from urban areas in all the domains- cognitive/affective, physiological, action oriented domains and total shyness scores.