| Although most of people have experienced shyness as a contextual emotion,shyness temperament is found in about 10-16% of the population.In this research,we focused on shyness temperament.In the West,shyness is closely related to a series of socio-emotional maladjustment,while in China,social change has been found to have influence on the associations between shyness and socio-emotional adjustment.In the1990 s,studies have found that in both urban and rural China,shyness was positively associated with socio-emotional adjustment among children.However,in recent years,studies in urban Chinese children found that shyness was negatively associated with socio-emotional adjustment,while the results of the relationship between shyness and social emotional adjustment were mixed in rural China.So far,only a few studies have focused on shyness and its associations with adjustment among children and adolescents in rural China.However,little is known about the development and change of shyness,the relationship between shyness and social emotional adjustment,and the mechanism underlying them among rural Chinese children.Most of the existing studies were from the perspective of contextual development view to examine the roles of different environmental factors(such as peer relationship,teacher-student relationship,and parent-child relationship)in the associations between children's shyness and socio-emotional adjustment,while only a few studies have explored the roles of cognitive biases(such as judgment bias and interpretation bias)in such relationship.Moreover,so far,there's no research to explore the associations among shyness,cognitive bias,and socio-emotional adjustment(peer acceptance,social anxiety,and depression)during the dynamic developmental process,nor to examine the developmental trajectory of shyness in rural Chinese children,nor the characteristics of cognitive bias and socio-emotional adjustment in children with different developmental trajectories of shyness.At the same time,only a few studies have explored the cognitive characteristics of shy children in facial expressions(e.g.,detection,recognition based on category,and judgment).Previous studies suggested that cognitive bias plays an important role in the formation and maintenance of social-emotional maladjustment.Based on the above,seven studies were conducted in the following four parts through longitudinal surveys and behavioral experiments among rural Chinese children.Firstly,we explored the heterogeneity of children's developmental trajectory of shyness,and compared the characteristics of cognitive bias and socio-emotional adjustment of children with different developmental trajectories of shyness(Part 1);then,we explored the characteristics of detection,recognition and judgment of facial expression in highly and low shy children(Part 2);after that,the quasi causality between shyness and cognitive bias(judgment and interpretation bias)of social events were explored(Part 3);finally,the developmental cascade effects of shyness,cognitive bias and socio-emotional adjustment(peer acceptance,social anxiety and depression)in children were explored(Part 4).The main contents were as follows.Part 1: The heterogeneity of children's developmental trajectories of shyness and the cognitive biases and socio-emotional adjustment characteristics of children with different developmental trajectories of shyness.Study 1 used the Children Shyness Questionnaire,the Possibility/Cost of Negative Social Events Questionnaire,Ambiguous Social Situation Questionnaire,peer nomination(measuring peer acceptance),the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised,and Children Depression Inventory to investigate a total of 1,112 fourth and fifth grade students in a primary school in Gushi County,Henan Province.Data were collected every six months,and three-wave data were collected in total(T1,T2,T3).The aim of study 1 was to explore the heterogeneity of children's developmental trajectories of shyness,and to compare the differences of the characteristics of cognitive bias and social emotional adjustment of children with different developmental trajectories of shyness in T3.The results showed that:(1)The developmental trajectory of children's shyness was heterogeneous.Children were divided into three groups: shyness-increasing group(n = 67,5.90%),shyness-stable group(n = 621,54.71%),and shyness-decreasing group(n = 447,39.38%);(2)the three groups of children had significant differences in T3 judgment bias and interpretation bias,children in the shyness-increasing group had significantly higher score than those in the shyness-stable group,and children in the shyness-stable group had significantly higher score than those in the shyness-decreasing group;(3)there were significant differences in T3 socio-emotional adjustment of these three groups of children.In terms of the level of peer acceptance,children in the shyness-increasing group were significantly lower than those in the shyness-decreasing group.There was no significant difference between children in the shyness-stable group and the other two groups.In terms of the levels of social anxiety and depression,children in the shyness-increasing group were significantly higher than those in the shyness-stable group,and children in the shyness-stable group were significantly higher than those in the shyness-decreasing group.Part 2: The cognitive processing characteristics of facial expressions of high-and low-shyness children.In study 2,32 children from the shyness-increasing group were selected as high-shyness subjects,and 33 children from the shyness-decreasing group were selected as low-shyness subjects.The Oddity task was used to measure the detection threshold of happy,angry,and disgusting expressions of high-and low-shyness children through the Staircase in Adaptive methods.It was found that there was no significant difference in the detection thresholds of these three expressions between the two groups of children.In study 3,35 children from the shyness-increasing group were selected as high-shyness subjects,and 29 children from the shyness-decreasing group were selected as low-shyness subjects.The two groups of children were asked to complete the modified emotion classification task in order to compare the difference of the accuracy of classification and recognition of typical happy,angry,and disgusting facial expressions.Furthermore,the differences of the probability judgement of encountering such expressions,the judgement of the degree of being disliked,and the judgement of feelings of cooperation were also examined.The results showed that:(1)Compared with children with low shyness,children with high shyness believed that they were more likely to encounter people with typical angry and disgusting expressions;(2)high-and low-shyness children had no significant difference in the probability judgement of encountering people with typical happy expressions,and there were also no significant differences in the accuracy of recognition of typical happy,angry,and disgusting expressions,the judgement of the degree of being disliked,and the judgment of feelings of cooperation;(3)shyness was significantly and positively correlated with the probability judgement of encountering angry and disgusting expressions,but was not significantly correlated with other major variables.Part 3: The reciprocal relationship between children's shyness and judgment and interpretation bias.Study 4 conducted a cross-lagged analysis on the three-wave longitudinal data of children's shyness,probability judgment,cost judgment and threat interpretation obtained in Study 1,in order to explore the quasi causality between children's shyness and cognitive bias.The results showed that:(1)Children's shyness,probability judgment and cost judgment of negative social events,and the threat interpretation of ambiguous social situations were all moderately stable in three times of measurements;(2)children's shyness significantly and positively predicted every subsequent probability judgment and cost judgment.While probability and cost judgment can only significantly and positively predict T3 shyness,and the predictive effect is less than the predictive effect of shyness on them.That is,children's shyness and judgment bias have a mutual predictive relationship,but shyness has a dominant role in predicting probability and cost judgment;(3)children's shyness significantly and positively predicted every subsequent threat interpretation,but threat interpretation had no significant predictive effect on shyness.Part 4: The developmental cascade effects of children's shyness,cognitive bias and socio-emotional adjustment.Study 5 conducted the developmental cascade effects analysis of the three-wave longitudinal data of children's shyness,probability judgment,cost judgment and threat interpretation obtained in Study 1,in order to investigate the developmental cascade effects of children's shyness,judgment and interpretation bias and peer acceptance.The results showed that:(1)Shyness significantly and positively predicted later judgment bias and interpretation bias,and significantly and negatively predicted later peer acceptance;(2)probability judgment bias significantly and positively predicted later shyness;(3)there was no significant longitudinal mediating effect among shyness,judgment and interpretation bias,and peer acceptance.Study 6 conducted the developmental cascade effects analysis of the three-wave longitudinal data of children's shyness,probability judgment,cost judgment,threat interpretation,and social anxiety obtained in Study 1,in order to investigate the developmental cascade effects of children's shyness,judgment and interpretation bias and social anxiety.The results found that:(1)Shyness significantly and positively predicted later judgment bias,interpretation bias and social anxiety;(2)probability judgment significantly and positively predicted later social anxiety;(3)social anxiety significantly and positively predicted later probability and cost judgment bias,interpretation bias and shyness;(4)shyness predicted later probability judgment bias and threat interpretation bias through positively predicting subsequent social anxiety;(5)social anxiety positively predicted later probability and cost judgment bias by positively predicting subsequent shyness.Study 7 conducted the developmental cascade effects analysis of the three-wave longitudinal data of children's shyness,probability judgment,cost judgment,threat interpretation,and depression obtained in Study 1,in order to investigate the developmental cascade effects of children's shyness,judgment and interpretation bias and depression.The results found:(1)Shyness significantly and positively predicted later probability and cost judgment bias,interpretation bias and depression;(2)probability judgment bias significantly and positively predicted later depression;(3)depression significantly and positively predicted later probability and cost judgment bias,interpretation bias and shyness;(4)depression positively predicted later probability and cost judgment bias and interpretation bias through positively predicting subsequent shyness.In summary,this research found that the developmental trajectory of rural Chinese children's shyness was heterogeneous,and the children in the shyness-increasing group,shyness-stable group and shyness-decreasing group showed a descending trend in terms of the extent of the judgment and interpretation bias and socio-emotional maladjustment.Moreover,highly shy children overestimated the likelihood that they would encounter people with angry or disgusting facial expressions.Meanwhile,in the process of psychological development,there were interactions between children's shyness and cognitive bias(especially the judgement bias),but the influence of shyness on cognitive bias was dominant;there were developmental cascade effects among children's shyness,judgment and interpretation bias,and socio-emotional adjustment,which suggested that there were cross-domain interaction effects among them. |
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