Shyness and social–emotional development among Chinese children: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Abstract

Shyness, which is characterized by social withdrawal behaviours and approaching-withdrawal conflicted social motivations, is suggested to influence children's socialemotional development. This study examined the association between shyness and social-emotional development among Chinese children aged 3 to 12. A systematic search of both Chinese and international databases for relevant research between 1990 and 2020 yielded 23 studies (n = 9,009 children), which were systematically reviewed. Among them, 15 studies (n = 6,303 children) were included in the meta-analyses. Results from random-effects models indicated that shyness was positively associated with internalizing problems (r ¼ :21,p < :01), externalizing problems (r ¼ :14, p < :01), peer victimization (r ¼ :23, p < :05), and asocial behaviours (r ¼ :47,p < :05), and negatively associated with peer preference (r ¼ À:19, p < :01Þ and school social competence (for school-aged children r ¼ À:19,p < :01; for preschool children r ¼ À:22,p < :01) in the Chinese context. Further, analyses revealed that the relationship between shyness and social-emotional development was moderated by children's characteristics (e.g., gender, age, receptive vocabulary, and emotional competence), social relationship (e.g., teacher-child relationship and parent-child attachment), and situational context (e.g., interpersonal similarity). This study suggests that shyness generally exerts negative influences on Chinese children's social-emotional development, but the influences are unique

Revisiting associations between behavioral inhibition/shyness and social competence in young Chinese children: Sociohistorical imprint on three samples.

“…This finding is in line with the meta-analysis (X. Zhang et al, 2021) and some recent Chinese studies (Chen et al, 2014;Zhai et al, 2020). Moreover, fear and shyness were moderately interrelated.…”

“…According to the pooled association (r = −.22) found in the meta-analysis by X. Zhang et al (2021), at least 127 and 160 participants are needed to obtain the power of .80 at the significance levels of .10 and .05, respectively. Considering the complexity of the research designs and our focus on potential changes in associations across historical time, we first report the findings from the most recent birth cohort (2016-2019), followed by the findings from the older (2014)(2015) and oldest birth cohorts of children (2009)(2010).…”

Multigenerational care or parental care? Familial care types, social–emotional development and mediation of parent–child relationship of single‐parent children in mainland China

“…This was a multidimensional construct. By comprehensively integrating the measurements of SED utilized in Chinese child group (Li et al, 2010; Wang et al, 2019; Zhang et al, 2021), we selected five different dimensions, including self‐esteem, social competence, emotional competence, resilience and pro‐social behaviour to measure SED in this study.…”

Young children's social withdrawal and teacher–child relationship quality: A cross‐cultural comparison between the Netherlands and China

“…In Eastern countries like China, young children's social inhibition can sometimes be considered as age‐normative and even favorably because it is non‐disruptive and involves fewer emotional problems (cf. X. Chen et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2021). As such, it is likely that in the early school years, social inhibition still has a more positive influence on teacher‐child relationships in Eastern countries than in Western countries.…”

“…Studies focusing on 3‐to‐6‐year‐old children, however, revealed mixed results. Social inhibition was sometimes associated with more peer exclusion and other times was not associated significantly with peer preference at all (see Zhang et al., 2021 for a review). These mixed findings suggest that social inhibition may be less harmful to young children's peer relationships than those of older children, probably because social inhibition is still considered age‐normative for young children in China (Zhang et al., 2021).…”