Shyness in Asian American Children and the Relation to Temperament, Parents' Acculturation, and Psychosocial Functioning.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether anxious shyness and regulated shyness, initially identified in Asian cultures, can be differentiated in Asian American children and to explore how these two forms of shyness were related to children's temperament, parents' acculturation, and children's psychosocial functioning. Participants were 155 fourth and fifth grade children (81 girls, Mage = 10.35 years) who were recruited from an elementary school in Hawai'i. The results of an exploratory factor analysis replicated the two-factor model of shyness found in previous studies of Asian children. Anxious and regulated shyness were similarly related to temperamental shyness and solitary behaviour but differed in their relations to attention regulation, social preference, anxious behaviour, peer exclusion, and loneliness. In addition, parents' orientation to their Asian natal cultures was positively related to regulated but not anxious shyness. These findings from an Asian-concentrated context in a Western culture provide preliminary support for the distinction between anxious and regulated shyness in Asian American children. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]