Comparison of public and private shyness: influence of age groups, gender and area

In the present study, an attempt is made to find out the comparison of public and private shyness among adult and adolescents of Mysore city. A total of 1368 respondents served as the subjects for the present study. The Participants for this study were selected from different post graduates departments, colleges and schools of Mysore city. They were administered SSQ (Shyness Subtypes Questionnaire) developed by Ebrahimi, D'Souza and Ghasemian, was employed to measure levels of shyness in 2 domains: public and private shy. Based on the scores obtained, the respondents were classified into low, medium and high levels of shyness in both subtypes. Contingency coefficient analysis and chi-square tests were applied to find out the association between subtypes of shyness and secondary variables selected. Results revealed that on the whole we find that respondents were more publicly shyer than privately shy. Even the secondary variables revealed the same trend-both adolescents and adults were more publicly shyer than private shyness. Both male and female respondents as well as respondents from both urban and rural areas were publicly shyer than privately shy.