Assessment of shyness among college students: influence of gender and area

Shyness is characterized by a fear of unfamiliar social situations and self-consciousness in situations of perceived social evaluation. From early childhood to adolescence, shyness is associated with many negative outcomes including poor peer relationships such as exclusion, victimization, and internalizing problems. It has been suggested that shyness may be less socially acceptable for boys than for girls because it violates gender norms related to male social assertion and dominance. With regard to area, shy rural children may not be regarded as problematic and receive negative social evaluations since independence and self-expression are considered important in competitive urban lives and may not be in rural or rural migrant children. (Shen, 2006; Zhang, 2004). From this point of view, the main aim of this study was to find out influence of gender and area on the assessment of shyness among college students. The sample included 480 students from rural and urban colleges of Mysore. Students completed Shyness questionnaire (D'Souza 2006). Contingency co-efficient analysis was used as statistical analysis. Results indicated that gender had no significant influence over individual domains and total shyness. It was also found that college students from rural areas were shyer than urban students in total shyness.