Whether it's at a party or on a plane, when people find out that I know something about shyness, invariably, the first question they ask me is "Are we born shy?" The answer to that question is absolutely not! There is no way that we can be born shy.

The Role of Self: A Necessary Component

The principal reason you cannot be born shy is that shyness is characterized by three major features: excessive self-consciousness, excessive negative self-evaluation, and excessive negative self-preoccupation. All three characteristic features of shyness involve a sense of self. And the sense of self does not develop until approximately 18 months of age. Since individuals are not born with a sense of self, they cannot be born shy.

When making such a statement, the next question people typically ask me is, "How do we know that individuals are not born with a sense of self?" Such a question is not only of interest to shyness researchers, but has also attracted the attention of some of the world's greatest thinkers, including Charles Darwin. In the late 1870s, Darwin proposed that the origin of the self begins when a child is able to recognize himself or herself in the mirror. Research indicates that the initial signs of a sense of self first seem to appear at about six months of age, emerging gradually and becoming more refined over a period of about a year or so (Damon & Hart, 1982; 1988; Lewis Sullivan, Stranger & Weiss, 1989). More specifically, when placed in front of a mirror, children at around six months of age will reach out and try to touch their image as if it were another child.

At this point people ask something like, "How do we actually know that the child really recognizes itself in the mirror and is not just reaching out to touch someone else who is willing to do exactly as he or she does?" To answer this question, researchers dabbed some red rouge on the noses of children and then placed them in front of a mirror. At around 15 to 18 months of age, the children would touch their own nose, not the image of it in the mirror, when seeing the rouge on it (Gallup & Suarez, 1986). Thus, it seems that by 15 to 18 months of age, children have some sense of what their faces should look like and are curious about any variations of it.

The Role of Inhibited Temperament: All Shook Up!

While there is no evidence that we are born shy, there is evidence that approximately 15 to 20 percent of infants are born with what Dr. Jerome Kagan of Harvard University (Kagan, 1994) and his colleagues (Kagan, Reznick, & Snidman, 1988) refer to as an inhibited temperament. "Temperament" refers to certain biological characteristics that people are born with that serve to influence their behavior very early in life, such as during the first few months. Inhibited temperament is characterized by excessive physiological and behavioral reactions to environmental stimulation. For example, infants born with an inhibited temperament will kick their legs and feet more, display a higher heart rate, and cry longer and louder when exposed to an unpleasant noise, such a balloon popping, than infants not born with an inhibited temperament. For example, inhibited children at two years of age might be more likely to hide behind their parent's legs when a stranger enters their play area and engage in more isolated play at seven years of age than uninhibited children. Thus, what can start happening is that such inhibited behavior begins to be labeled as "shyness" by parents, teachers, and acquaintances.

Biology Is Not Destiny

The expression of such an inhibited temperament early in life does not guarantee that such individuals will grow up to be shy adults. Even if it did, all it would mean is that such individuals would have to make decisions about how and where to socialize that would take into consideration their temperament (e.g., go to a poetry reading instead of a loud bar). The notion that people are born shy is simply a belief about shyness, not a fact, about shyness. There are many things shy individuals can do to control their shyness instead of letting their shyness control them--biology is not destiny. In future entries on this blog, I will discuss what shy individuals can do to take control of their shyness and be "successfully shy." But more on that later.

无论在聚会时或飞机上，每当有人发现我知道点儿关于羞怯的事情时，他们都无一例外的问我“我们天生害羞吗？”绝对不是！我们完全不可能生来害羞。

自我 ：不可或缺

过度的自我意识、过分的消极自我评价以及严重的负面自我审视，共同构成了羞怯感的重要特征，这也是我们不可能天生害羞的主要原因。羞怯感的三个典型特征都涉及自我意识，而自我意识得到出生后大约18个月才会形成。如此看来，个体没有天生的自我意识，那么也不可能生来害羞了。

等我说完这些以后，他们肯定还会问“我们怎么知道个体出生的时候没有个体意识？”对于这个问题，不仅研究羞怯感的人感兴趣，那些世界上最伟大的思想家也为之着迷，比如查尔斯达尔文。19世纪70年代末，达尔文提出，自我意识起源于孩子从镜中认识到自己的时刻。研究表明，婴儿在6个月左右首次出现自我意识的征兆，并在之后大约一年的时期中逐渐显露，越发明显(Damon & Hart, 1982; 1988; Lewis Sullivan, Stranger & Weiss, 1989)。更特别的是，若把6个月大的孩子放在镜子面前，他会伸手触摸自己的影象，好像那是别人家的小孩儿一样。

于此，人们会提出这样的疑问，“谁知道婴儿是不是真的从镜中认出了自己，会不会只是伸手去摸那个和他做一样动作的人呢？”为了解答这个问题，研究者给孩子们的鼻子抹上了红色的胭脂，再把他们放到镜前。这些孩子差不多15到18个月大，当看到鼻子上的胭脂时，他们会摸摸自己的鼻子，而不去碰镜里的影象（ Gallup & Suarez, 1986）。如此看来，15至18个月大的孩子已经知道自己的脸长什么样，并且对脸上的变化感到好奇。

拘束气质：全搞混了！

虽然没有证据显示我们天生害羞，但有证据表明，百分之15到20的婴儿天生具有拘束气质，哈佛大学的杰罗姆卡根博士(Kagan, 1994)和他的同事(Kagan, Reznick, & Snidman, 1988)提出了这个概念。气质，是指人类出生时就有的生物学特性，这些特性将会影响生命早期（几个月）的行为。拘束气质的特征，即是在环境刺激下过激的生理、心理反应。举个例子，相比普通孩子，具有拘束气质的婴儿更喜欢蹬动腿脚，心跳较高，被噪声（比如气球爆炸）刺激时哭得更可怕。再举个例子，拘束的小孩长到两岁时，更可能在陌生人来到时藏在父母的腿后面，等到七岁左右，他们只跟自己玩。接下来，他们的父母、老师和其他相识，就开始把这种拘束行为称作 “害羞”了。

天生的，不是一辈子的

个体幼年具有拘束气质，并不等同于长大后一定是个害羞的成年人。即使真的发生了，也只意味着个体在选择交际活动时需要顾及自己的气质（比如去诗歌朗诵会，别去酒吧）。说人们生来害羞，这话只是臆想的信念而非事实。害羞的人可以做很多尝试去控制羞怯感，而不要被它控制——这只天生的，并不是一辈子。