دانلود مقاله ISI انگلیسی شماره 33195
ترجمه فارسی عنوان مقاله

خصیصه های رفتارهای شبیه به کمرویی توسط افراد خجالتی و غیر خجالتی

عنوان انگلیسی
Attributions of shyness-resembling behaviors by shy and non-shy individuals
کد مقاله سال انتشار تعداد صفحات مقاله انگلیسی
33195 1999 11 صفحه PDF
منبع

Publisher : Elsevier - Science Direct (الزویر - ساینس دایرکت)

Journal : Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 27, Issue 3, September 1999, Pages 575–585

ترجمه کلمات کلیدی
کمرویی - مجوز - منبع سببی - خود دیگر تفاوت - تفاوت بازیگر - ناظر -
کلمات کلیدی انگلیسی
Shyness; Attribution; Causal locus; Self–other difference; Actor–observer difference
پیش نمایش مقاله
پیش نمایش مقاله  خصیصه های رفتارهای شبیه به کمرویی توسط افراد خجالتی و غیر خجالتی

چکیده انگلیسی

Shy and non-shy individuals attributions of shyness-resembling behaviors in scenarios involving either themselves or other, hypothetical, people were studied through the use of a questionnaire. The participants were Swedish high-school students who rated the extent to which a number of such behaviors could be explained by four different causes, two internal (shyness and lack of interest) and two external (other persons and situational circumstances) causes. The results showed that shy participants attributed their own shyness-resembling behaviors to internal causes to a higher degree than did non-shy participants. Furthermore, non-shy participants attributed their own behaviors to external rather than internal causes, whereas shy participants judged internal and external causes to be about equally good explanations of their own behaviors. Both shy and non-shy participants attributed other peoples behaviors to internal rather than external causes. The differences between shy and non-shy participants were discussed in terms of differences in focus of attention, meaning that shy individuals seem to be much more self-focused than non-shy ones.

مقدمه انگلیسی

Shyness has been defined as a state of inhibition and discomfort in the presence of other people (Jones et al., 1986; Garcia et al., 1991; Eisenberg et al., 1995). This particular definition encompasses the notion that shyness involves emotional as well as behavioral components (Leary, 1986). Thus, emotionally, shy individuals tend to feel embarrassed (Buss, 1986) and worried about other peoples reactions to their behaviors (Zimbardo, 1977), so called subjective social anxiety. Shy people also tend to exhibit inhibited social behavior (Leary, 1986). That is, in social settings, shy individuals are passive or withdrawn (Van der Molen, 1990; Leary and Kowalski, 1995), quiet (Zimbardo and Radl, 1981; Ishiyama, 1984; Leary and Kowalski, 1995) and have difficulties making eye-contact with other people (Zimbardo and Radl, 1981). Furthermore, Zimbardo, 1977argues that shy individuals have a tendency to blush. The idea that people may not only feel shy but also exhibit shy behavior, makes it twice as problematic for these individuals, since Leary ( Leary, 1986, p. 34) argues that each component of the shyness syndrome can, directly or indirectly, elicit or exacerbate the other, creating a spiraling anxiety–inhibition cycle. In other words, shy individuals might be aware that they act in an inhibited way and this may strengthen their already existing anxiety. Thus, to reach an understanding of the complex relationships that constitute the spiraling anxiety–inhibition cycle, studies should involve factors that constitute shy peoples cognitive processes. One such important cognitive factor concerns causal explanations, or attributions, which have been extensively studied (e.g. Monson and Snyder, 1977; Eisen, 1979; Watson, 1982; Bierhoff, 1989; Bentall et al., 1994; Kinderman and Bentall, 1996a, Kinderman and Bentall, 1996b, Kinderman and Bentall, 1997). The reason people make attributions is that they seek causes for their own and other peoples behaviors as well as for various occurrences in the environment. Attributions are subjective by nature in that they do not stem from real causes but from the individuals own beliefs or assumptions about causes (Bierhoff, 1989). Previously, research has involved the study of attributional style (AS) in relation to shyness (e.g. Alfano et al., 1994; Bruch and Pearl, 1995). AS consists of a battery of different types of attributions which every individual holds. In other words, people feel that they succeed or fail in every day and long-term events. They tend to explain these failures and successes through the use of some particular attributional style (Anderson et al., 1988). AS can be either negative or self-serving. Individuals displaying a negative AS attribute negative events to stable, global and internal causes and attribute positive events to unstable, specific and external causes. When exhibiting a self-serving AS, people reverse the attributions for negative and positive events (Abramson et al., 1978). However, research involving the concept of AS makes use of success- and failure-related items and the definitions of these outcomes could be ambiguous. That is, researchers describe certain events as being either a success or a failure, whereas the participants may not make the same interpretation of these events. Furthermore, the concept of AS divides events and behaviors into good (success-related) and bad (failure-related) outcomes which seems to be a somewhat simplified framework. Moreover, the use of AS in research has been debated, e.g. by Bruch and Pearl (Bruch and Pearl, 1995, p. 92) who claim that the assumption that AS functions as a dispositional variable is controversial. Even so, there should be no reason to abandon the concept of AS, since it might be valuable to isolate the factors that constitute AS (i.e. causal controllability, causal stability and causal locus) instead of viewing these combined factors as some particular style. Due to the fact that results have shown that controllability and locus had greater ability to predict shyness symptoms than stability (Bruch and Pearl, 1995), it should be of importance to further explore locus and controllability separately. Causal locus could be used in exploring attributions made of either the individuals own behavior or that of other people. Since there seems be a lack of research on the types of attributions people make of the kinds of behaviors many shy individuals exhibit, it should be valuable to include the concept of locus in further research on shyness-cognitions. The reason why it should be important to study attributions of shyness-resembling behaviors is that shy individuals worry about their appearance (Zimbardo, 1977; Zimbardo and Radl, 1981) and parts of the cognitions which shy individuals hold involve the evaluation by others (Alfano et al., 1994). As opposed to previous research on shyness and AS (e.g. Alfano et al., 1994; Bruch and Pearl, 1995), the present study focuses on behaviors and situations which are neither value-laden nor achievement-related. Rather, the perceived causal locus of various shyness-resembling behaviors in a number of everyday situations will be investigated. For this purpose a suitable framework might be the actor–observer difference (a so called attribution bias), since it distinguishes between causal localization made by the actor (i.e. attributions made by the individual of his/her own behavior) and that made by an observer (i.e. attributions made by the individual of some other persons behavior). The actor–observer difference encompasses the notion that there is often a difference between the attributions made by the actor and those made by the observer. That is, people generally tend to attribute their own behaviors to external (i.e. environmentally based) causes and other peoples behaviors to internal (i.e. dispositionally or personality based) causes ( Jones and Nisbett, 1971). The concept of locus has been further modified by Kinderman and Bentall, 1996a, who claim that causal locus involves internal, external-personal (i.e. some other person or persons caused the behavior in question) and external-situational (i.e. something in the environment, circumstances or chance, caused the behavior in question). Methodologically, research concerning the actor–observer difference label the participants actors and observers (i.e. participants, in any one study, are observing or are being observed when behaving in a certain context). However, the present study will not involve individuals acting nor really observing other peoples behaviors. Instead the study will involve individuals reading about their own and other peoples hypothetical behaviors. In the present study actor and observer will therefore be referred to as self and other, respectively. Accordingly, the actor–observer difference will be referred to as the self–other difference, since Watson, 1982claims that this is a more suitable term when using the design used by the present study. In a meta-analysis of 26 studies of the self–other difference, Watson, 1982found that 24 of them did support the phenomenon. Bierhoff, 1989draws the conclusion, from the evidence provided by Watson, that the self–other difference is a robust phenomenon and not an artifact. Watson (Watson, 1982, p. 698) further mentioned that individual differences seem to mediate the self–other difference and he argued that research on personality dimensions in relation to the self–other difference could provide important information about the factors contributing to these differences. Available research made in the area of shyness suggests that shy individuals should display less of a self–other difference than non-shy ones. This should be the case since shy individuals have been found to be highly self-centered (Zimbardo, 1977) and more self-conscious than non-shy individuals (Ishiyama, 1984). The prediction that crystallizes is that shy individuals will, to a higher degree than non-shy individuals, attribute their own shyness-resembling behaviors to internal causes. On the other hand, non-shy individuals should be expected to show the traditional self–other difference, i.e. attribute their own behaviors to external rather than to internal factors and attribute other peoples shyness-resembling behaviors to internal rather than to external factors.