The purpose of this study was to examine developmental change and the influence of shyness on social problem-solving (SPS). At 24, 36, and 48 months, children (N = 570) were observed while interacting with an unfamiliar peer during an SPS task and at 24 months, maternal report of shyness was collected. Results showed that across the full sample, children displayed low but stable levels of withdrawn SPS and increasing levels of SPS competence over development. In addition, results showed multiple trajectories of withdrawn and competent SPS. Shyness was associated with high-increasing and high-decreasing withdrawn SPS trajectories compared with the low-increasing withdrawn SPS trajectory. Shyness was also associated with the low-increasing compared with the high-increasing SPS competence trajectory. Findings demonstrate the development of SPS competence over early childhood, and the influence of early shyness on this developmental course, with some shy children showing improvement in SPS skills and others continuing to show SPS difficulties over time.
Social problem-solving (SPS) skills are important for children's everyday social functioning, as well as their academic achievement in school (Dubow and Tisak, 1989, Dubow et al., 1991 and Walker and Henderson, 2012). There are, however, a wide range of individual differences in the ways children approach socially challenging situations. These individual differences in SPS skills may be attributed in part to a child's shyness. Shyness refers to wariness and anxiety in response to novel social situations (Coplan & Armer, 2007). Shy children approach socially challenging situations more passively than their peers and experience less success in attaining their social goals during elementary school (Stewart & Rubin, 1995). Furthermore, shy children are at risk for social and emotional adjustment problems including poor peer relationships, depression, and anxiety (Chronis-Tuscano et al., 2009, Hirshfeld et al., 1992 and Rubin et al., 1995). Given that individual differences in shyness are evident in early childhood and that poor social interactions may lead to a number of poor outcomes including a cycle of peer rejection, reinforcement of poor social skills, and/or fewer opportunities to learn the scripts that guide social play, research on the origins of difficulties in peer interactions at young ages may significantly add to our understanding of these predictive links. The current study extends previous research with older children by examining developmental changes in SPS abilities and the influence of shyness on individual differences in patterns of change in SPS abilities between 24 and 48 months of age. Findings of the current study increase our understanding of the development of SPS behaviors and affect across early childhood, identify temperamental origins of peer difficulty, and may help inform intervention efforts aimed at improving shy children's SPS abilities.
In the current study, we focused specifically on the influence of shyness, a form of social withdrawal (Rubin and Asendorpf, 1993 and Rubin et al., 2009) that is moderately stable over the toddler and preschool years (Lemery, Goldsmith, Klinnert, & Mrazek, 1999). Social withdrawal is defined as behavioral solitude that originates from factors internal to a child such as strong physiological reactions to novelty (i.e., shyness) and social disinterest, as opposed to solitude that results from being actively rejected by one's peers (Rubin et al., 2009). Shy children appear motivated to interact with others, however, the fear and distress associated with novelty leads to avoidance of the social situation (Crozier, 2000), making peer interaction during problem situations particularly difficult. In addition, maternal reports of shyness are relatively stable across development, especially between 24 and 48 months (Lemery et al., 1999). This stability is also evidenced by the fact that children rarely change from one extreme of observed social withdrawal versus sociability to the other (Fox et al., 2001 and Pfeifer et al., 2002), and when assessed in toddlerhood, they are likely to respond similarly within a few years of assessment and even into adulthood (Caspi and Silva, 1995, Caspi et al., 2003 and Rothbart et al., 2000). Therefore, it is important to identify the associations between shyness and social difficulties early on.
Developmental change in SPS
The development of competent SPS skills is important for children's everyday social functioning and may influence the quality of their social experiences. SPS skills likely develop from various within-child characteristics (e.g., temperamental reactivity) and environmental factors (e.g., socialization with parents and peers; see Rubin & Rose-Krasnor, 1992 for review). In a cross-sectional study, Rubin and Krasnor (1983) found that both preschoolers and kindergarteners were more likely to suggest using prosocial strategies than aggressive strategies as a means of resolving hypothetical social problems. Another cross-sectional study using a hypothetical-reflective measure of SPS found that children in first and second grade suggest fewer aggressive and more cooperative strategies compared with preschool age children (McGillicuddy-DeLisi, 1980). Taken together, these studies suggest that children may use competent SPS strategies as early as preschool and that the frequency of these strategies increase while the frequency of poor SPS behaviors decrease over early elementary school. While these studies examined age-related differences in SPS, longitudinal studies are needed to track individual differences in developmental trajectories of SPS behaviors and affect and predictors of these individual differences. In one longitudinal study of SPS abilities from preschool to first grade, Youngstrom et al. (2000) found that, on average, children reported fewer forceful and more prosocial solutions to hypothetical problems from preschool to first grade. Interestingly, they also found little to no stability of SPS from preschool to first grade, which was attributed to rapid gains in SPS abilities that allowed children who reported relatively poorer SPS skills in preschool to report similar SPS to their peers by first grade.
Based on findings showing that children report using more prosocial competent strategies with age, we hypothesized that children would display more competent SPS (i.e., verbal strategies, success, positive affect, prosocial initiations) and less withdrawn SPS (i.e., passive strategies, time unengaged, and neutral affect) over time.
