Chapter 1 – Evaluating Shyness and Social Anxieties
“Shyness is just egoism out of its depth.”
— Dame Penelope Keith, English actor
John Donne’s timeless adage, “no man is an island,” defines humanity’s existence. By default setting, by instinct, and by nature, humans are social animals.
We are pieces and parts of the entire existentialisms of the universe. We are oriented naturally toward our fellowmen— that man needs one another to thrive and survive, and that, man inclines to be ready perpetually towards social interaction.
By this foregoing predicate, it is of profound importance to learn primarily the social aspects of human functioning and purposes. More importantly, we also need to evaluate specifically what factors hold back humans…show more content… In the uncivilized years of yore, man does not have the indulgences of timidity; but rather, man lived by pure boldness in terms of flourishing and surviving within their respective wild territories.
Man’s only concern then was merely fulfilling their most basic of necessities in life— procreation, shelter, food, and defending their fiefdoms. In all probabilities, the people during ancient times have little to no practical applications of manifesting, much less, cultivating self-consciousness, which is a requisite of shyness.
However, psychologists believe that shyness was born out of civilization. The advent of civilization required stringent mores, codes of proper conduct, social etiquettes, protocols, and conventions that embody the fundamental values of man and society.
In short, civilization necessitated man to live life through a perpetually progressive performance of development bounded by decorum. This made humanity to bear, more than ever, an awareness of self-consciousness.
Such self-consciousness, which precipitated into shyness, is so strong and pressing. It ultimately invented a plethora of ways that human interactions— mutual and reciprocal— can go…show more content… The universal notion does not only understand shyness as an intricate interplay between the habitual psyche/mindset of man and the social arena of humanity but also, in the simplest of terms, as a diversion.
Elements and Types of Shyness
A majority of shy people feels they are more than shy relative to others. For this reason, shyness is indeed a self-admission of a personality trait. Hence, it connotes a phenomenon of pervasiveness; if you admit being shy, then you are never alone!
Nonetheless, shy people are not at all alike. They differ with varying degrees and types of shyness.
Within the realms of anthropology or the social relationships of human beings, it recognizes shyness broadly as having the following cultural and physiological components, or the ABC elements of shyness:
Affective Shyness Element – manifests rapid heartbeats or increased heart rate, tension in the muscles, symptomatic social anxieties, an upset stomach, and a variety of other psychophysiological responses and experiences.
These are commonly covert manifestations expressed by privately shy