Shyness and Prosocial Tendencies During Adolescence: Prospective Influence of Two Types of Self-Regulation

Although children's self-regulation has been widely regarded as a panacea, there may be individual differences in the adaptiveness of self-regulatory processes depending on temperamental factors. We examined whether individual differences in two conceptually distinct types of self-regulation (i.e., emotion self-regulation, nonemotion self-regulation) moderated the association between shyness measured during late childhood (N = 1284; 49.8% girls, 84.1% White, mean parental education fell between associate's degree/diploma and undergraduate degree) and prosocial tendencies indexed approximately two years later during early adolescence. We found that children's shyness was negatively associated with adolescents' prosocial tendencies only at high levels of emotion self-regulation, and that shyness was positively related to prosocial tendencies only at low levels of nonemotion self-regulation. In the context of relatively higher levels of shyness, being "over" emotionally regulated may interfere with positive socioemotional outcomes. These findings may provide additional insight into the heterogeneity of self-regulation, and why some shy children may be reluctant to engage in prosocial acts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).