Caring Too Much or Too Little? Relations Among Motivations for Social Withdrawal, Empathy, and Prosociality in Emerging Adulthood

Most previous work examining relations between social withdrawal and social cognition has focused primarily on empathy-related behaviors in shy children. However, there are different underlying reasons to withdraw from social interactions, which may be differentially related to aspects of social cognition throughout the lifespan. The present study investigated relations among the different motivations for social withdrawal (i.e., shyness, avoidance, and unsociability) and indices of social cognition, including cognitive (i.e., perspective taking) and affective (i.e., empathic concern and personal distress) empathy, and prosocial behavior during emerging adulthood. Participants included 588 Canadian undergraduate students (M_age = 18.91 years; 80% female), who completed self-report questionnaires assessing social withdrawal and empathy, and participated in the Dictator Game to assess sharing behavior. A series of multiple linear regressions revealed that the different motivations for social withdrawal were differentially associated with the three components of empathy and prosocial behavior. Shyness was positively associated with empathic concern and personal distress, whereas avoidance was negatively associated with empathic concern, perspective taking, and prosocial behavior. Unsociability was positively associated with perspective taking and negatively associated with personal distress. These findings have implications for our understanding of the different motivations for social withdrawal, and how each motivation influences how individuals connect with, relate to, and understand others.