ABSTRACT
Introduction Within the last 20 years, the contemporary literature on shyness represents a steady progression characterized by an increasing level of theoretical, methodological, and clinical sophistication. Early investigations in the study of shyness took a clinical approach by emphasizing psychoanalytical explanations of shyness (cf. Hampton, 1927; Lewinsky, 1941). The impetus for a more empirical and systematic study of shyness was provided in the mid-1970s by Zimbardo and his colleagues with the development of the Stanford Survey on Shyness as part of the Stanford Shyness Project (cf. Zimbardo, 1986). Zimbardo and his colleagues investigated the selfreported degree of, and personal experiences with, shyness using the survey method primarily with adult samples (cf. Zimbardo, 1977, 1986; Zimbardo, Pilkonis and Norwood, 1974, 1975).
