Shyness Has No Influence on Whether or Not You're Single
(But Does Make Your Brain Work Better)
Shyness is the curse of every teenager wishing to have
anything like a normal social life. That unfounded anxiety when talking to
people, the debilitating reluctance to speak up -- if minds were rock stars,
shyness turns yours into the uncredited bass player, while everyone else's is
friggin' Jim Morrison, man. And the worst part is there's no upside -- in no
way will being shy ever be of benefit to you. After all, it's not like being
popular stops counting once you enter the workplace, or that a fear of human
contact is ever going to suddenly become attractive to sex partners.
Well, we have good news: A study in 2007 had subjects
provide information pertaining to shyness, love attitudes, and their current
relationship status, and analysis showed that a person's level of shyness had
no bearing on whether or not he or she was romantically involved. If someone's
shy, there's always someone else who's more than willing to make the first
move.
One thing to note, however, is that shyness was correlated
with two types of romantic styles: "storge" (affectionate love that
develops from friendship) and mania (the obsessive, possessive kind of love
that creepy people express by secretly collecting hair samples). So just keep
in mind that if you fall into the shy camp and one day you happen to find
yourself branding your betrothed's name onto your neck, it may be time to start
reconsidering your views on love. In the meantime, there's another benefit to
shyness: a little thing called sensory processing sensitivity.
Never heard of it? Well, it's a personality trait
characterized by sensitivity to stimuli of any kind, including social and
emotional cues. If you're shy, there's a good chance you have it, and SPS is
fucking awesome. Individuals with SPS report having richer, more complex inner
lives than others, and are better equipped to notice subtleties in their
environment. Studies have found that SPS and the personality traits closely
linked to it (which are, for the record, shyness, behavioral inhibition, and
introversion) are correlated with a whole laundry list of effects that sound
increasingly like the definition of spider-sense as you check them off: greater
awareness of subtle stimuli, more attentional vigilance, and greater sensory
reactivity.
More importantly, scientists decided to chuck some heads
into an fMRI machine while their owners performed visual- and attention-based
tests. Results: The brains belonging to people with SPS showed far greater
activity than anyone else's in a whole bunch of areas involved with high-order
visual processing. Add it all up, and you have to wonder why there aren't bald
guys starting up Schools for Shy Youngsters while senators busily pen the Shy
People Registration Act.
And if you're still envious of those popular girls who are
constantly surrounded by a dozen chattering BFFs, you should know that.
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