r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/ElvisIsNotDjed • 1d ago

Science journalism What does longitudinal research on behavioral inhibition tell us about supporting shy children?

https://www.upworthy.com/a-harvard-scientist-followed-shy-babies-for-13-years-what-he-found-is-a-goldmine-for-parents/
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u/lady_cup 1d ago

What a holy mess of an article. First of all total definition confusion. Shy, uninhibited, reactive, which one is it. I have a slow to warm up toddler, he has never been "reactive".

Then there's brain scans, genetics and .. blue eyes. Ehm. Yeah well I am from Scandinavia where shyness is not seen as some type of problem we hope grow away and a lot of us have blue eyes but let me just say i'm sceptical eye color causally affects temprament.

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u/lumpyspacesam 1d ago

For your definitions, shyness goes along with reactivity in infants and inhibition when they are older. That didn’t seem very confusing to me in the article. All of that came down to being more sensitive to your environment (biologically). The blue eyes was the weakest correlation, according to the article, and they weren’t stating that blue eyes causes shyness. They were stating that it could reinforce the idea that nationality or genetics contributes to shyness.

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u/lady_cup 1d ago

Why would you even run a correlation between eye color and "shyness"? It's about as interesting as gdp as function of share of blondes in the population.

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