Shyness and the Environment
Talking to others is a relatively easy thing to do, but it can become difficult when you are shy. When a person is shy, it can have a deep impact on how he or she interacts socially and how situations with others are dealt with. A person that is shy will also have trouble when trying to form their identity since that person will try to copy others in order to fit in.
The environment can affect whether a person is shy or not by physical and social means. When the physical aspects of a person, such as the way they look, affect the way they are treated on a social level, then that person may have the tendency to be shy around other people. Bullying can be a big problem especially for teenagers since they focus more on how others see them.
On a social level, the environment can be very harsh. Children and even adults form their own groups and tend to exclude anyone not like them. Excluding could include demoralizing others that they feel are not qualified to be in their group. By doing this, someone who is shy has a harder time trying to talk to and make friends with other people, especially when they are not sure where they fit in.
On a physical level, there have been studies that show that shyness may in fact have a contributing factor within our genes. “In 1996, geneticist Dean Hamer of the National Institutes of Health and his colleagues reported that they had found an association between the serotonin transporter gene and neuroticism, a complex of behaviors that includes depression, low self-confidence, and shyness around strangers.” (Hendricks, 2014) Along with this, there has been a discovery of a DRD4 gene. “The DRD4 gene codes for a protein that binds dopamine, another chemical messenger that has powerful effects in the brain.” (Hendricks, 2014)
In order to find out how shyness is affected by the environment, I would create a controlled experiment. The experiment would encompass several age groups, from children to...