Is shyness inborn or something thats learned?
There is evidence that a biological tendency towards shyness may be inherited from our parents; in other words, there may be a genetic component to shyness. One of the foremost researchers into the biological basis of shyness, Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan, came across information showing that shyness in adults could often be traced as far back as the age of three. Skeptics thought that children might have had ample time to pick up the trait of shyness from their environment by that age. So, to determine whether the trait might have emerged before it could have been learned, Kagan and his colleague, Steven J. Reznick, embarked on a study of two-year olds. Even at that age, they found two widely different personality types; roughly 25 percent of the children were bold, while 20 percent were timid and wary. Still, not all critics thought the studies were conclusive, since even by the age of two the children might have had time to “learn” shy behaviors. So Kagan embarked on yet anothe
