Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Experimental Child

Psychology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp

Helping as prosocial practice: Longitudinal

relations among children’s shyness, helping
behavior, and empathic response
Taigan L. MacGowan ⇑, Louis A. Schmidt
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Although shyness has been found to be a concurrent constraint on

Received 17 November 2020 young children’s empathy and instrumental helping, there is limited
Revised 10 March 2021 evidence to suggest that this temperamental profile has longitudi-
Available online 1 June 2021
nal effects on prosocial behaviors. Here, we examined the concur-
rent and longitudinal relations between children’s shyness and
Keywords:
prosocial behaviors, as well as the intervening impact of instrumen-
Instrumental helping
Temperament
tal helping behavior on later empathic response in typically devel-
Prosocial behavior oping children (N = 86; 45 female). Shyness was coded from direct
Social cognition observations and reported by parents at Time 1 (Mage = 54.3 months,
Shyness SD = 2.9), Time 2 (Mage = 66.5 months, SD = 2.8), and Time 3 (Mage =
Empathy 77.9 months, SD = 2.8), helping behavior was assessed at Time 2, and
data on cognitive and affective empathy were collected at Time 3.
Increases in shyness resulted in longitudinal reductions of affective
empathy but not cognitive empathy or instrumental helping. As
well, Time 2 helping behavior mediated the relation between
Time 1 shyness and Time 3 affective empathy and, to some extent,
the relation between Time 2 shyness and Time 3 affective empathy.
These findings suggest that shyness concurrently impedes early
helping behaviors, and that this withdrawal may contribute to
reductions in shy children’s prosocial learning opportunities that
inform later empathic responses.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (T.L. MacGowan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105154
0022-0965/Ó 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
T.L. MacGowan and L.A. Schmidt Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

Introduction

Since the 1970s, a number of observational and experimental studies have significantly advanced
our understanding of prosocial development (for reviews, see Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006;
Eisenberg, Eggum-Wilkens, & Spinrad, 2015). Despite our current knowledge of typical developmental
timelines for prosocial acts, we know relatively little about individual differences in prosocial devel-
opment: Why do some children respond to others’ needs, while others do not? Although nearly all
preschool-aged children have the cognitive capacity to engage in basic prosocial behaviors (i.e., they
understand when and how to help; Karasewich, Kuhlmeier, Beier, & Dunfield, 2018), there is evidence
to suggest that those who struggle with helping tend to experience motivational challenges with the
intensive social involvement that these behaviors often require (e.g., Karasewich et al., 2018). In par-
ticular, an emerging body of work has begun to explore children’s shyness as a constraint on early
prosocial behavior (e.g., Eisenberg, Spinrad, Taylor, & Liew, 2019; MacGowan & Schmidt, 2020a).
Despite this growing literature, very few studies have investigated longitudinal relations between shy-
ness and prosocial behaviors in children. As well, to our knowledge, no work has explored possible
intervening developmental relations among different prosocial behaviors. Investigating individual dif-
ferences in prosocial behavior is important because prosociality is considered vital for healthy socioe-
motional development and is often used as an indicator of overall well-being and psychosocial
adjustment (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998; Eisenberg et al., 2006). The current study investigated the lon-
gitudinal relations between children’s shyness and prosociality, as well as the developmental impact
of different prosocial behaviors on one another over time.

Components of prosociality

Prosocial behaviors can be defined as intervening beneficial actions that are preceded by the direct
observation or inference of another’s negative state (e.g., Dunfield & Kuhlmeier, 2013). Children
engage in prosocial behaviors through three steps. First, they will acknowledge the presence of behav-
ioral and/or situational cues that suggest another individual is experiencing a negative state. Second,
the child will determine an appropriate course of action to alleviate the other’s negative state. Finally,
the child must be motivated to follow through with the appropriate behaviors to effectively relieve the
other’s negative state (Dunfield & Kuhlmeier, 2013). Such behaviors can include responses to instru-
mental need (i.e., helping behavior; usually to complete a goal-directed action) and responses to emo-
tional distress (i.e., empathic response to an individual experiencing a negative emotional state); both
of which have been examined and well documented during early childhood (e.g., Dunfield, 2014;
Dunfield & Kuhlmeier, 2013; Dunfield, Kuhlmeier, O’Connell, & Kelley, 2011; Paulus, 2014;
Warneken & Tomasello, 2006; Zahn-Waxler, Robinson, & Emde, 1992).
Responses to emotional distress can be further classified into cognitive and affective empathic
components (Decety & Jackson, 2004; de Vignemont & Singer, 2006). Cognitive empathy is defined
as the ability to understand the nature or cause of another person’s state (Cohen & Strayer, 1996;
Decety & Jackson, 2004) and is conceptually relevant to the first step of response to emotional distress
(i.e., recognizing the negative state). This empathic component is commonly measured through
hypothesis testing: the inquisitiveness or effort to comprehend distress encountered in an empathic
situation (Zahn-Waxler et al., 1992). In contrast, affective empathy is vicarious affective response to
another person’s negative state, leading to either personal distress or concerned responses (Decety
& Lamm, 2009; Knafo et al., 2009; Shamay-Tsoory, Aharon-Peretz, & Perry, 2009; Tone & Tully,
2014). Although there is evidence to suggest that cognitive and affective expressions of empathy rep-
resent the same underlying disposition (Gill & Calkins, 2003; Knafo, Zahn-Waxler, Van Hulle,
Robinson, & Rhee, 2008; López-Pérez, Hanoch, Holt, & Gummerum, 2017), these components are
thought to be subserved by different information processing systems and involve different functions
(Coplan, 2011; Shdo et al., 2017). Accordingly, these components are often analyzed separately and
can provide more detailed information when assessing relations among other constructs (Gill &
Calkins, 2003; Knafo et al., 2008; López-Pérez et al., 2017; Lyons, Brewer, & Bethell, 2017;
Volbrecht, Lemery-Chalfant, Aksan, Zahn-Waxler, & Goldsmith, 2007; Zahn-Waxler, Schiro,
Robinson, Emde, & Schmitz, 2001). For example, children who are at risk for criminal behavior have
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T.L. MacGowan and L.A. Schmidt Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

been found to exhibit lower affective empathy but similar levels of cognitive empathy when compared
to a control group who do not experience the same risk (Zonneveld, Platje, Sonneville, Goozen, &
Swaab, 2017). In addition, certain populations, such as bullies and psychopaths, can reason cognitively
about the needs and desires of others (i.e., cognitive empathy) but do not exhibit high levels of affec-
tive response (Bosacki & Astington, 1999; Mealey, 1995). Thus, it appears that affective empathy may
possibly be more affected by external and personality factors when compared to cognitive empathy.
Although helping behavior, affective empathy, and cognitive empathy are conceptually and empir-
ically inter-related to one another (e.g., Eisenberg-Berg & Hand, 1979), considering heterogeneity
within the overarching construct of prosociality is important, since not all components emerge at
the same time or have the same developmental course (Dunfield & Kuhlmeier, 2013; Dunfield et al.,
2011). Helping behaviors (i.e., responses to instrumental need) tend to emerge during early infancy
and continue to increase in frequency through the second year of life. In contrast, empathic response
(i.e., response to emotional distress) tends to develop from 2 to 5 years of age. Interestingly, cognitive
empathy often continues to become more sophisticated even past the point of affective response
reaching developmental stability (e.g., Roth-Hanania, Davidov, & Zahn-Waxler, 2011). Regardless of
developmental course, shyness has been found to be negatively related to each of these prosocial
behaviors (Findlay, Girardi, & Coplan, 2006; Tan, Mikami, Luzhanska, & Hamlin, 2020; Young, Fox, &
Zahn-Waxler, 1999; Zarra-Nezhad et al., 2018).

Children’s shyness and prosociality

Children’s shyness is known to result in lower levels of prosocial behavior broadly (Findlay et al.,
2006; Tan et al., 2020; Young et al., 1999; Zarra-Nezhad et al., 2018) and more specifically across the
three components of interest: affective empathy (MacGowan & Schmidt, 2020a, 2020b; Tan et al.,
2020; Zhai et al., 2020), cognitive empathy (MacGowan & Schmidt, 2020a), and helping behavior
(Beier, Terrizzi, Woodward, & Larson, 2017; Karasewich et al., 2018; Stanhope, Bell, & Parker-Cohen,
1987). Shyness can be defined as an anxious self-preoccupation in real or imagined social situations
(Cheek & Melchior, 1990). Temperamental shyness is generally stable across development; however,
some argue that more fearful expressions of shyness emerge during infancy whereas self-conscious
shyness is first observed in the preschool years (Buss, 1986a, 1986b; Hassan, MacGowan, Poole, &
Schmidt, 2021; Schmidt & Poole, 2019). Generally, children’s shy preoccupation is especially marked
when they experience demands from a social situation, such as an expectation to perform (Crozier &
Hostettler, 2003; MacGowan & Schmidt, 2020b; Wilson & Henderson, 2020). As such, many proffer
that shy children are too inhibited to engage in prosocial acts and that their shyness interferes with
the motivation required for the third and final step of prosocial action (e.g., Karasewich et al.,
2018). That is to say, the social nature of a situation requiring prosocial response appears to impede
the child’s ability to feel comfortable initiating a helpful action.
Witnessing the negative emotions of other persons, whether it be in other children or adults, is
likely stressful and has the potential to dissuade prosocial response for any child. Nonetheless, shy
children are more likely to become inhibited in response to the social saliency of these emotions, espe-
cially in the case of emotional distress (i.e., requiring empathic response). As such, shy children have
been found to direct comforting responses to themselves before they focus their attention to a victim
(Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990; Kim & Han, 2018). This personal distress (i.e., self-directed comforting) can
interfere with responses to instrumental need as well as both cognitive and affective aspects of
empathic response (i.e., less exploration of emotion’s cause, less expressed concern for the victim).
Although much work has investigated concurrent and cross-sectional relations between shyness
and prosocial behaviors (e.g., Findlay et al., 2006; Karasewich et al., 2018; MacGowan & Schmidt,
2020a; Stanhope et al., 1987; Young et al., 1999), relatively few studies have explored the longitudinal
and prospective developmental relations among these constructs. As well, there is little work explor-
ing possible intervening effects of different prosocial behaviors when assessing longer-term relations
with shyness.
Relations between shyness and various social outcomes are often mediated by other factors (e.g.,
Hipson, Coplan, & Séguin, 2019; Ye et al., 2019; Zhao, Gao, Xu, Sun, & Han, 2020). As well, relations
between certain personality factors and prosocial behavior can often be explained by relevant
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T.L. MacGowan and L.A. Schmidt Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

intervening mechanisms (e.g., Fang, Dong, & Fang, 2019; Ornaghi, Pepe, & Grazzani, 2016; Shi, Wang,
He, Wu, & Zhang, 2020). In particular, some studies have used empathy as a mediator in predicting
other prosocial behaviors in adults and young adolescents (Benita, Levkovitz, & Roth, 2017;
Graziano, Habashi, Sheese, & Tobin, 2007; Guo, Sun, & Li, 2018). Whereas feelings of empathy may log-
ically precede helping behavior in older child and adult samples (in which empathic and helping
behaviors are developmentally established), we argue that helping behaviors may reasonably mediate
the relation between shyness and empathic response in a relatively younger sample of children, whose
prosocial behaviors are still developing.
We hypothesized that developing shy children may be limited in their first-emerging responses to
instrumental need, which in turn may impede later prosocial development in other areas, such as cog-
nitive and affective empathic response. Because empathic responses tend to be more emotionally
demanding and socially salient than the more elementary helping behaviors (Dunfield & Kuhlmeier,
2013), we believe that children will require early ‘‘practice” in their prosocial responses by first engag-
ing in the more straightforward acts of instrumental helping. We suggest that early experiences and
consequences of shyness-related social reticence and withdrawal from social learning opportunities
(i.e., helping opportunities) may have long term transactional consequences as children develop in
the prosocial realm.

The current study

The objective of the current study was to explore longitudinal relations between child shyness and
later prosocial behaviors, and to assess the possible mediating effect of helping on the relation
between early shyness and later empathic response. We explored these behaviors during the pre-
school years, right around the age of formal school entry, to assess children who are presumably being
exposed to situations that require prosocial response toward unfamiliar individuals for the first time.
As well, both early-emerging fearful shyness and later-emerging self-conscious shyness tend to be evi-
dent by this point in development (Buss, 1986a, 1986b; Hassan et al., 2021; Schmidt & Poole, 2019).
Therefore, we expected shyness to have the largest effect on the development and refinement of
prosocial behaviors in this age group.
We collected data on directly observed shyness and maternal report of shyness in a cohort of typ-
ically developing 4-year-old children, who were also followed up at 5 and 6 years old. We assessed
children’s helping behaviors at 5 years and empathic response at 6 years with tasks used to elicit these
responses toward a female experimenter.
We addressed two questions: (a) Do individual differences in children’s shyness result in longitu-
dinal changes in prosocial behaviors such as affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and helping
behaviors? (b) Does instrumental helping mediate the relation between children’s shyness and later
empathic responses?
We tested two predictions: First, we predicted that children’s shyness at Time 1 would result in
lower helping at Time 2 and lower affective and cognitive empathy at Time 3 (see ‘‘Participants” section
for ages at Times 1, 2, and 3). We also anticipated that shyness would be concurrently related to helping
and empathy at Time 2 and Time 3, respectively. We reasoned that, in line with previous findings, shy-
ness would impede children’s motivations to respond to instrumental need and emotional distress, and
that early shyness would have long-term consequences for the development of prosocial responses.
Second, we predicted that Time 2 helping behavior would mediate the relations between Time 1
shyness and Time 3 cognitive and affective empathy. We expected that early shyness would concur-
rently impede responses to instrumental need and, in turn, the lack of helping practice would hamper
more sophisticated responses to emotional distress later in development.

Method

Participants

A total of 86 typically developing children (45 girls) and their biological mothers visited the labo-
ratory at 4 years of age (Time 1: Mage = 54.3 months, SD = 2.9). Of the original sample of children, 60
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T.L. MacGowan and L.A. Schmidt Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

(69.8%) returned approximately 1 year later (Time 2: Mage = 66.5 months, SD = 2.8; 32 girls), and 45
(52.3%) were followed up at 6 years of age (Time 3: Mage = 77.9 months, SD = 2.8; 25 girls). All children
were recruited from the McMaster Infant Database, which contains the contact information of healthy,
full-term infants who were born at the McMaster University Medical Centre, St. Joseph’s Healthcare, or
Joseph Brant Hospital in the area of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Most of the attrition between Time 2
and Time 3 was due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, children who attended both the Time 1 and
Time 2 visits were included in analyses below and Time 3 data were handled with multiple imputation
within the mediation analyses (described below).
Of the analyzed sample, 80% of the children were White, 10% were non-White, 6.7% were reported
as mixed race, and 3.3% did not report their race. All children were fluent in English; however, 4 spoke
English as their second language. Among parents, 85% of mothers and 86.7% of fathers had some form
of postsecondary education (e.g., college diploma, university degree). Mothers reported on their com-
bined family income (in Canadian dollars) on a scale from 1 to 7 (1 = <$15,000, 4 = $45,000–$60,000, 7 =
>$100,000) at all three visits. At Time 1, 52% of children had combined family incomes of $100,000 or
more per year, whereas 7% of families made less than $60,000 per year.

Procedure

Informed and written consent were obtained prior to beginning procedures for each child at each
visit. For each visit, the child completed a series of tasks with one female experimenter while his or her
mother sat in a different room and observed her child on a closed-circuit TV (CCTV) monitor. Data on
shyness were collected at all three visits, helping behaviors were assessed at Time 2, and empathy was
coded at Time 3. At Times 2 and 3, the birthday speech self-presentation task used to assess observed
shyness was carried out following all prosocial tasks to reduce the possible confounding influence of
arousal carried over to other tasks. Children were not expected to remember their previous visits, and
based on casual observation and conversations with the participants, there was no evidence that
either mother or child remembered the important details of the three tasks of interest. All procedures
were approved by the research ethics board of McMaster University. Children and families were com-
pensated with a $20 gift card for their participation at each visit.

Shyness measures

Observed shyness: Birthday speech self-presentation task

The Birthday Speech involved the child being spontaneously instructed to talk about his or her
most recent birthday in front of a video camera. Self-presentation tasks such as this are widely used
to elicit shy/anxious behaviors in children (Colonnesi, Nikolic, de Vente, & Bogels, 2017; MacGowan &
Schmidt, 2020b; Poole & Schmidt, 2019; Theall-Honey & Schmidt, 2006). Although there has been
some debate on the definition and measurement of shyness, this particular task is known to elicit a
state of self-anxious preoccupation in an imagined social situation with another person present, which
is synonymous with how shyness is defined and operationalized.
During each visit, the experimenter placed a video camera in front of the child and asked him or her
to give a short speech about the child’s most recent birthday. The child was informed that the video
would be shown to other children who would see and hear the child giving the speech. The child was
prompted for a minimum of 60 s; however, the child was allowed to speak for as long as he or she
wanted. Only the first 2 min of the speech was coded.

Behavioral coding and observed shyness measure. Episodes were scored by two coders for time spent
speaking within each 10-s epoch of the speech. Times were then averaged across all coded epochs,
resulting in an average time spent speaking per epoch, ranging from 0 to 10 s. Each coder also recorded
the child’s latency to speak following the end of the experimenter’s instructions. A subset of 20% of
participants for each visit were scored by both coders. Latency to speak had high intraclass correla-
tions for each visit (rT1 = .96, 95% confidence interval (CI) [.94, .97]; rT2 = .99, 95% CI [.98, .99];
rT3 = .99, 95% CI [.96, .99], where T1/2/3 subscripts indicate Time 1/2/3), and strong inter-rater
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T.L. MacGowan and L.A. Schmidt Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

reliability was established for average time spent speaking (rT1 = .95, 95% CI [.93, .97]; rT2 = .92, 95% CI
[.88, .95]; rT3 = .95, 95% CI [.92, .97]).

Parent-reported shyness
At each visit, mothers reported on their children’s shyness using the Shyness subscale of the Color-
ado Childhood Temperament Inventory (CCTI; Rowe & Plomin, 1977). Mothers reported the degree to
which they agreed or disagreed with five items on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly
agree). Examples of such statements included ‘‘Child tends to be shy” and ‘‘Child takes a long time to
warm up to strangers.” The internal consistency for this scale was acceptable for each visit (Time 1:
a = .88; Time 2: a = .86; Time 3: a = .61).

Overall shyness composite measure

There was a strong inverse correlation between the two observed measures of shyness (i.e., average
time spent speaking and latency to speak) at each visit (Time 1: r =
.56, p < .01; Time 2: r =
.56,
p < .01; Time 3: r =
.31, p = .02). In addition, maternal report of shyness was positively related to
latency to speak (Time 1: r = .25, p = .05; Time 2: r = .33, p = .01; Time 3: r = .26, p = .04) and inversely
related to time speaking at each visit (Time 1: r =
.53, p < .01; Time 2: r =
.52, p < .01; Time 3: r = .46,
p < .01). Accordingly, these three variables were z-scored and combined following a reversal of the
average time spent speaking measure.
Thus, we created a conceptually and empirically derived composite measure of overall shyness for
each individual visit. Although other shy-related behaviors, such as fidgeting, body avoidance, and
gaze, were coded, they were not correlated with latency to speak, average time spent speaking, or
parent-reported shyness; thus, these behaviors were not included in our analyses.

Helping tasks

Two helping tasks were implemented at Time 2 and were administered between other tasks. First,
while the experimenter attempted to fasten a poster to the wall, she dropped a roll of masking tape.
She immediately said ‘‘Oops” and continued to hold the half-fastened poster up on the wall to prevent
it from falling. She prompted the child approximately every 6 s with increasing directedness until the
child retrieved the tape. A maximum of six prompts were delivered in the same order for each child
(e.g., ‘‘I can’t reach my tape”), which were used to code the child’s latency to help on a 6-point scale
(5 = helped after one prompt, 0 = helped after six prompts or did not help at all).
Next, the experimenter attempted to open a small box of paperclips and spilled them on the floor.
Children were coded for latency to help the experimenter gather the paperclips on a 6-point scale
(5 = helped after 0–1 s, 3 = helped after 4–7 s, 0 = did not help). No prompts were given for this task.
These episodes were coded by two experimenters, who established inter-rater reliability on a sub-
set of 11 videos (18% of sample) for the poster task (j = 1.00) and the paperclips task (j = .75).

Empathy task

This episode was modeled after existing tasks and procedures that have been previously used with
toddlers and young children (Knafo et al., 2009; Young et al., 1999; Zahn-Waxler et al., 1992). At Time
3, while putting papers away on a clipboard, the experimenter feigned injury to her finger by pretend-
ing to pinch it on the clip. She expressed pain outwardly for 35 s while refraining from making eye
contact with the child. Both the experimenter and the child were seated.

Behavioral coding and observed empathy measures

Primary and secondary coders overlapped on a subset of 13 of the participant videos (29% of chil-
dren who completed this task at Time 3) to obtain inter-rater reliability. Our coding scheme assessed
verbal behaviors (e.g., utterances) and nonverbal behaviors (e.g., body orientation, leaning, touching)
with equal salience to ensure that these behaviors were not confounded by the child’s level of shyness.
Each episode was coded for affective and cognitive empathy within the 35-s period that the experi-
menter expressed pain. Affective empathy was composed of three different codes as described below:
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T.L. MacGowan and L.A. Schmidt Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

empathic concern (j = .70), gaze to the victim (j = 1), and verbal engagement with the victim (j = .76).
Altogether, these codes effectively encompassed vicarious affective responses to a victim’s injury in
the forms of facial expression, verbal concern, active engagement, and direct immersion in the victim’s
experience. These codes were z-scored and added together to form the overarching affective empathy
measure. Cognitive empathy was assessed with a single code called hypothesis testing (j = 1). More
detailed information about the individual codes is provided below. It is important to note that
although gaze and verbal measures were included in both the affective and cognitive coding schemes,
parameters for these behaviors were different. Verbal utterances involved in affective response
reflected either concern or relation to the victim’s experience (see below), whereas cognitive
responses inquired about the cause and severity of the injury. Similarly, gaze coded within affective
responses reflected engagement with the victim (gaze toward the victim or relevant objects), whereas
cognitive gaze responses involved inquiring about the cause of the injury (presence of gaze toward the
injury and/or clipboard).

Empathic concern. This code was used to account for level of affective expression of concern for the
victim (e.g., facial, gestural, and vocal signals of sympathy and/or sadness). This has been previously
used as an observed measure of affective empathy (Zahn-Waxler et al., 1992) and was coded on a 4-
point scale (0 = none, 1 = facial expression lacked smile for entire episode, 2 = combination of two behaviors
that could include facial expression, one verbal concern, or body orientation toward the victim, 3 = repeated
verbal concerns or facial expression combined with complete body orientation and leaning, pointing, or
touching). Children who engaged in rare and salient concern behaviors, such as touching and brow fur-
rowing, were given a score of 3.

Gaze. This code examined the extent to which the child was engaged with the victim and the
situation and was coded on a 4-point scale (0 = averted gaze from victim and context-relevant
stimuli for more than half the episode, 1 = darting or unsustained gaze, 2 = periods of sustaining gaze
but not fully sustained for entire episode, 3 = sustained gaze of victim’s face, injury, or clipboard for
nearly entire period).

Verbal engagement. This code was used to measure the extent to which the child engaged with the vic-
tim’s state by relating to the child’s own or others’ experiences (e.g., ‘‘I hurt my finger once,” ‘‘My mom
needed a bandage when that happened to her”) and was coded on a 4-point scale (0 = no verbal
engagement, 1 = one utterance, 2 = two utterances or at least 10 s of sustained engagement, 3 = three
or more utterances or sustained engagement for at least 15 s).

Hypothesis testing. This code was used to assess the child’s attempts to understand the victim’s dis-
tress. Hypothesis testing is considered to be a measure of cognitive empathy (Zahn-Waxler et al.,
1992), which can be expressed through gaze-related inquiry, verbal inquiries, and physical explo-
ration. This was coded on a 4-point scale (0 = none, 1 = looking from face/injury to clipboard, touching
the clipboard, 2 = combining verbal inquiry with nonverbal exploration, 3 = repeated verbal or nonverbal
exploration, pushing down on clip of clipboard).

Missing data and attrition

Of the 86 children who attended the Time 1 visit, 5 were eliminated from the study for sus-
pected developmental delay and/or insufficient fluency in English. At Time 2, 21 additional chil-
dren chose not to return or failed to show up to a scheduled visit (n = 16), could not be reached
(n = 3), or had moved out of the area (n = 2). These 21 children did not differ from the analyzed
sample on Time 1 income, t(79) = 0.88, p = .38, age, t(79) = 0.23, p = .82, or shyness, t(79) = 1.02,
p = .31. At Time 3, 15 more participants were unable to attend the laboratory visit due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. As such, missing data from Time 3 were handled with multiple imputation
for the mediation analyses, resulting in a sample of 60 children, all of whom attended both the
Time 1 and Time 2 visits.
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T.L. MacGowan and L.A. Schmidt Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

Statistical analyses

All analyses were performed using SPSS Version 22 with the significance level set at a = .05. Pear-
son correlations were used to assess simple relations among shyness, helping behavior, and empathy
responses. Multiple linear regression was used to assess longitudinal relations between shyness and
prosocial behaviors while controlling for concurrent shyness. Mediation analyses were carried out
with the PROCESS SPSS macro, treating shyness as the predictor, helping as the mediator, and empathy
as the outcome variable.

Results

Preliminary analyses

We first assessed zero-order correlations among the study variables (see Table 1). Time 1 shyness
was associated with Time 2 (r = .62, p < .01) and Time 3 (r = .38, p = .02) measures of shyness. Time 2
and Time 3 shyness were also positively related (r = .54, p < .01). Helping and affective empathy were
positively related to one another (r = .43, p < .01) and cognitive empathy was positively related to
helping behavior and affective empathy (r = .36, p = .02 and r = .30, p = .05, respectively).
Within the sample, no measures of interest differed between boys and girls (T1 shyness: t = 0.42,
p = .68, d = 0.11; T2 shyness: t = 0.98, p = .33, d = 0.26; T3 shyness: t = 0.93, p = .36, d = 0.30; helping:
t = 0.57, p = .57, d = 0.15; affective empathy: t = 0.85, p = .47, d = 0.27; cognitive empathy: t = 0.92,
p = .37, d = 0.29), and Time 1 combined annual family income was not correlated with T1 shyness
(r = .09, p = .50), T2 shyness (r =
.08, p = .55), T3 shyness (r =
.05, p = .75), helping behavior
(r = .10, p = .46), affective empathy (r =
.26, p = .10), or cognitive empathy (r =
.17, p = .29).

Study Question 1: Do individual differences in children’s shyness result in longitudinal changes in prosocial
behaviors (i.e., affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and helping behavior)?

Time 1 shyness was negatively correlated with Time 2 helping behavior (r =
.47, p < .01) and Time
3 affective empathy (r =
.37, p = .02) but not Time 3 cognitive empathy (r =
.10, p = .52). As well,
Time 2 shyness was related to Time 2 helping behavior (r =
.54, p < .01) and Time 3 affective empathy
(r =
.32, p = .04) and cognitive empathy (r =
.37, p = .02). Finally, Time 3 shyness was related to Time
3 cognitive empathy (r =
.36, p = .02) but not affective empathy (r =
.22, p = .17).
Due to the stability of shyness across the three visits, we aimed to determine whether these rela-
tions were due to longitudinal, rather than concurrent, influences of shyness by conducting multiple
linear regressions that controlled for concurrent shyness. We found that there was no statistically sig-
nificant longitudinal relation between Time 1 shyness and Time 2 helping behavior (b =
.32,
t =
1.64, p = .11, 95% CI [
.71, .07]) in that Time 2 shyness eliminated the effect of Time 1 shyness
(b =
.57, t =
2.80, p = .007, 95% CI [
.97,
.16]) (see Table 2A).

Table 1
Descriptive statistics and correlations among study variables.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Mean (SD) Range

1. T1 Shyness – .62** .38*
.47**
.37*
.10 .09 0.3 (2.4)
4.9 to 7.6
2. T2 Shyness – .54*
.54**
.32*
.37*
.08 0.0 (2.4)
3.8 to 7.3
3. T3 Shyness –
.34*
.22
.36*
.05
0.2 (2.1)
4.5 to 6.2
4. T2 Helping behavior – .43** .36* .10 5.4 (3.3) 0 to 10
5. T3 Affective empathy – .30*
.26 0.2 (1.6)
4.2 to 5.1
6. T3 Cognitive empathy –
.17 2.2 (0.7) 0 to 3
7. Annual family income – 6.1 (1.3) 2 to 7

Note. T1/T2/T3, Time 1/Time 2/Time 3.

*p < .05.
**p < .01.

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T.L. MacGowan and L.A. Schmidt Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

Table 2
Longitudinal relations between shyness and prosocial behaviors while controlling for concurrent shyness: (A) T1 shyness
predicting T2 helping behavior, (B) T1 shyness predicting T3 affective empathy, (C) T2 shyness predicting T3 affective empathy. (D)
T1 shyness predicting T3 cognitive empathy, and (E) T2 shyness predicting T3 cognitive empathy.

b SE t p 95% Confidence interval

Lower bound Upper bound
A. T2 Helping behavior (constant) 5.48 .38 14.39 .00 4.72 6.24
T1 Shyness
.32 .20
1.64 .11
.71 .07
T2 Shyness
.57 .20
2.80 .007**
.97
.16
B. T3 Affective empathy (constant) .33 .25 1.33 .19
.17 .84
T1 Shyness
.31 .11
2.90 .006**
.53
.10
T3 Shyness
.04 .13
0.30 .77
.29 .22
C. T3 Affective empathy (constant) .24 .26 0.90 .38
.30 .77
T2 Shyness
.27 .12
2.22 .03*
.51
.02
T3 Shyness .00 .15
0.01 .99
.30 .29
D. T3 Cognitive empathy (constant) 2.18 .11 19.49 .00 1.95 2.40
T1 Shyness .01 .05 0.17 .87
.09 .11
T3 Shyness
.12 .06
2.23 .03*
.24
.01
E. T3 Cognitive empathy (constant) 2.17 .11 20.05 .00 1.95 2.39
T2 Shyness
.07 .05
1.46 .15
.17 .03
T3 Shyness
.07 .06
1.19 .24
.19 .05

Note. T1/2/3, Time 1/2/3.

*p < .05.
**p < .01.

However, Time 1 shyness predicted Time 3 affective empathy (b =
.31, t =
2.90, p = .006, 95% CI
[
.53,
.10]), eliminating the effect of Time 3 shyness (b =
.04, t =
0.30, p = .77, 95% CI [
.29, .22])
(see Table 2B). Similarly, Time 2 shyness predicted Time 3 affective empathy (b =
.27, t =
2.22,
p = .033, 95% CI [
.51,
.02]), with Time 3 shyness remaining unrelated (b = .00, t =
0.01, p = .99,
95% CI [
.30, .29]) (see Table 2C).
Time 1 shyness did not have a longitudinal effect on cognitive empathy (b = .01, t = 0.17, p = .87,
95% CI [
.09, .11]) in that Time 3 shyness eliminated the effect of this predictor (b =
.12,
t =
2.23, p = .03, 95% CI [
.24,
.01]) (see Table 2D). Finally, Time 2 shyness did not predict cognitive
empathy (b =
.07, t =
1.46, p = .15, 95% CI [
.17, .03]), and Time 3 was not predictive in this model
(b =
.07, t =
1.19, p = .24, 95% CI [
.19, .05]) (see Table 2E).

Study Question 2: Does instrumental helping behavior mediate the relation between children’s shyness and
later empathic responses?

Due to the above findings indicating that helping behavior appears to be impeded by concurrent
shyness at Time 2 rather than Time 1 shyness, we conducted four mediation analyses involving the
mediating influence of Time 2 helping behavior on (a) the relation between Time 1 shyness and Time
3 affective empathy, (b) the relation between Time 2 shyness and Time 3 affective empathy, (c) the
relation between Time 1 shyness and Time 3 cognitive empathy, and (d) the relation between Time
2 shyness and Time 3 cognitive empathy.

Mediation analysis: Time 1 shyness, Time 2 helping, and Time 3 affective empathy
The relation between Time 1 shyness and Time 3 affective empathy was mediated by Time 2 help-
ing behavior. As shown in Fig. 1, there was an inverse relation between Time 1 shyness and Time 2
helping behavior (b =
.65, SE = .16, p < .01) while the relation between Time 2 helping behavior
and Time 3 affective empathy was found to be positive (b = .17, SE = .06, p < .01). This relation between
Time 2 helping and Time 3 affective empathy was also significant while controlling for Time 1 shyness
(b = .14, SE = .07, p = .04). Finally, the total effect model of Time 1 shyness predicting Time 3 affective
empathy was negative (b =
.17, SE = .08, p = .04).
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T.L. MacGowan and L.A. Schmidt Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

Fig. 1. Standardized regression coefficients for the mediating effect of Time 2 helping behavior on the relation between Time 1
shyness and Time 3 affective empathy. The direct effect of Time 1 shyness on Time 3 affective empathy is in parentheses.
*p < .05; **p < .01.

The indirect effect was computed by using 10,000 bootstrapped samples to create a 95% confidence
interval. This analysis resulted in a standardized indirect effect of
.14 with confidence intervals rang-
ing from
.23 to
.05. The direct effect of Time 1 shyness on Time 3 affective empathy was -.08 with
confidence intervals ranging from -.26 to .11.

Mediation analysis: Time 2 shyness, Time 2 helping, and Time 3 affective empathy
We detected an inverse relation between Time 2 shyness and Time 2 helping behavior (b =
.74,
SE = .16, p < .01). As shown in Fig. 2, the relation between Time 2 helping behavior and Time 3 affective
empathy was positive (b = .17, SE = .06, p < .01). This relation approached significance while controlling
for Time 2 shyness (b = .13, SE = .07, p = .06). Finally, the total effect model of Time 2 shyness predicting
Time 3 affective empathy was negative (b =
.19, SE = .09, p = .03).
Similar to above, the indirect effect was computed with 10,000 bootstrapped samples to create a
95% confidence interval. This analysis resulted in a standardized indirect effect of
.14 with confi-
dence intervals ranging from
.29 to
.02. The direct effect of Time 2 shyness on Time 3 affective
empathy was
0.09 with confidence intervals ranging from
.28 to .11.

Mediation analysis: Time 1 shyness and Time 2 shyness, Time 2 helping, and Time 3 cognitive empathy
We did not detect a mediating influence of Time 2 helping behavior on the relation between Time 1
shyness and Time 3 cognitive empathy nor the relation between Time 2 shyness and Time 3 cognitive
empathy. Helping behavior did not predict Time 3 cognitive empathy while controlling for Time 1
(b = .01, SE = .03, p = .72) or Time 2 shyness (b = .05, SE = .03, p = .16).

Fig. 2. Standardized regression coefficients for the mediating effect of Time 2 helping behavior on the relation between Time 2
shyness and Time 3 affective empathy. The direct effect of Time 2 shyness on Time 3 affective empathy is in parentheses. yp <
.10; *p < .05; **p < .01.

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T.L. MacGowan and L.A. Schmidt Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

Discussion

This study replicated past findings involving concurrent relations between shyness and prosocial
behaviors, and provided evidence for negative long-term effects of shyness on affective empathy.
Although we detected longitudinal relations between shyness and instrumental helping behavior as
well as between shyness and cognitive empathy, these effects were eliminated by controlling for con-
current shyness. We further report a mediating effect of instrumental helping at 5 years on the rela-
tion between shyness and affective empathy at 6 years. This suggests that shyness may concurrently
curtail helping behavior, possibly reducing the prosocial practice required for shy children to engage
in the more complex and emotionally distressing empathic responses later in development.
Our findings are in line with past literature that has reported concurrent relations between shyness
and instrumental helping behavior (Beier et al., 2017; Karasewich et al., 2018; Stanhope et al., 1987) as
well as cognitive empathy (MacGowan & Schmidt, 2020a). Much of the literature surrounding this
concurrent relation postulates that shy children, who are wary of social stimuli, are more emotionally
affected by the social saliency, as well as the negative emotions, associated with situations requiring
prosocial response (Hoffman, 1975) and thus tend to direct their attention to their own personal dis-
tress rather than toward a victim (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990; Kim & Han, 2018). This personal distress
can result in children exhibiting seeming indifference to the situation (Hoffman, 1975; Kim & Han,
2018). Shyness is also theoretically and empirically relevant to other factors that are important for
the development of prosocial behavior such as emotion regulation, motivation to help, and the desire
to affiliate with others (Beier et al., 2017; Brownell & Early Social Development Research Lab, 2016;
Carpendale, Kettner, & Audet, 2015; Dahl, 2015; Eisenberg, 2000; Hoffman 1975; Karasewich et al.,
2018; Spinrad et al., 2007; Waugh & Brownell, 2017).
Our analyses provide evidence, however, that the negative relation between shyness and affective
empathy may result from longitudinal and developmental changes rather than the concurrent inter-
ference of shyness. Namely, it was Time 1 and Time 2 shyness that were found to be negatively related
with Time 3 affective empathy; not concurrent shyness. It is possible that shyness may impede pre-
dictors or earlier-emerging and rudimentary affective behaviors that are important for the develop-
ment of sophisticated affective response during the preschool years. Because some mechanisms
that are crucial for the development of empathic response, such as self–other differentiation and basic
false belief understanding, are established by the preschool age (Brownell, Nichols, & Svetlova, 2013;
Brownell, Svetlova, Anderson, Nichols, & Drummond, 2013; Kartner, Schuhmacher, & Collard, 2014),
we suspected that one such behavior that may contribute to developing higher affective empathy
in these years is experience engaging in instrumental helping behavior.
Helping behavior fully mediated the relation between Time 1 shyness and Time 3 affective empa-
thy and, to some extent, the relation between Time 2 shyness and Time 3 affective empathy. This find-
ing suggests that helping behavior during the preschool years may act as a precursor to affective
empathic response as children transition into the early school-age years. As such, helping behavior
may be impeded by concurrent shyness in that self-conscious inhibition and/or social fearfulness is
the source of children’s lack of instrumental helping. If shyness continuously and repeatedly disrupts
instrumental helping behavior toward unfamiliar individuals, young children who are relatively high
in shyness may be at a disadvantage when developing responses to more demanding, physiologically
distressing, and emotionally complex situations such as those involving empathy. As such, early
instrumental helping opportunities may aid children in practicing approaching others when they
are expressing a negative state, and these relatively simple and low-stress situations may in turn allow
for better capacity to maturely respond to more complex and potentially distressing negative states
later.
Although shyness was concurrently and negatively related to cognitive empathy, reasoning for the
lack of longitudinal relation between these constructs, as well as the mediating effect of instrumental
helping on this relation, is unknown. This disparity from the relations found with affective empathy is
especially interesting given the relatively few studies that have found developmental differences
among the cognitive and affective components of empathic response. It is possible that because cog-
nitive empathy appears to be less affected by environmental or personality factors (Bosacki &

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T.L. MacGowan and L.A. Schmidt Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

Astington, 1999; Mealey, 1995; Zonneveld et al., 2017), and tends to require fewer performance
aspects of empathy (i.e., children can show that they understand the cause of distress without needing
to directly interact with the victim), it is more likely to be interrupted by concurrent shyness than
transactional developmental ‘‘practice” that occurs over an extended period of time. Rather, cognitive
empathy may be affected by shy children’s situation-specific personal distress rather than the lack of
practice dealing with situations requiring prosocial action.
In interpreting the current findings, it is important to take two constraints on the relation between
shyness and prosocial behavior into consideration. First, although the pattern of reduced prosociality
in shyness appears to suggest that shy children are experiencing a social cognitive deficit, previous
studies have argued that this relation is likely accounted for by a performance issue rather than a com-
petence issue (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998; Findlay et al., 2006; Zava, Sette, Baumgartner, & Coplan,
2021). In fact, there is evidence to suggest that higher shyness is related to stronger abilities in
socio-cognitive areas such as emotion understanding and Theory of Mind (LaBounty, Bosse, Savicki,
King, & Eisenstat, 2017; Lane, Wellman, Olson, & Miller, 2013; Longobardi, Spataro, D’Alessandro, &
Cerutti, 2017; Wellman, Lane, LaBounty, & Olson, 2011). Taking this evidence into account, the sup-
posed deficits in prosociality that we observed in our study may indicate a performance issue rather
than a competence issue: shy children’s increased personal distress may affect their ability to explore
and attend to the needs of another.
Second, shy children likely possess different prosocial motivations and constraints in different con-
texts, in different environments, and among different people (e.g., Chow et al., 2017; Kagan, Reznick, &
Snidman, 1987). Stanhope et al. (1987) noted the importance of familiarity of both the setting and the
victim by reporting that shy children tend to help their mothers in familiar environments (i.e., home)
more often than they will help an experimenter in a laboratory environment. Knafo et al. (2008) also
found that children older than 36 months tend to show less cognitive and affective empathy toward an
experimenter when compared to their mother. Although empathy-related behaviors within the home
and among family are valuable, our present findings also provide important information on how chil-
dren will react in other contexts.

Strengths and limitations

The current study has many strengths, including behavioral observations of shyness and prosocial
behaviors and a focus on the longitudinal nature of intervening variables. In addition, we were able to
examine these relations during a critical time in socioemotional development, coinciding with transi-
tion to formal schooling, the development of peer relationships, and the ability to take on the perspec-
tives of others.
However, this study also experienced some limitations that warrant discussion. First, our sample
size was relatively small for mediation analysis. In line with this issue, the attrition within our study
was largely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, causing laboratory data collection of 15 participants
to be impossible at Time 3. We attempted to remedy this problem by using multiple imputation to
approach the missing data at Time 3 for use in the mediation analyses. A second limitation of this
study was that our sample was relatively homogeneous in nature. This group of children was primar-
ily White with a relatively high family income. Thus, the extent to which our findings would general-
ize to more ethnically and economically diverse groups is unknown. Third, we collected prosocial data
from the child only in response to a female experimenter and not a peer or familiar adult such as the
child’s mother. As such, we do not know whether level of familiarity may be more salient for some
children than others in their expressions of empathy and helping behaviors. As well, it is unclear
whether our findings would extend to children’s prosocial behaviors toward peers, classmates, and
siblings. Fourth, our tasks were not temporally long enough to obtain a reliable measure of physiolog-
ical arousal that could have been used to confirm that the tasks were arousing. Lastly, the nature of
one-time sampling of the observed shyness and prosocial measures provides little opportunity to
report on the convergence of these behaviors. We attempted to amend this with the shyness construct
by including a parent-report measure that was combined with observed behaviors to create an overall
measure of shyness. We coded helping behavior during two separate tasks that were presented at two
12
T.L. MacGowan and L.A. Schmidt Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 209 (2021) 105154

different time points throughout the course of the visit; however, we were unable to obtain a parent
report of children’s helping behavior toward other unfamiliar individuals.
Future studies should use a larger, more ethnically and economically diverse sample and attempt
to observe children’s prosocial behavior among peers, mothers, fathers, and siblings in their everyday
environments.

Conclusion

This study replicated previously reported relations between shyness and prosocial behaviors dur-
ing the preschool years, and extended this work by providing evidence for longitudinal relations
among shyness and affective empathic response. As well, we provided evidence that early helping
behaviors may provide some children with practice opportunities that aid in the development of
sophisticated affective empathy. Our findings suggest that shyness can have long-term transactional
consequences for certain areas of development and that the impact of shyness on earlier developing
social cognitive and socioemotional milestones has the potential to affect later outcomes, especially in
areas that are pertinent to social interaction with unfamiliar peers and adults.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relation-
ships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by an Ontario Graduate Scholarship awarded to T.L.M. and operating
grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Social
Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) awarded to L.A.S (55-10322-
10538734; 55-10322-20006816; respectively). We thank the many children and parents who partic-
ipated in the current study and thank Angela Liu, Sadie McVey Neufeld, Jennifer Mullen, Samantha
Myers, Natalie Stearns, and Anna Swain, who assisted with data collection, data entry, and behavioral
coding.

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