Zimbardo’s interest in the social and personal dynamics of shyness in adults (and later in children) emerged from his reflections on the Stanford Prison Experiment (1971). In considering the mentality of the roles of Guard (restricting freedoms) and Prisoner (resisting, but ultimately accepting those restrictions on personal freedom), he thought of these states as dualities in each of us, and notably in the neurotic person and the shy individual. Beginning in 1972, a research team composed mostly of Stanford undergraduates, and graduates including Paul Pilkonis and Susan Brodt, conducted pioneering research on the causes, correlates, and consequences of shyness in adults and children, using a multi-method, multi-response approach. Their findings on the extent of shyness and its many negative consequences led them to create a shyness clinic where they tested various interventions among students and staff at Stanford University and then in the local community. The shyness clinic became both a treatment and research center.
In 1972 Zimbardo launched the first systematic investigation into the psychology of shyness. His research team at Stanford conducted large-scale surveys, experimental research as well as cross-cultural research, and then in 1975 they started the Stanford Shyness Clinic.
Zimbardo invited Dr. Lynne Henderson to head a clinic in the community. They also set up a Shyness Institute where they trained therapists. The Shyness Clinic, a treatment center for shyness and social anxiety disorder, originally created by The Shyness Institute was moved in 2010 to the The Gronowski Center at the Palo Alto University.
Zimbardo additionally wrote the best-selling book Shyness: What It Is, What To Do About It (1977) and then expanded from teens and adults to children through working with Shirley Radl. They wrote The Shy Child (1981, reprinted 1999), and The Shyness Workbook (1979), a parent’s guide to shyness and how to prevent shyness. The nationwide media promotion including television appearances helped bring this research topic to the public eye.
“For me, this is the most important thing I’ve done. That is, to get an original idea, to think about different kinds of research to substantiate it, and then to translate the research into an application, and then demonstrate the application really makes shy people less shy, more effective.”
– Philip G. Zimbardo
Selected Publications:
- Zimbardo, P. G., Pilkonis, P., & Norwood, R. (1975, May). The silent prison of shyness. Psychology Today, 69-70, 72.
- Zimbardo, P. G. (1977). Shyness: What it is, What to do about it. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. [Reprinted in 1991. Translated into Russian, German, Japanese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Italian, Norwegian, and Finnish.]
- Zimbardo, P. G. (1977, Jan.-Feb.). Shyness –The people phobia. Today’s Education, 66, 47-49.
- Zimbardo, P. G. (1977, August/September). Shyness can be a quiet yet devastating problem. Learning, 68-71.
- Zimbardo, P. G., & Pilkonis, P. (1978). Shyness. In B. B. Wolman (Ed.), International encyclopedia of psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis and neurology, (Vol. 10; pp. 226-229). New York: Human Sciences Press.
- Zimbardo, P. G., & Radl, S. L. (1979). The shyness workbook. New York: A. & W. Press. Zimbardo, P. G. (1982).
- Shyness and the stresses of the human connection. In L. Goldberger & S. Breznitz (Eds.), Handbook of stress: Theoretical and clinical aspects (pp. 466-481). New York: Free Press.
- Brodt, S. E., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1981). Modifying shyness-related social behavior through symptom misattribution. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41(3), 437.
- Lord, C. G., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1985). Actor-observer differences in the perceived stability of shyness. Social Cognition, 3(3), 250-265.
- Zimbardo, P. G., & Radl, S. L. (1999). The shy child: A parent’s guide to preventing and overcoming shyness from infancy to adulthood.
- Henderson, L., & Zimbardo, P. (2010). Shyness, social anxiety, and social anxiety disorder. In Social anxiety (pp. 65-92). Academic Press.
- Henderson, L., Gilbert, P., & Zimbardo, P. (2014). Shyness, social anxiety, and social phobia. In Social anxiety (pp. 95-115). Academic Press.
Additional resources:
- Dr. Lynne Henderson | Shyness website: www.shyness.com