An Unwillingness to Act: Behavioral Appropriateness, Situational Constraint, and Self‐Efficacy in Shyness

Three reasons for the failure to demonstrate social skills were examined in an attempt to integrate social skills deficit and dysfunctional cognition approaches to self‐labeled shyness To assess social skills knowledge, the willingness to demonstrate such knowledge, and self‐efficacy expectations for enacting social behaviors, 40 shy and 40 nonshy adults were asked to judge the appropriateness of situated behaviors and indicate whether they characteristically enacted and felt capable of producing them Results suggested that shys may be unaware of the appropriateness of some behaviors in some situations, however, shys and nonshys more often agree on behavioral appropriateness standards Compared to nonshys, shys are less likely to enact social behaviors and tend to have low self‐efficacy It was suggested that shys' self‐awareness of characteristic responses and low self‐efficacy expectations may contribute to failures to demonstrate social skills knowledge