Relationships between Shyness, Self-esteem and Humor Styles in Japan

Research on shyness in social and personality psychology suggests that shyness reflects one’s inferiority related to anxiety and inhibition in social contexts. Shy people tend to use more self-defeating humor and less affiliative humor than non-shy people in interpersonal relations (Hampes, 2005; 2006). It is commonly found that shyness is associated with deficit of self-esteem, which further mediates the effect of shyness on depression along with social support (Chan, 2012). The present study based on analysis of a recent Japanese student sample (N=198, 66.7% male) investigates whether those patterns are similar in Japan context. Results show that although shyness is associated with loneliness and affiliative humor (negatively), it has no significant correlations with self-defeating humor and self-esteem. The findings support that the negative functioning of shyness is not pan-cultural, since in some cultures like Japan, being shy is not necessarily associated with having low self-esteem. Social functioning of shyness needs to be studied based on cultural values and norms.