The Relationship of Shyness and Neuroticism with Social Anxiety: The Mediating Role of Effortful Control

The current study aimed at investigating the relationship of shyness and neuroticism with social anxiety taking into account the mediating role of effortful control. The research method was descriptive-correlation of structural equation modeling. The study population was all high school students (adolescents) in the cities of Tehran province who were studying in one of the public schools of these cities in the year 2021. The research sample was selected from the cities of Tehran province by multi-stage cluster sampling method (197 girls and 210 boys). Four standard questionnaires including Revised Cheek-Briggs Shyness Scale (1990), Short form of Five Personality Factors Questionnaire (2006), Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (1998) and Effortful Control Scale (2003) were used to collect data. Data were analyzed in two sections: descriptive statistics using SPSS23 software and inferential statistics using structural equation modeling in Amos software. The findings disclosed that only the relationship between shyness with social anxiety (β = 0.46, t = 5.081, sig = 0.000) and shyness with effortful control (β = -0.54, t = 5.985, sig = 0.000) were significant (Positively and negatively, respectively). Effortful control does not mediate the effect of neuroticism on social anxiety and the effect of shyness on social anxiety. Correspondingly, neuroticism has no effect on social anxiety. Conversely, the whole model comprising the combination of shyness, neuroticism, and effortful control variables could explain social anxiety (R2 = 27.4%) and the model had an acceptable fit.