In order to adhere to a perceived social norm, people often try to blend in by echoing the behaviours exhibited by others. This mirroring behavior is a result of unconfident individuals who are not comfortable with the idea of being unique, a common observation among young adults. However, as much as researchers may attempt to display the behaviours they observe, the behavioural mechanisms are inherently different. The study “Revisiting shyness and sociability: a preliminary investigation of hormone-brain-behavior relations”, co-authored by McMaster faculty Dr. Geoffrey Hall, investigates two fundamentally different personality dimensions in individuals and how they are represented in the brain (Tang, Beaton, Schulkin, Hall, & Schmidt, 2014). This study was conducted by examining the neural responses in young adults identified with high and low shyness with their response to different types of social threat using an event-related fMRI, and monitoring cortisol levels in the salivary cortisol awakening response (CAR) (Tang et al., 2014). This behavioral neuroscience study is interesting as the study addresses the theoretically important issue of how the brain works to support cognition and emotion in different individuals with recognized characteristics. Moreover, the study helps explain why and how others react to certain situations, specifically shy individuals. Nevertheless, not all shy people are alike, so their response to a certain social situation will differ depending on the participant. With this notion, young adults can become more comfortable with developing a sense of self and accepting their individuality.
Today, science and technology pervade all aspects of everyday life. With technology being widely accessible, it has become integral in simplifying tasks and making them more efficient. However, technology, such as cellphones, can be used by individuals to shy away from a social situation out of fear or feeling uncomfortable. This aversion is a common practice amongst young adults, known as phubbing. Phubbing is defined as an individual looking at his or her mobile phone during a conversation with other individuals, dealing with the mobile phone and escaping from interpersonal communication (Karadağ et al., 2015). Implications of the study conducted by Dr. Hall can help elucidate why certain individuals take part in this habit and can be the basis of future studies that can contribute a solution to solving such a detrimental problem in society. The person perpetrating the “phubbing” may exhibit lower CAR levels as a result of activation in regions of the brain such as the amygdala. This region is involved in fear and withdrawal, causing the individual to be unsociable (Tang et al., 2014). Moreover, the study has already become the foundation of and has assisted multiple published scientific research papers. Most recently, the study was used in the book “The Temperamentally Shy Child as the Social Adult: An Exemplar of Multifinality” (Poole, Tang, & Schmidt, 2018). This book looks at the developmental course of temperamental shyness from childhood to adulthood, and analyzes the neural measurements observed in this study. This evidence was used to support the book’s argument that temperamental shyness is rooted in behavioral inhibition in early childhood and shaped by multiple influences over development (Poole et al., 2018). The development of human personality is undoubtedly complex and multi-determined, and this study serves as a stepping stone on the path to understanding by a closer look at how personalities emerge—making the study very relevant in the field of psychobiology.
Evaluating the Scientific Rigor of the Research
It is evident in both the methodological approach and analysis that the authors seek to investigate the biological mechanisms underlying shyness and sociability through experimentation. The first step in a qualifiable experiment is always the definition of a clearly defined research question of interest (Cairns, 2011). Given that there was little knowledge about how shyness and sociability were represented and maintained in the brain, the researchers hypothesized that variations in both traits could be attributed to the neural responses to processing different types of social threat. Then, in order to test this hypothesis, they extracted relevant data from the sociability, salivary CAR, and event-related fMRI images of young adults of varying shyness levels.
All experiments, including this experiment, are typified by the manipulation of independent variables, use of controls, and attentive measurement or observation of dependent variables (Kirk, 2013). General characteristics of a quality experimental design include additional components such as randomization, replication and local control, and analysis of covariance (Kirk, 2013) in order to ensure that the data concerning the hypothesis is acquired in an unbiased manner and supports their conclusions (Cairns, 2011). In pursuit of accuracy and eliminating common means of error, the procedure in this study exhibited many of these common characteristics. For instance, in order to evaluate a subject’s shyness, the participants were to complete a repetitive series of questionnaires, and based on their responses, they were judged using the Cheek and Buss (1981) Shyness Scale. Obtaining multiple questionnaire responses allowed the researchers to estimate error effects and acquire a more precise estimate of treatment effects (Kirk, 2007), and referring to Cheek and Buss’s study “Shyness and Sociability” (1981) allowed the researchers to take advantage of and support their study with existing data and experimental results. Moreover, in measuring salivary cortisol levels and social threat processing, their approach was to obtain useful quantitative data reflective of individual differences. To compensate for those inconsistencies, participants had their morning saliva collected from three separate non-stressful days, and since each individual’s morning and sleep durations were also subject to variation, multiple samples were collected on each of those days. In analyzing covariance, the dependent variable (i.e. the level of salivary cortisol) was statistically calibrated to eliminate the effects of an uncontrolled source of variation (Kirk, 2007). Participants were all expected to follow the same instructions on how to collect and store their saliva samples, as well as to temporarily abstain from certain substances. When visual stimuli were presented to the subjects undergoing fMRI scanning, the photographs were modified to certain standards of grayscale conversion, size, contrast, luminosity, and so forth. In both cases, by holding these variables constant and assigning known, random experimental treatment levels, the researchers were able to eliminate variation attributable to these nuisance variables (Kirk, 2007).
A crucial factor in assessing the validity of the paper is the appropriateness of the statistical method. The researchers in this study were able to interpret the raw data by performing a behavioural partial least square analysis. The goal was to find the corticolimbic regions in the brain that correlated most with changes in morning salivary cortisol levels. As explained and justified in the paper, a PLS analysis best suited the needs of the study because of its ability to examine the differences in brain-cortisol correlations for two types of threat (imminent and ambiguous), and manage a large number of variables. According to Dr. Rangachari, a scientific research paper of merit has its results presented to distinctly highlight the information gathered using the methods described to fulfill the objectives of the study (Rangachari, 1994). The data results from the fMRI images presented well-founded brain-cortisol correlations for both threat conditions exclusively in the shy group, but not for the non-shy group. This network was irrelevant to the non-shy group’s cortisol patterns. For the shy group, however, there was no significant difference in brain-cortisol correlations between the two different types of threat. The images showed that the shy individuals having the highest and lowest CAR scores displayed the largest difference in neural response patterns, thus indicating that rather different corticolimbic engagement associated with both types of social threat processing manifested in the shy group. In relating the change in morning salivary cortisol levels and sociability among shy individuals, 100% of those who exhibited higher levels were sociable, and consequently, 100% of those exhibiting lower levels were categorized as unsociable. The authors suggested a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon amongst the shy subtype: higher CAR is consistent with the body having more energy, which is required to be socially outgoing.
In both its data collection and analytical procedures, this study consistently followed the general principles of the scientific method, provided relevant rationales and explanations, elaborated on the errors and limitations inherent to the experimental design, and sought creative ways to obtain meaningful and accurate results. In the discussion they named a few limitations of the experiment, such as the relatively small sample size, few number of trials, and few samples of morning cortisol, and notably encouraged future studies to replicate these results using a larger sample size, more trials, and repeated measures of morning salivary cortisol within a given time frame. Though this paper did not provide any conclusive research, it certainly meets scientific rigor, and thereby allows plenty of detail and information for others to repeat or continue the study. As mentioned in the discussion, “this initial finding allowed further testing of the hypothesis that cortisol is related to energy expenditure that facilitates social approach- and withdrawal-related behavior (e.g. Muller & Wrangham, 2004)” (Tang et. al, 2014).
The Mind-Body Problem
One of the earliest contentions that arose when early scientists studied the human mind involved two opposing theories about the nature of the mind—dualism and monism. On one hand, dualism assumes the mind is extraphysical and separate from the brain, while monism states the mind is inextricably linked to the brain and cannot exist apart from it (Sperry, 1980). This research paper assumes monism as the framework in analysing the relationship between shyness and sociability in relation to hormone and brain activity, but delves into dualism briefly on a few occasions. This tone is relatively consistent and evident throughout the paper.
The researchers define the framework of this research paper, monism, early on by explicitly stating the purpose of their investigation as using CAR levels to predict different levels of shyness and sociability. In doing so, the researchers suggest that shyness and sociability can be properly examined based purely on empirical evidence, which is physical. Here, the mind and the brain and proposed as one. The researchers do no allude to nor reference dualism or a separation of mind and brain in any fashion.
This consistent approach is further reinforced when the researchers reference former studies as the basis and inspiration to their own research. For instance, two studies, conducted separately, referenced by the researchers involved studying electroencephalographic asymmetry patterns from various cultures. Their study strongly indicated that there are underlying neural mechanisms that are present despite differences in external environment (Hussein, Fathy, Abdel Mawla, Zyada, & El Hadidy, 2011; Jetha, Schmidt, & Goldberg, 2009). In citing this study, which focuses on physical aspects only, monism, the researchers are pointing towards the fact that the same framework of the mind will be used as the basis for their own research.
The mode of methodology used in the study was primarily the collection of empirical evidence which then formulated the the basis for the conclusions made in this paper. Before we proceed, it is important to note that the following arguments made in favour of the paper being objectively monistic are based on the assumption that quantitative analysis is a hallmark of monistic ideology. The main sources of information gathered came from event related fMRI as well as salivary cortisol awakening response (CAR), which is fruitful in its implications on the author’s stance on the mind-body problem. Their presence in the paper indicate that the researchers assume behaviour is dependent on electrical and chemical neurological activity, and their findings of differences in sociability relying on the measures only serves to validify these assumptions.
The language used in this essay can most accurately be described as moderately monistic. This is to say that although it maintains a monistic tone fairly consistently throughout its entirety, there are a few instances that hint at a slight inclination towards dualism. The first few introductory statements convey this particularly well and can be used to defend this interpretation of the authors’ language pertaining to the mind body problem: “Shyness and sociability are two fundamental personality dimensions that are conceptually and empirically orthogonal and are conserved across cultures, development, and phylogeny. However, we know relatively little regarding how shyness and sociability are represented and maintained in the brain” (Tang et al., 2014). One of the central tenets of monism is exploring psychology purely through the lens of observable behavior, especially the relationship between stimulus and response. This contradicts the statements about non-observable realms of psychology (which is referred to as “conceptual”) but is consistent with the use of the word “empirical”. Furthermore, the statement about inadequate knowledge concerning the neurological basis of shyness and sociability can be interpreted as both dualistic or monistic. This is because it can be viewed as an allusion to the dualistic principle that the mind can never be fully explained using physical phenomena alone or can simply be taken at face value as simply being an expression of the lack of viable research in this area. This is a common theme within the text: though the instances where dualism seems to be implicated are few and far between, they are only ambiguously suggestive of the perspective — and it is often possible to dismiss them altogether by approaching interpretation using pragmatic analysis rather than intuitively or literarily. For this reason, it can be said that this paper is best classified as subscribing to monistic theory.
In spite of the authors’ adherence to monism, there is nevertheless a dualistic aspect to this research, the most striking being when they asked participants to fill out surveys that were designed to place them on the Cheek & Buss shyness scale. The highly subjective nature of this methodology opposes the following criteria for monism: “The idea that the objective physical brain process is causally complete in itself without reference to conscious or mental forces represents the central premise of behaviorism and of scientific materialism in general and has long served as a prime basis for the renunciation of the phenomena of subjective experience as explanatory constructs in science” (Sperry, 1980).
Conclusion
Shyness and sociability are both integral personality dimensions that span all human populations, regardless of culture or phylogeny. In “Revisiting Shyness and Sociability” (Tang et al., 2014), the researchers address how the brain supports cognition and emotion in individuals of varying shyness and sociability, and investigate the relationship between those traits and the neural responses to processing different types of social threat through experimentation. Both the methodological and analytical approaches meet scientific rigor and exhibit the common characteristics of quality experimental design. Although the paper did not offer any conclusive research, it provides sufficient results for others to replicate the study or relate it to relevant issues such as phubbing. The language used throughout the paper follows a general pattern of monism and is fairly explicit about the authors’ perspective on the mind-body problem. Though as a whole, the paper favored monism, it also had instances and methods that could be classified as anomalies to this trend.