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Ruben, K., Coplan, R., & Bowker, J. (2009). Social withdrawal in childhood. (Master's thesis, University of Maryland)Retrieved from http://www.rubin-lab.umd.edu/pubs/downloadable pdfs/kenneth_rubin/inhibition, shyness, withdrawal/annual review chapte.pdf

1. From early childhood through to adolescence, socially withdrawn children are concurrently and predictively at risk for a wide range of negative adjustment outcomes, including socio-emotional difficulties (e.g., anxiety, low self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and internalizing problems), peer difficulties (e.g., rejection, victimization, poor friendship quality), and school difficulties.

2. In contrast, social withdrawal refers to the child's isolating himself/herself from the peer group.

3. Indeed, social withdrawal in childhood may be a catalyst in a transactional model that describes the development of such negative outcomes as negative self-regard, loneliness, peer rejection, victimization, anxiety, and depression.

4. Clearly, there is a conceptual similarity here with social phobia, an internalizing disorder characterized by “a marked and persistent fear of social or performance situations in which embarrassment may occur”.

5. Social withdrawal and avoidance interfere with the normal development of social skills.

6. Not surprisingly, therefore, anxiety disordered children often withdraw from social company.

7. Whereas social withdrawal induced by social anxiety may yield sympathy, interest, and social overtures from others, depressed-withdrawn individuals may attempt to elicit support in a way that actually causes others to withdraw from them, or even ignore or reject them.

8. Specifically, social withdrawal is listed as a symptom, or marker, of anxiety and phobic disorders and major depression.

9. Thus, it is argued that enhanced amygdala activation to novelty and activation of "fear" circuitry may underline not only infant negative reactivity to novelty, but also behavioral inhibition, and preschool social reticence.

10. Beginning in early childhood, observations of behavioral inhibition at two years are significant predictors of social wariness and reticence at four years and beyond.

11. Typically, across all developmental periods, children at the extremes of social withdrawal show the greatest stability in their behavior over time. Rubin, Chen et al. (1995), for example, found that approximately two-thirds of children identified as extreme in social withdrawal maintained their status across any two-year period from five to eleven years.

 12. For exapmle, Schneider and colleagues have shown that socially withdrawn children and young adolescents avoid their peers consistently across a variety of different social settings, including in the school, home, and the larger community.   13. In summary, these findings nicely illustrate that many children who withdraw from their peers do so consistently across time and context. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 14. Researchers have shown that secure attachment predicts social competence whereas insecurity predicts both externalizing (aggression) and internalizing (withdrawal) forms of behavior. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 15. That is, to release the child from social discomfort, the parent may simply "take over" by telling the child what to do and how to do it.