I’ve been wondering… why have shyness, social anxiety, etc. remained as persistent traits in human (and for that matter, many animal) populations? What evolutionary advantage does that give the organism?
Of course I’m asking that from the individualistic, extraverted culture of the US. Maybe it’s actually the opposite situation more often, with caution towards strangers being the norm and gregariousness a relatively recent fluke imposed by the demands of recent, high density human cultures?
It’s not something I’ve ever studied or looked into. Just curious. Thoughts?
Mutations do not have to be advantageous. If they are not disadvantageous they will be passed on.
Even the disadvantageous mutations will be passed on if they do not interfere with reproduction.
For Charles Darwin shyness was an “odd state of mind”, appearing to offer no benefit to our species, and since the 1970s the modern tendency in psychology has been to see shyness as pathology.[45] However, evolutionary survival advantages of careful temperaments over adventurous temperaments in dangerous environments have also been recognized.[39][45]
Seems like shyness is one of those traits that could certainly interfere with reproduction. (Not speaking from personal experience, of course; definitely not.)
Might be an advantage in survival, however; and those who don’t survive don’t reproduce.
Not every human actually can be trusted. A certain degree of caution seems like a good idea. Shyness is usually taken to mean excessive caution – but I doubt evolution’s precise enough to consistently produce the exact right amount of caution around other humans; especially since that’s going to be partly a matter of the overall societal situation and partly a matter of luck.
In a world where a large percentage of people and things that are not intimately known to you want to kill and/or eat you, you can see how people who are shy around strangers would get to pass on their genes whereas those that are friendly and gregarious around strangers would not.
Presumably as with risky behaviors generally it’s advantageous to have some outgoing gregarious genes in your extended family. So having that one cousin who’s outgoing and gregarious, and gets to setup some trading networks with the tribe over the hill, will benefiting everyone. Even if the time he tries that with the tribe on the other side of the valley he gets his head bashed in.
[checks forum] Speculating: This makes sense, but also within a community group (as opposed to strangers), the outgoing/gregarious/aggressive types may spend a lot of energy fighting one another, sometimes to crippling injury and/or early death (presumably mostly among males), leaving a gender imbalance for the less gregarious to exploit with more opportunity to reproduce.
Humans are evolved, both physically and psychologically, for the environment of 10K years ago -ish. The time since then is an eyeblink at the pace of genetic innate evolution.
In that environment, you will grow, live, and die within a community of ~100 people you’ve known since you or they were born, whichever came second. The entirety of humanity (be they thousands or billions) beyond those hundred specific named familiar individuals are strangers best assumed to be homicidally hostile.
That is the world our psyche was “designed” for. I think it’s beyond obvious that the world of 2025 is utterly unlike that. IMO it’s a wonder we’ve adapted to modernity as well as we have.
Shyness used to be evolutionarily adaptive. It is not today. If modern-style worldwide civilization lasts another 100K years, we’ll have bred most of extreme shyness out of our population. If.
Very new modernity seems almost designed to reward shyness. All the things you can now do from the safety of your home, including reviewing prospective mates, make shyness much less crippling. I love, for example, that I can compose this answer, with frequent revisions, before any of you ever sees it.
On a more serious note, what makes folks think that shyness has to do with genetic inheritance? In my own case, I think it’s entirely learned, from a very early age, so much so that conscious desires to change it are ineffective in driving me to do so. And I don’t expect that to change much with technological advancement.
In my case it probably originated from growing up in a holler far from other kids. When I got interested in girls I was a socially awkward disaster, and the initial lack of success made me terrified to even try. Around guys and girls I was friends with I was known as a smartass who loved to make people laugh. Around girls/women I saw as potential partners I froze. At least one woman finally unfroze me; otherwise I’d probably still be hopeless at 60. I did reproduce, and both kids have significant others
What’s the evolutionary benefit of extreme, over-the-top extraversion?
There isn’t one. Such people are annoying. They find it hard to make close friends. And their tendency to overshare can be exploited by others.
So there’s an ideal balance between intraversion and extraversion. But like anything else on a spectrum (height, weight, etc.) you will have some people below the ideal point and some people above. Some will be so far below or above that it causes them harm. There isn’t an evolutionary benefit to this; it’s just the nature of things that exist on a spectrum.
I’d argue there’s an evolutionary advantage in having that spectrum within an extended family group. You want most of the group to be on the introverted end (which we are as a species, in my experience) and be deathly afraid of strangers as if they were going to kill and eat you, because they may well intend to do that. But its not a bad thing it there are a couple of group members who have the extroverted gene, and will be all “Hey! is that the Oggs from the other side of the hill? How’s it going? Got any ivory you’d like to trade for these pelts?” Even if that ends up getting them killed they have benefitted the group, so that family group will have an advantage over one where everyone is introverted.
I agree that there’s a benefit to having a spectrum at all. But that still implies that there are some people that are too far outside the spectrum to be useful. Or at least that they’re past the point of diminishing returns.
Plus there are limits to how many people you want at the extremes. Take left-handedness as an example. On one hand, they suffer the disadvantage that various artifacts aren’t made for them. But they have the advantage of surprise when it comes to fighting, etc. This only works when there aren’t too many of them, percentage-wise. So the stable point ends up being around 10%.
Yes, variability is useful since the situations creatures fund themselves in are also variable, and an approach that’s good in one situation can be fatal in another.
Also, among humans and smarter animals there would be the danger of some totally predictable response being exploited by other members of that species. There’s a reason why “pushing someone’s buttons” is a common metaphor for manipulating someone, after all.
The prevalence of right-handed tools in a right-handed tool-making society is indeed a disadvantage to left-handers. But humans have been tool makers for far too few millenia to have had any impact on evolution.
I’d argue something closer to: Not all mutations confer a noticeable advantage or disadvantage. They’re a difference that doesn’t matter. But if they’re single-allele dominant, which is mostly a matter of accident of biochemistry, not of function, they will spread to some arbitrary fraction of the population.
Eye color does not matter. But yet humans come in several eye colors which are generally preserved. IMO left-handedness is probably like that. Some slight [whatever] goes on during formation of the two halves of the brain & spinal cord, and poof, a lefty is created. In a primitive society they’re not better, they’re not worse. They’re simply a little different.
My understanding is that one reason for shyness is its a way to avoid the pain of social rejection.
Humans crave social belonging and social status. As social creatures, being excommunicated from a hunter-gatherer group meant you would likely die. Not only that, but the humans who were at the top of the social hierarchy in the hunter-gatherer group would have more resources, better mates, and more protection than those at the bottom.
Sometimes we just don’t fit in. In those situations its best to say nothing than to open your mouth and risk losing status and being kicked out of the group. Its my understanding that that is a big reason for shyness.
Eye color travels with other genes that do have other impacts. Obviously skin color. And also the same gene variant plays a role in alcohol tolerance which played potentially some role in different cultures across history.
So “shyness” may be part of an overall temperament that has a niche within societies. Yes self preservation. Avoiding conflict and risks. Maybe socially awkwardness travels with other characteristics and strengths (think the plus sides of mild autistic spectrum often traveling with math and music skills and greater specific area expertise).
We’ve been tool makers at least as far back as Homo habilis and possibly before then; and have certainly evolved since then.
– I suspect that it is indeed advantageous to have some people who are shy and some people who are extroverted, because as has been said by others there will be different situations, some of which advantage one and some the other; and also I agree with those saying that because of the nature of such variations there will be occasional people so far out on one end of the spectrum or the other that they will be significantly disadvantaged overall. Some of those may manage to reproduce anyway, though I’d expect their chances to be lower.
Bear in mind that most human societies are expecting most people to reproduce (societies that don’t tend to not last long themselves), and have structures in place to encourage that to happen.