I have a new puppy named Little Bear. He has shy moments that make my wife and I want to pick him up and cuddle him. I also have clients who are shy when they stand up to speak. I don’t want to cuddle them, but I often feel drawn to what they’re saying because of their authenticity and vulnerability. Their willingness to stand and fight for their equanimity in the face of their internal discomfort gives them a degree of heroic power.
I also know many people who have worked to overcome their natural shyness, (a VP of R&D at Cisco; a Co-Chairman of a wealth management firm) recognizing that their careers demanded the ability to engage with strangers in a sociable manner.
Brian Little, a lecturer in psychology and former Radcliffe Institute Fellow, has specialized in studying the human personality. Little argues that we can “act out of character” if we are motivated by our deepest values to do so, and that “courage often means acting out of character.”
Little says he is “wary of spurious genetic postulations and claims of a genetic basis for fixed traits.” Another of psychology’s pioneers, William James, asserted that our psychological traits are “set like plaster” by age 30.
Little counters that James was “only 50 percent correct – we are half-plastered. There is a heavily genetic aspect to the first stratum of personality. But our brains evolved a neocortex, which enables us to override these biological impulses to act in a certain way.”
In his book, Human Natures and Well Beings, Little bucks the current trend of biological determinism in psychology. He argues for the existence of “free traits”: tendencies expressed by individual choice.
Furthermore, Little argues that traits do not exist in the abstract, but are evoked in important ways by our “personal projects.” He defines these commonsensically: personal projects are meaningful goals, both small and large, that can range from “speak with confidence at this meeting” to “transform the way we go to market, slowly.”
Individuals activate their free traits, expressing or stifling inborn tendencies, in service of “core projects” – the endeavors linked to their deepest values.
“Out of love for our wives or kids or our professions, we enjoin ourselves to act ‘out of character,’” Little says. “For example, even though I’m a classic introvert, when I give a lecture for my students I perform with great passion. Introverts, when they are ‘on,’ become pseudo-extraverts. Can you tell the difference between a born extravert and a pseudo-extravert? Usually you cannot.”
Because speaking well is important in most executive positions, nearly half of American colleges and universities require a public speaking or communications course. Even universities without a requirement have put more emphaisis on speaking in class, developing courses labeled “speaking intensive” in departments not associated with class participation.
Some students are simply shy or experience stagefright; others are paralyzed in social situations. In extreme cases, an instructor might suggest a visit to university health services. Communication professors aren’t equipped to provide counseling, and they make an effort to avoid talking about their students’ feelings. They don’t try to identify the root of a student’s anxiety. Instead, they focus almost exclusively on behavior.
Apparently, there’s a whole population of students who go through their college career and don’t get their degree because they can’t bear to take public speaking. I’m certain there is also a population of professional people in the workforce who “drop out” of the climb up the corporate ladder because of their fear of public speaking.
Some experts question whether it’s really possible, or necessary, to ease the anxiety of highly apprehensive speakers. A new branch of thinking, called communibiology, argues that the problem is one of nature, not nurture. “For most people, there is no solution,” says James C. McCroskey, a professor at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. “Except maybe for gene replacement,” he adds with a laugh.
A leading scholar in the study of communication apprehension, he says forcing students to talk in public can be counterproductive. His reasearch shows that students nervous about speaking learn less if they anticipate having to communicate in class. Rather than paying attention, they fret about whether they’ll be called on and what they will say.
That may be true, but learning to speak may be indispensable to their future careers, so when should they learn how to speak in public? After school, when they get a job that requires them to speak?
It is my self-taught opinion (based on my enthusiastic, if spotty, reading of popular neuroscience articles) that we can change and develop the structure of our brains by doing certain things (e.g., meditating, or playing the piano.) So I would ask Professor McCroskey, “If my neuroscience is right, wouldn’t it be better for the shy, and for the society that needs the clear expression of their considered opinions, if schools, universities, and businesses provided the training and instruction to help them overcome their reticence?”
Can shyness be cured? Maybe not, but it can be overcome. Should shyness be overcome? Yes! We should be able to put aside our shyness for projects that are close to our core values. The benefits of being interpersonally skilled and effective on the podium far outweigh the discomfort we experience learning the skills.