Discussion

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Generalized Anxiety and Shyness in College Students

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Running head: Generalized Anxiety and Shyness in College Students

The Relationship Between Generalized Anxiety and Shyness in College Students

Candi Jackson

Northwestern State University

PSYC 4490 Senior Research Seminar

Dr. Jennifer Hodges-Crowder

October 8, 2026

The Relationship Between Generalized Anxiety and Shyness in College Students

Anxiety and Shyness Among College Students

Anxiety and shyness can be different from one another and can impact college students’ social interactions and acclimating to university life. Research by Byrd-Bredbenner et al. (2020) on anxiety measurement has identified the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) as a short questionnaire to determine the presence of generalized anxiety symptoms. Shyness has been studied with a focus on its measurement and on the correlation of shyness with social behaviors and anxiety-related experiences (Byrd-Bredbenner et al., 2020). Spitzer et al., for instance (2006) found that the GAD-7 possesses psychometric validity, and Byrd-Bredbenner et al. (2020) investigated how the GAD-7 was measured in university students. The phenomenon of shyness and its links to social anxiety and interpersonal communication anxiety have been explored in college students by other researchers (Wang & Zhao, 2026, Ramadhani et al., 2024, Li et al., 2025). Collectively, these studies offer a basis for exploring the correlation between Generalized Anxiety and Shyness of college students, rather than an equivalence between the two constructs.

The GAD-7 was designed to be a short screening instrument to detect generalized anxiety disorder and the level of anxiety symptoms. Spitzer et al. (2006) found good reliability (0.83) and criterion (0.78), construct and factorial (0.91), and procedural (0.94) validity for the GAD-7. Higher GAD-7 scores were also found to be related to more functional impairment. The study also demonstrated the validity of the GAD-7 as a measure of symptoms for generalized anxiety. The data are applicable for research purposes with the GAD-7, although the participants were not college students but adults seeking primary care.

In U.S. universities, young adults, Byrd-Bredbenner et al. (2020) studied the psychometrics of the GAD-7. They found that the GAD-7 was stable across three studies, in terms of having a single-factor structure, loadings were high, reliabilities were high, and construct and convergent validities were good. Bryd-Bredbenner et al. directly support the use of the GAD-7 as a measure of anxiety in college students. The current study will continue this research by applying the GAD-7 to learn whether there is a link between generalized anxiety and shyness.

Understanding Shyness Among College Students

Shyness in college students has been linked to poor social interactions and communication problems, and research has focused on the relationship between shyness and students’ behaviors and their experience of anxiety. A total of 741 college students were used in an examination by Crozier (2005) of the Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale, which showed good psychometric properties. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a two-factor model that took into account the wording of the items. These findings served as a basis to gauge shyness in university students, but to understand shyness among college students, it is important to consider its relationship to social experiences, communication, and decision-making. Rather than the psychometric characteristics of a measurement instrument.

Shyness in college students has been the subject of further study. To understand the decision-making and withdrawal process of college students from China, Yu and Sun (2023) investigated this process in the decision-making process of college students and compared shy and non-shy students. They found that shy students had a more risk-averse decision-making style, which is characterized as avoidance of choices with potential loss or uncertainty. The researchers also determined that the less talkative students were more likely to reverse their choices when they lost. The results indicate that shyness is related to the way in which college students react to uncertain events and failures. While the research did not focus on generalized anxiety, it does offer justification that the shyness experience is correlated with behaviors that could affect students’ decision-making and reactions to difficult circumstances. This research helps to consider shyness as a separate psychological phenomenon, instead of comparing it with anxiety.

Ramadhani et al. (2024) examine the correlation between shyness and interpersonal communication anxiety in first-year college students. Interpersonal communication anxiety is the anxiety or discomfort an individual feels when interacting with or communicating with others. The researchers discovered a significant positive correlation between shyness and interpersonal communication anxiety, suggesting that students’ interpersonal communication anxiety was also higher among those who reported greater shyness. This discovery indicates that shyness can be a greater challenge for college students in expressing themselves, joining conversations, and expressing themselves with confidence in interactions with others. These challenges could have an impact on students’ involvement in the classroom and their ability to build relationships.

Relationship Between Shyness and Anxiety

Wang and Zhao (2026) investigated the association between shyness and social anxiety in 1,012 college students in China. A positive correlation between shyness and social anxiety emerged from their findings, meaning that the higher an individual student’s shyness rating, the higher the student’s social anxiety rating. The researchers discovered that regulatory emotional self-efficacy was indirectly related to the relationship through resilience, and that resilience was a mediator of this relationship. The results of this study in practical terms may be relevant to the understanding of shyness and social anxiety in that students’ confidence in managing their emotions and the ability to bounce back from challenges may be important. These can be significant factors in considering how comfortable students are in social situations, and how they handle social difficulties. This study will explore different relationships in college students at a mid-sized university in the Southern United States.

Li et al. (2025) examined the relationship among parental phubbing, shyness, and social anxiety in a sample of 5,173 students aged 18 to 25. Parental phubbing is when a parent puts their attention on their mobile phone during an interaction rather than their child. The researchers discovered that shyness scores were positively related to the social anxiety scores. They also found that shyness was the problem between parental phubbing and social anxiety. The results indicated that interactions between family members where a parent is distracted might be of interest to the understanding of social anxiety and the relationship between shyness and social anxiety. The findings are important because they offer a recent source of data that shyness relates to the construct in a large group of college-aged students.

The reviewed studies do not directly address whether there will be a relationship between generalized anxiety as measured by the GAD-7 and shyness as measured by the Expanded Revised Shyness Scale among college students ages 18 years and older. The study represents an important gap that my research will address. While the psychometric properties of the GAD-7 have been investigated, and the relationship between shyness and social anxiety or interpersonal anxiety has been explored, this study will examine generalized anxiety and shyness together in the same sample of college students.

Purpose of this Study

The main purpose of this study is to determine if there is a relationship between anxiety and shyness among college students at a mid-sized university in the Southern United States. The question of research will be: Is there a relationship between anxiety and shyness among college students? The hypothesis is that an increase in anxiety will correspond with an increase in shyness in college students. Anxiety will be measured using participants’ GAD-7 scores, and shyness will be measured using their scores on the Expanded Revised Shyness Scale.

References

Byrd-Bredbenner, C., Eck, K., & Quick, V. (2020). Psychometric properties of the generalized anxiety Disorder-7 and generalized anxiety disorder-mini in United States university students. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 550533. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.550533

Crozier, W. R. (2005). Measuring shyness: Analysis of the revised cheek and buss shyness scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 38(8), 1947–1956. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2004.12.002

Li, J., Tang, F., Yin, H., & Liu, S. (2025). The relationship between parental phubbing and social anxiety in emerging adulthood students: A serial mediation model. BMC Psychology, 13, 413. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-02748-3

Ramadhani, A., Widyastuti, W., & Ridfah, A. (2024). The influence of shyness on interpersonal communication anxiety among first-year psychology students from Outside Makassar. Socius: Jurnal Penelitian Ilmu-Ilmu Sosial, 2(1). https://www.ojs.daarulhuda.or.id/index.php/Socius/article/view/757

Spitzer, R. L., Kroenke, K., Williams, J. B. W., & Löwe, B. (2006). A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder: The GAD-7. Archives of Internal Medicine, 166(10), 1092–1097. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.166.10.1092

Wang, Y., & Zhao, Y. (2026). The impact of shyness on social anxiety among college students: Mediating role of regulatory emotional self-efficacy and resilience. PLOS One, 21(3), e0344809. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0344809

Yu, Y., & Sun, H. (2023). Decision-making style explains the withdrawal behavior of shy individuals: Evidence from Chinese college students. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1292096. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1292096