Читать книгу The Handbook of Solitude - Группа авторов - Страница 29

One of the most widely studied neural correlates of shyness and related phenomena is frontal brain EEG alpha asymmetry. This work is rooted in motivational models of frontal brain activation, which have described resting state frontal brain alpha asymmetry as a trait‐like measure (i.e., a biological diathesis) that is stable across time and context (see Coan & Allen, 2004; Davidson, 2000; Fox, 1991, 1994; Reznik & Allen, 2018, for reviews). According to this framework, greater relative activity in the left frontal brain region is presumed to facilitate approach‐related motivations and emotions such as sociability and happiness, whereas greater relative activity in the right frontal region has been implicated in avoidance‐related motivations and emotions such as shyness and fear (Reznik & Allen, 2018).

Researchers have used EEG‐based data to derive asymmetries of frontal brain activity and the frontal activation motivational model as a theoretical platform to test hypotheses related to individual differences in temperament (including shyness and related constructs) and affective style across development (see Schmidt & Miskovic, 2014, for a review). Typically, these studies examined frontal asymmetry as the difference in EEG alpha power in the right frontal hemisphere minus EEG alpha power in the left frontal hemisphere. Because EEG alpha power is inversely related to cortical activity, negative scores reflect greater relative right frontal brain activity (Tomarken et al., 1992).

During different developmental periods, researchers have provided support for the relation between right frontal asymmetry and social avoidance‐related tendencies. For example, in infants and children, resting right frontal asymmetry has been associated with behavioral inhibition and emotional reactivity (Calkins et al., 1996; Davidson & Fox, 1989; Fox & Davidson, 1987; McManis et al., 2002), which are the temperamental antecedents of shyness. In preschool children, those described as socially inhibited and withdrawn during interactions with peers show right frontal asymmetry at rest (Fox et al., 1996), as do temperamentally shy children (Poole et al., 2018, 2019; Theall‐Honey & Schmidt, 2006). In adults, higher levels of behavioral inhibition, shyness, and social anxiety also have been linked to right frontal asymmetry at rest (Moscovitch et al., 2011; Schmidt, 1999; Sutton & Davidson, 1997) and increases in right frontal brain activity in responses to social stress in adults (Davidson, et al., 2000) and children (Schmidt et al., 1999).