The past decade has seen a strong resurgence of scientific interest in emotion. There have been significant advances in biotechnology and an increasing number of interdisciplinary longitudinal studies and innovative experimental paradigms. These have generated multidimensional portraits of brain-behaviour relations that implicate affective states and affect-related behaviours. They are now affording affective science researchers more direct and empirically grounded access to the full story of the origins, precursors and progression of non-normative affective states.
An excellent sampling of the scientific benefits reaped is presented in this collection of papers edited by developmental psychologist Louis A. Schmidt and neuroscientist Jay Schulkin. It is the latest in a groundbreaking “Series in Affective Science,” published under the aegis of Richard Davidson, Paul Ekman and Klaus Scherer.
There are 3 sections in the book, each completed with a commentary by a prominent researcher in the field. The first part deals with conceptual, biological and developmental aspects of fear and shyness in childhood; the second examines the endocrine and neural basis of fear and fear-related behaviours; and the third looks at the developmental course and clinical outcomes of fear and shyness.
The book's strength lies in its rationale and in the multidisciplinary mix and calibre of its contributors. Although there is no explicit formulation, the rationale that appears to frame its contents implicates a set of general propositions that, broadly stated, take the following form: 1) affect-charged phenomena are rooted in particular biobehavioural manifestations; 2) fear-related emotional states and their manifestations are modified over the life course by the interplay of maturation and experience; 3) individuals differ in the nature and effects of the interplay; 4) the interplay of maturation and experience impinges on the stability of these differences; 5) the differences vary in their adaptive value as a function of age and context; and 6) the differences in adaptive value render certain individuals more susceptible than others to non-normative affective states such as extreme shyness and social phobia. Contributors address these propositions from different vantage points, and in doing so, provide the reader with a useful overview of the progress made to date.
It becomes clear that much interdisciplinary research has primarily addressed propositions 1 and 3. The authors present persuasive evidence that there are basic, biobehavioural systems and repertoires associated with fear and fear-related behaviours, and further, that there is a spectrum of temperament-related variation among individuals on these parameters. At the same time, unless I missed it, coverage of recent studies of individual differences in the processing of affective information is minimal.
When the developmental cast of the other propositions is considered, it becomes evident that affective science researchers contend with a number of theoretical and methodological issues in examining individual differences from a developmental perspective — that is, when they deal with questions of linkage between interindividual variation in childhood patterns of adaptation and later psychopathology (in this instance, shyness and social phobia). The challenge here is to demonstrate linkage against a dynamic backdrop of continuing interaction between maturation and experience.
On the theoretical side, the task is to adopt a model of linkage that best addresses the challenge. The model that appears to prevail in the book, at least implicitly, is based on the assumption that individual differences on one or more biological or behavioural parameters of shyness are stable and organism centred rather than organism and context centred. On the method side, the task is to adopt research strategies that acknowledge and capture faithfully the dynamic nature of social maturation. There are aspects of social maturation that make it difficult to assess cross-age consistencies in shyness. To be taken into account, for example, is the elaboration with age of less readily observable and more diverse forms of shyness, along with an increasing degree of context specificity. Also to be acknowledged are the effects of certain critical junctures in life where the interaction of maturation and experience is likely to accentuate or distort individual differences for varying periods of time (e.g. school entry, puberty).
Accordingly, considerations of this kind will probably lead the reader to conclude that much of the progress made in the area of affective science has stemmed from lines of study where the developmental focus is confined to infants, toddlers and preschoolers, or where interspecies research is being conducted to determine the neural and endocrine underpinnings of fear-related behaviours. The first 2 sections are impressive and indicate that methodologic advances tailored for use with young children, in particular, will extend our knowledge considerably about the origins of early individual differences in affective states and behaviours.
The main challenges and issues are particularly evident in the third section where adolescent and adult forms of shyness are examined in the context of developmental course and outcome. The most instructive papers in this section focus on the phenomenology and treatment of shyness and social phobia in young adults.
This book is an important contribution and a much recommended read. It should be of particular interest to researchers and students in the areas of developmental neuroscience, personality formation and developmental psychopathology.