Behavioral and psychophysiological correlates of self-presentation in temperamentally shy children

We examined temporal changes in behavior, regional brain electrical activit y (EEG), heart rate, cardiac vagal tone, the startle eyeblink response, and salivary cortisol during a task designed to elicit self-presentation anxie ty in a group of 7-year-olds, some of whom were classified as temperamental ly shy. We found that temperamentally shy children displayed a significantl y greater increase in anxious behavior, a greater increase in right, but no t left frontal EEG activity, and a greater increase in heart rate as the ta sk became more demanding compared with their nonshy counterparts. However, the results failed to reveal any significant group differences on the start le eyeblink and salivary cortisol measures. The present findings extend our prior work, in which we found distinct patterns of psychophysiological act ivity on baseline measures, to differences on psychophysiological measures collected concurrently during a socially evaluative situation in temperamen tally shy children. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.