Withdrawing to a virtual world: Associations between subtypes of withdrawal, media use, and maladjustment in emerging adults.

Abstract

An approach-avoidance model of social withdrawal (Asendorpf, 1990) identifies 3 types of social withdrawal including shyness, unsociability, and avoidance. Each appears to be uniquely associated with varying indicators of maladjustment in emerging adulthood (Nelson, 2013) but little, if any, work has been done to see how they might be linked to media use in the third decade of life. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine longitudinally the links between subtypes of social withdrawal, connective media (e.g., e-mail, social networking) and problematic (forms of media such as violent video games that, when used in high amounts, have been found to be linked to indices of maladjustment) media use, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors. The participants in the study (Mage = 20.70, SD = 1.98, range = 18-29 at Time 2) consisted of 204 undergraduate students (58% female) recruited from 2 large public universities in the United States who completed questionnaires at 2 points of time separated by 1 year. Results revealed that avoidant individuals use problematic forms of media more than average, unsociable, and shy individuals. Furthermore, problematic media use predicted more withdrawn behavior at Time 2 and mediated the relation between avoidance and externalizing behaviors over time. Few problems were found for unsociable behavior. The need to differentiate between multiple forms of withdrawal in emerging adulthood and their links with problematic forms of media and subsequent risk factors is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

What are They Thinking? Examining Complex Links Among Social Withdrawal, Maladaptive Cognitions, and Internalizing Problems in Children and Emerging Adults

“…To date, there has been very limited empirical comparison of the cognitive, social, and emotional correlates of subtypes of social withdrawal in emerging adulthood (Bowker et al, 2017;Barry et al, 2013;Nelson, 2013;Nelson et al, 2016). Drawing upon developmental, clinical, and cognitive perspectives, Study 1 was the first to explore the potential different patterns of associations between subtypes of social withdrawal (shyness, unsociability, social avoidance), maladaptive cognitions (threatening, negative), and internalizing problems (social anxiety, depressive symptoms) in a sample of emerging adults.…”

“…Moreover, extreme group comparisons indicated that unsociable youth reported higher levels of depression (that did not differ from shy and socially avoidant peers) than comparison non-withdrawn emerging adults. In contrast, Nelson et al (2016) reported that correlation analyses examining the associations between unsociability and depression assessed at two timepoints yielded mixed findings, including significant positive associations as well as non-significant negative associations. Thus, although the extant literature suggests that unsociability poses less risk for socio-emotional maladjustment as compared to shyness and social avoidance, additional empirical exploration of unsociability across developmental periods is needed.…”

“…This model has since been widely accepted as an underlying organizational blueprint for conceptualizing subtypes of social withdrawal, and has led to a large increase in empirical studies over the last two decades. Moreover, although originally developed as a model of childhood social behaviour, researchers have begun to apply Asendorpf's model to adolescents and emerging adults (e.g., Bowker, Stotsky, & Etkin, 2017;Bowker & Raja, 2011;Nelson, 2013;Nelson, Coyne, Howard, & Clifford., 2016). Accordingly, this has resulted in the development of several new assessment tools designed to measure subtypes of social withdrawal across childhood and into emerging adulthood in recent years (e.g., Bowker & Raja, 2011;Bowker et al, 2017;Coplan, Ooi, Xiao, et al, 2018;Coplan, Prakash, O'Neil, & Armer, 2004;Kim et al, 2008;Nelson, 2013).…”

“…Unsociable youth do not seem to exhibit high levels of distress when playing alone or with the peer group. As such, unsociability appears to be a comparatively benign form of withdrawal, and has been found to be either unrelated or negatively related to indices of internalizing problems in both adults and children (e.g., Coplan, Ooi, Xiao, et al, 2018;Coplan et al, 2004;Nelson, 2013;Nelson et al, 2016). For example, in one of the first studies examining differences among subtypes of withdrawn kindergarteners, Harrist et al (1997) compared the social, emotional, and cognitive functioning of unsociable, passive-anxious (i.e., shy), isolated, and sad/depressed children.…”

“…It has long been suggested that socially avoidant children may be at risk for the most pervasive social and emotional difficulties (Asendorpf, 1990). Yet, it is only within the last few years that researchers have begun to directly assess this particular subtype of withdrawal from a social motivational perspective (e.g., Bowker, Markovic, Cogswell, & Raja, 2012;Bowker & Raja, 2011;Bowker et al, 2017;Coplan et al, 2016;Coplan, Ooi, Xiao, et al, 2018;Nelson, 2013;Nelson et al, 2016). This recent empirical interest in social avoidance has provided evidence to suggest that social avoidance may indeed carry considerable risks for maladjustment.…”