Shyness
Swedes’ relatively quiet manner and lack of wit - in many foreigners’ eyes - have been explained by the concept of shyness. Shyness only disappears in the presence of very good friends or after drinking alcohol - it is often said. One English person interviewed, living in Sweden, was surprised, however by Swedes’ lack of embarrassment in discussing their shyness. In interviews with immigrants from other countries, it has been said to me, that shyness in their own countries only exists among children, or as an extreme feature of someone’s personality. An adult would, in such a case, do everything he or she could to try and hide their shyness.
In a large research project on the usage of alcohol under the direction of Sven Ove Johansson, it was found that among those persons who were treated for problems with alcohol, a large majority stated difficulties in social relationships as a cause of their problems. To what extent shyness or communications avoidance was included in these difficulties was not specified. Alcohol as a means of breaking down the communiction barrier that shyness constitutes is however well-known in Sweden.
In his well-known book, The Anatomy of Dependence (1971), the psychiatrist Takeo Doi argues that the term taijin kyofu is inexcitably linked with Japanese psychiatry, and that this term is the only one within psychiatry which has not been translated from some Western language. The term arose from observations made of patientsin Japan whose symptoms were that they complained about fears or worries about having contacts with others, fears of blushing, fears of making eye-contact, worries about ugliness or body odours, etc. Even patients who don’t explicitly complain about such problems, have the same difficulty in meeting others.
One of the main points in Doi’s reasoning is that this illness is an extreme case of a common mentality in Japan, hitomishiri, which means shyness. It is typically children who are shy, and shyness is seen, moreover, as a natural step in a child’s psychological development, that is, when the child learns to distinguish between its mother and strangers and, for example, cries when embraced by a stranger.
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According to Doi, the term hitomishiri is used to describe the ”phenomenon of an adult avoiding strangers in the same way as a child that has just aquired the ability to distinguish between people. The latter case, which can be regarded as a kind of late development, is fairly commonly found among the Japanese and in itself can hardly be described as morbid, though if the tendency is too strong the person concerned naturally suffers” (Doi 1971:106). A certain amount of hitomishiri, shyness, is seen to be particularly noticeable in Japan.
Shyness in Sweden is often discussed as being due to Swedes’ supposed lack of humour (which is not true in any absolute snese) and due to their quietness (which, on the other hand, is possible to document using scientific methods), whereas the Japanese stiffness and lack of humour, as seen by foreigners - ”earnest and stiff, with no sense of humour” - is a result of another psychological syndrome, according to Doi, known as ki ga sumanai (”not to be satisfied”, as in the sentence, ”He’s never satisfied unless...”), which is also comparable to a Swedish characteristic, namely that described by Austin as the drive ”göra rätt för sig” (”roughly: ’pull his weight’, do his vit, justify himself economically”). The concept is expressed in the word ”duktig” as is stated by Ulf Hannerz (1983:(). Doi sees a close correspondence in Western puritanism and further maintains that Puritanism has its roots in a psychological syndrome similar to ki ga sumanai (Doi 1981:112)
Among both Swedes and Japanese, there seems to be a kind of inferiority complex, an uncertainty of one’s own worth, a fear of what others will think, which is expressed in attempts to fight this uncertainty by concrete work achievements. There is also a fear of standing out in front of others, a fear of falling and ”losing face”. Shy in Japan is, at the same time, reinforced by what in the Japanese culture is a markedly weaker self-concept, an emphasis on the group before the individual (Nakane 1973).
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Jamie J. Wilson
3992 Rainy Day Drive
Cambridge, MA
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Graduated With Special Honors from Brown University
10 years of crafting experience (especially for Web visitors)
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CabalArticles, New York City, NY
2001 - Present
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Answerable for planning a international staff of freelance writers to meet a complex set of development targets.
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