Shyness and modesty are similar constructs, but to date no study has investigated their relationship empirically, hence the goal of this study was to examine this relationship and how shyness and modesty are related to the Big Five model of personality. We administered a set of self-report measures of shyness, modesty and Big Five personality traits to 727 adults in Poland. The results conformed our expectations, revealing that shyness and modesty are positively correlated traits. Moreover, in regard to Big Five personality traits, both of them were negatively related to extraversion and positively to neuroticism, but only modesty was positively related to agreeableness. Our findings are discussed in light of previous research and theory.

Introduction

It is natural to call someone who is slightly withdrawn or avoids the attention of others both shy and modest. Shyness and modesty are human characteristics that have been intertwined for years, and not just in everyday language (Gregg, Hart, Sedikides, & Kumashiro, 2008). The tendency to link shyness and modesty was present in early psychology. In reviewing clinical-experimental research on the dominance-feeling (ego-level) – defined as “evaluation of the self” and “what the subject says about herself [or himself] in an intensive review, after a good rapport has been established” (Maslow, 1939, p. 3) – Maslow identified various attributes of personality and social behaviour which are empirically involved in this construct. Low-dominance feeling was characterised by the combination of characteristics as “shyness, timidity, embarrassability, [lack of] self-confidence, self-conscientiousness, inhibition, conventionality, modesty, fearfulness, poise, inferiority feelings, [lack of] social ease” (Maslow, 1939, p. 3). Further research echoed Maslow’s clinical findings: we can find traces of shyness in descriptions of modesty (Gregg et al., 2008; Hartman, 2015) and vice versa (Asendorpf, 2010; Liu, Bowker, Coplan, & Chen, 2018; Xu, Farver, Yu, & Zhang, 2009); however, none of the previous studies explicitly examined the relationship between modesty and shyness nor investigated their common qualities. Furthermore there are some perspectives that are not entirely consistent with the notion of linking these two constructs.