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What if the shyness drug boosts confidence?
Under one scenario, the shy become more extroverted and everyone enjoys their new bon mots and witty asides. Gains from trade increase all around. Under another scenario, shyness and extroversion are part of a larger positional game. Some people take the anti-shyness drug, but the previous extroverts, facing new competition for sex and friends, become even more extroverted, thus feeling more strain. Many of them start taking the drug to stay ahead. The previously shy exhibit more "juice," so to speak, but without much net result in terms of an improved life since they are still coming in second, so to speak. And those who don't take the anti-shyness drug are even worse off than before, given the new and higher standard for extroversion.
Some of the remaining shy, however, might in fact feel relieved. If the new standard of extroversion rises so high that they can't possibly meet it, they might, to some extent, withdraw from social competition. The truly shy might even form social clubs and band together in the interests of promoting shyness. If they can signal that they do not take the drug, their shyness might become more socially acceptable than before.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 24, 2008 at 07:13 AM in Science | Permalink
Comments
This seems to be assuming that the opposite of "shyness" is "extroversion". I don't buy that. The opposite of extroversion is introversion; shyness can adhere, or not, to both.
Posted by: Andromeda at Jun 24, 2008 8:08:06 AM
... even originally extroverted individuals may reposition themselves as shy under the new conditions. The pill levels the field and individuals would choose shy/extrovert positionings based who else is there.
Exercise: show that if the cost of the pill goes to zero, there is no unique equilibrium. Just joking ;)
Posted by: londenio at Jun 24, 2008 8:11:05 AM
Presumably this proposition depends on sex/popularity and extroversion having a linear
relationship. This makes sense at the lower ends of the scale, where the decision to
actually open your mouth makes a big impact on whether you befriend someone. But at higher
levels of extroversion, it may reduce your popularity as people mistrust or misplace your
confidence for egotism etc.
As an aside isn't there already a drug (illegal as it is) which reduces shyness. And which
has the properties I describe above - ie that you go too far onto the downward slope of the
relationship.
Posted by: ABDA at Jun 24, 2008 8:11:34 AM
Reminds me of "The Sneetches" by Dr. Seuss.
Posted by: Jason at Jun 24, 2008 8:18:04 AM
"i'm starting to think that i'm kind of shy or at least i'd like to be..."
-Pedro the Lion
Posted by: goodnessOfFit at Jun 24, 2008 8:48:40 AM
I have no interest in "competing" amongst the people for whom social interaction is competition. In fact, those people make me ill. But, I'd be excited about the prospect of increasing the odds of meeting some for whom it isn't, that I otherwise would never meet without the drug.
Posted by: Andrewa at Jun 24, 2008 8:48:49 AM
Yeah, "Hope for freaks." Do people actually think this way beyond the government education system? Do they just suppress their thoughts better?
So...I'm usually not a fan of rounding up people and shooting them, but I could be persuaded. Lefties and shy-guys unite?
Posted by: Andrew at Jun 24, 2008 8:55:34 AM
There's a point where increased extroversion leads to diminishing returns (of sex and friends), possibly. With existing anxiolytics it's quite easy to overstep this.
What about an introversion drug for people who unthinkingly say everything that comes into their head?
Posted by: cerebus at Jun 24, 2008 9:01:39 AM
A drug for shyness has been out for years. It really peaked in the 80's.
Posted by: V at Jun 24, 2008 9:16:13 AM
I thought there was sure a substance already, its what "beer muscles" are made of.
Posted by: Lefty at Jun 24, 2008 9:27:32 AM
Then there will be more sex and HIV infection rates will go down.
Posted by: aaron at Jun 24, 2008 9:37:24 AM
I doubt it would work, extroverts probably already attain high levels of the hormone easily.
Posted by: aaron at Jun 24, 2008 9:42:29 AM
This analysis assumes a Kantian morality, in which we define the good, and then determine that the more of it we have, the better we are.
If you have a more Aristotelean view, then you will realize that shyness and extroversion are merely two character flaws that meet at the golden mean of pleasant friendliness.
If you consider "extroversion" as a form of "spending capital," then you know that there is a miser at one extreme and a spendthrift on the other.
Posted by: Rich B. at Jun 24, 2008 9:42:37 AM
Cerebus, do you mean negative returns? I do like the introversion drug idea.
This dynamic seems similar to ADD stimulants (or unemployment). Is there a minimum efficient population of shy people or distracted people the same way there is for the unemployed? Do we end up with extroversion inflation otherwise? I don't really have a strong opinion. But I bet we're above the efficient number right now, so the drugs are probably a good thing. And maybe attention or extroversion inflation would be a good thing? More work would get done, and more interesting social interactions would be had, even if we valued each one less in relative terms.
Posted by: Greg at Jun 24, 2008 9:43:35 AM
Of course this assumes that only men are "shy". If we assume that shyness is equally distributed between men and women, and all take the drug then everyone is happy.
Of course it's probably likely that men, classically required to initiate, suffer more from shyness than women, and even if it is equally distributed, more men "suffer" from their shyness than the equivalent women.
Posted by: Thelonecabbage at Jun 24, 2008 10:35:33 AM
Sounds like a race to the bottom to me. Government intervention is obviously necessary to prevent people from harming themselves.
Posted by: Jay at Jun 24, 2008 11:31:00 AM
Is there something particular to shyness in this analysis? Or could it refer just as well to anything that makes someone more attractive to others, such as good manners, stylish attire, cologne, breast implants...?
I'm not dismissing Tyler's analysis, just trying to boil it down to its essence. Are we merely discussing a costly arms race, as Jay suggests?
Posted by: Bob Murphy at Jun 24, 2008 11:37:04 AM
It's like the relationship between money and happiness. More money can't buy you much happiness, except at the lower extreme when you're so poor that you're starving half the time, in which case money definitely buy you happiness with food. Likewise, the drug might not improve the social lives of most people, but it definitely would improve the social lives of those who are too shy to even talk to people.
Posted by: Hei Lun Chan at Jun 24, 2008 11:41:54 AM
I agree with commenters who say that cocaine (and to a lesser extent, alcohol) is more than adequate in combatting shyness.
And I also agree with those who think that the real breakthrough would be a drug that induced more introversion. I swear I don't mean to be loud and chatty, but I just can't help it!
Posted by: Christina at Jun 24, 2008 11:44:46 AM
The more the drug boosts confidence, the more valuable lack of confidence becomes (assuming, as I do, that lack of confidence has a valuable social purpose).
The people who are shy now are shy for different reasons than the people who were shy a generation ago, much less 100 years ago.
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at Jun 24, 2008 12:59:23 PM
"The more the drug boosts confidence, the more valuable lack of confidence becomes (assuming, as I do, that lack of confidence has a valuable social purpose)."
Yes, but it's an arms race. The same is true for money and beauty and many other things. The point isn't to have a lot but to have more than others. But given the enormous advantage that outgoing confident resilient people have in the modern sale-oriented economy, there will surely be temptations to use such a drug.
"The people who are shy now are shy for different reasons than the people who were shy a generation ago, much less 100 years ago."
How do you figure that? Shyness is biological, no less than sexual preference. It's not something people learn. There have always been shy people just like there have always been gay people.
Posted by: MIke at Jun 24, 2008 1:11:26 PM
Odd that no one's discussed the actual physiology of the effect, which could render the question
of positionality moot.
Drugs like these (though I'm not sure about this one), work because they move some chemical to a
specific level, which is a "sweet spot". Taking the anti-shyness drug when you're already not shy,
will simply make you shy, because you're then out of the sweet spot.
So what Tyler_Cowen described can't happen.
Posted by: Person at Jun 24, 2008 1:25:27 PM
he truly shy might even form social clubs and band together in the interests of promoting shyness.
...or, they could petition to immigrate to japan :-)
Posted by: razib at Jun 24, 2008 1:26:16 PM
"The truly shy might even form social clubs and band together in the interests of promoting shyness."
There's already dozens of facebook groups for such a purpose.
Posted by: PFoJ at Jun 24, 2008 2:08:04 PM
Have you ever been to a bar? There's a lot of anti-shyness and lower inhibitions showing how social interaction works there.
Posted by: Sully at Jun 24, 2008 2:19:21 PM
