Abstract: This article reviewed the studies of social withdrawal in childhood from the 1980s, including the concept, method, subtypes and relations between different subtype of social withdrawal and children’s social adjustment. The author discussed the concept of social withdrawal and suggested that there were three subtypes of social withdrawal: passive withdrawal, active withdrawal and anxious withdrawal. Passive withdrawal was related more closely to children’s social adjustment in late childhood and active withdrawal was related to social adjustment in the reverse direction in the whole childhood, while the relation between anxious withdrawal and social adjustment depended on the situation, only anxious withdrawal in familiar situations was related to social adjustment in reverse direction. In the end, the author pointed out the flaws of existing studies and proposed the study directions in the future.

Key words: social withdrawal, childhood, subtype, social adjustment