Social withdrawal has been a topic of interest in the field of developmental psychology for many decades. However, researchers have yet to systematically examine the historical trends in social withdrawal research. To honor the 70th anniversary of "Merrill-Palmer Quarterly," this systematic scoping review maps the changes in social withdrawal research with children and adolescents over the last seven decades, from 1954 to 2023. More than 300 quantitative empirical studies with unselected samples of children and adolescents (ages 2-19 years) were coded for (1) study characteristics (e.g., developmental periods, study design, measures of social withdrawal, geographic regions) and (2) content/ themes (e.g., motivations for social withdrawal, predictors/concomitants/outcomes). The included studies showed systematic changes in social withdrawal research for all content areas over the last 70 years. Results are summarized, integrated, and used as a baseline for future research recommendations.