Introduction: The North and South of Temperament
Introverts are drawn to the inner world of thought and feeling, said Jung, extroverts to the external life of people and activities. Introverts focus on the meaning they make of the events swirling around them; extroverts plunge into the events themselves. Introverts recharge their batteries by being alone; extroverts need to recharge when they don't socialize enough
Part One: The Extrovert Ideal
2 - The Myth of Charismatic Leadership: The Culture of Personality, a Hundred Years Later
He gave subordinates input into key decisions, implementing the idea that made sense, while making it clear that he had the final authority. He wasn’t concerned with getting credit or even being in charge; he simply assigned work to those who could perform it best. This meant delegating some of his most interesting, meaningful, and important tasks—work that other leaders would have kept for themselves
When God first appeared to him in the form of a burning bush, Moses was employed as a shepherd by his father-in-law; he wasn’t even ambitious enough to own his own sheep
introverts are more likely than extroverts to express intimate facts about themselves online that their family and friends would be surprised to read, to say that they can express the “real me” online, and to spend more time in certain kinds of online discussion. They welcome the chance to communicate digitally. The same person who would never raise his hand in a lecture hall of two hundred people might blog to two thousand, or two million, without thinking twice. The same person who finds it difficult to introduce himself to strangers might establish a presence online and then extend these relationships into the real world
3 - When Collaboration Kills Creativity: The Rise of the New Groupthink and the Power of Working Alone
Even “Michelangelo had assistants paint part of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.” (Never mind that the assistants were likely interchangeable, while Michelangelo was not.)
Elite musicians—even those who perform in groups—describe practice sessions with their chamber group as “leisure” compared with solo practice, where the real work gets done
it’s only when you’re alone that you engage in Deliberate Practice, which he has identified as the key to exceptional achievement. When you practice deliberately, you identify the tasks or knowledge that are just out of your reach, strive to upgrade your performance, monitor your progress, and revise accordingly. Practice sessions that fall short of this standard are not only less useful—they’re counterproductive. They reinforce existing cognitive mechanisms instead of improving them
Steve Wozniak – I acquired a central ability that was to help me through my entire career: patience. I’m serious. Patience is usually so underrated. I mean, for all these projects, from third grade all the way to eighth grade, I just learned things gradually, figuring out how to put electronic devices together without so much as cracking book…. I learned to not worry so much about the outcome, but to concentrate on the step I was on and to try to do it as perfectly as I could when I was doing it
But the awkwardness of those years didn’t deter him from pursuing his dream; I probably nurtured it. He would never have learned so much about computers, Woz says now, if he hadn’t been too shy to leave the house
No one would choose this sort of painful adolescence, but the fact is that the solitude of Woz’s teens, and the single-minded focus on what would turn out to be a lifelong passion, is typical for highly creative people
Franz Kafka – You once said that you would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen, in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing oneself to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is in his right mind…. That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence when one writes, why even night is not night enough
Bern’s study also shed light on exactly why we’re such conformists. When the volunteers played alone, the brain scans showed activity in a network of brain regions including the occipital cortex and parietal cortex, which ar associated with visual and spatial perception, and in the frontal cortex, which is associated with conscious decision-making. But when they went along with their group’s wrong answer, their brain activity reveals something very different.
But, remember what Asch wanted to know was whether people conformed despite knowing that the group was wrong, or whether their perceptions had been altered by the group. If the former was true, Berns and his team reasoned, then they should see more brain activity in the decision-making prefrontal cortex. That is, the brain scans would pick up the volunteers deciding unconsciously to abandon their own beliefs to fit in with the group. But if the brain scans showed heightened activity in regions associated with visual and spatial perception, this would suggest that the group had somehow managed to change the individual’s perceptions.
That was exactly what happened—the conformists showed less brain activity in the frontal, decision-making regions and more in the areas of the brain associated with perceptions. Peer pressure, in other words, is not only unpleasant, but can actually change your view of a problem.
These early findings suggest that groups are like mind-altering substances. If the group thinks the answer is A, you’re much more likely to believe that A is correct, too. It’s not that you’re saying consciously, “Hmm, I’m not sure, but they all think the answer’s A, so I’ll go with that.” Nor are you saying, “I want them to like me, so I’ll just pretend that the answer’s A.” No, you are doing something much more unexpected—and dangerous. Most of Bern’s volunteers reported having gone along with the group because “they thought that they had arrived serendipitously at the same correct answer.” They were utterly blind, in other words, to how much their peers had influenced them.
What does this have to do with social fear? Well, remember that the volunteers in the Asch and Berns studies didn’t always conform. Sometime they picked the right answer despite their peers’ influence. And Berns and his team found something very interesting about these moments. They were linked to heightened activation in the amygdala, a small organ in the brain associated with upsetting emotions such as the fear of rejection.
Berns refers to this as “the pain of independence,” and it has serious implications. Many of our important civic institutions, from elections to jury trials to the very idea of majority rule, depend on dissenting voices. But when the group is literally capable of changing our perceptions, and when to stand alone is to activate primitive, powerful, and unconscious feelings of rejection, then the health of these institutions seems far more vulnerable than we think
face-to-face interactions create trust in a way that online interactions can’t. Research also suggests that population density is correlated with innovation; despite the advantages of quiet walks in the woods, people in crowded cities benefit from the web of interactions that urban life offers.
I have experienced this phenomenon personally. When I was getting ready to write this book, I carefully set up my home office, complete with uncluttered desk, file cabinets, free counter space, and plenty of natural light—and then felt too cut off from the world to type a single keystroke there. Instead, I wrote most of this book on a laptop at my favorite densely packed neighborhood café. I did this for exactly the reasons that champions of the New Groupthink might suggest: the mere presence of other people helped my mind to make associative leaps. The coffee shop was full of people bent over their own computers, and if the expressions of rapt concentration on their faces were any indication, I wasn’t the only one getting a lot of work done.
But the café worked as my office because it had specific attributes that are absent from many money schools and workplaces. It was social, yet its casual, come-and-go-as-you-please nature left me free from unwelcome entanglements and able to “deliberately practice” my writing. I could toggle back and forth between observer and social actor as much as I wanted. I could also control my environment. Each day I chose the location of my table—in the center of the room or along the perimeter—depending on whether I wanted to be seen as well as able to see. And I had the option to leave whenever I wanted peace and quiet to edit what I’d written that day. Usually I was ready to exercise this right after only a few hours—not the eight, ten, or fourteen hours that many office dwellers put in.
The way force, I’m suggesting, is not to stop collaborating face-to-face, but to refine the way we do it
Part Two: Your Biology, Your Self?
4 - Is Temperament Destiny?: Nature, Nurture, and the Orchid Hypothesis
Extroverts are sometimes credited with being “pro-social”—meaning caring about others—and introverts disparaged as people who don’t like people. But the reactions of the infants in Kagans test had nothing to do with people […] The high reactive babies were not misanthropes in the making; they were simply sensitive to their environments.
Indeed, the sensitive of these children’s nervous systems seems to be linked not only to noticing scary things, but to noticing in general. High-reactive children pay what one psychologist calls “alert attention” to people and things. They literally use more eye movements than others to compare choices before making a decision. It’s as if they process more deeply—sometimes consciously, sometimes not—the information they take in about the world
High-reactive kids also tend to think and feel deeply about what they’ve noticed, and to bring an extra degree of nuance to everyday experiences. This can be expressed in many different ways. If the child is socially oriented, she may spend a lot of time pondering her observations of others—why Jason didn’t want to share his toys today, why Mary got so mad at Nicholas when he bumped into her accidentally […] All kids notice their environments and feel emotions, of course, but high-reactive kids seem to see and feel things more
Consider the mechanism by which kids acquire their sense of right and wrong. Many psychologists believe that children develop a conscience when they do something inappropriate and are rebuked by their caregivers. Disapproval makes them feel anxious, and since anxiety is unpleasant, they learn to steer clear of antisocial behavior. This is known as internalizing their parents’ standards of conduct, and its core is anxiety.
But what if some kids are less prone to anxiety than others, as is true of extremely low-reactive kids? Often the best way to teach these children values is to give them positive role models and to channel their fearlessness into productive activities. A low-reactive child on an ice-hockey team enjoys his peers’ esteem when he charges at his opponents with a lowered shoulder, which is a “legal” move. But if he goes too far, raises his elbow, and gives another guy a concussion, he lands in the penalty box. Over time he learns to use his appetite for risk and assertiveness wisely.
Now imagine this same child growing up in a dangerous neighborhood with few organized sports or other constructive channels for his boldness. You can see how he might fall into delinquency. It may e that some disadvantaged kids who get into trouble suffer not solely from poverty or neglect, say those who hold this view, but also from the tragedy of a bold and exuberant temperament deprived of healthy outlets
5 - Beyond Temperament: The Role of Free Will (and the Secret of Public Speaking for Introverts)
this is harder for introverts, who have trouble projecting artificial enthusiasm. But there’s a hidden advantage to this inflexibility: it can motivate us to make tough but worthwhile career changes if we find ourselves compelled to speak too often on topics that leave us cold. There is no one more courageous than the person who speaks with courage of his conviction
6 - "Franklin Was a Politician, but Eleanor Spoke Out of Conscience": Why Cool Is Overrated
She could drive alone for hours and never turn on the radio. She had strong, sometimes disturbing dreams at night. She was “strangely intense,” and often beset by powerful emotions, both positive and negative. She had trouble finding the sacred in the everyday; it seemed to be there only when she withdrew from the world
“Functional, moderate guilt,” write Kochanska, “may promote future altruism, personal responsibility, adaptive behavior in school, and harmonious, competent, prosocial relationships with parents, teachers, and friends.” This is an especially important set up attributes at a time when a 2010 University of Michigan study shows that college students today are 40 percent less empathetic than they were thirty years ago, with much of the drop having occurred since 2000
these traits don’t mean that sensitive children are angels. They have selfish streaks like everyone else. Sometimes they act aloof and unfriendly. And when they’re overwhelmed by negative emotions like shame or anxiety, says Aron, they can be positively oblivious of other people’s needs
There’s a lot of one-on-one discussion about intimidate topics like childhood experiences and adult love lives, and social issues like health care and climate change; there’s not much in the way of storytelling intended to entertain. People listen carefully to each other and respond thoughtfully. Aron has noted that sensitive people tend to speak softly because that’s how they prefer others to communicate with them
It’s not that there’s no small talk, observes Strickland, the leader of the gathers. It’s that it comes not at the beginning of conversations but at the end. In most settings, people use small talk as a way of relaxing into a new relationship, and only once they’re comfortable do they connect more seriously. Sensitive people do this in the reverse. They “enjoy more small talk only after they’ve gone deep,” says Strickland. “When sensitive people are in environments that nurture their authenticity, they laugh and chitchat just as much as anyone else”
Sometimes this is frustrating: if something moves me to tears of empathy or anxiety, he’ll be touched, but grow impatient if I stay that way too long. But I also know that his tougher attitude is good for me, and I find his company endlessly delightful. I love his effortless charm. I love that he never runs out of interesting things to say. I love how he pours his heart and soul into everything he does, and everyone he loves, especially our family
7 - Why Did Wall Street Crash and Warren Buffet Prosper?: How Introverts and Extroverts Think (and Process Dopamine) Differently
But the more interesting aspect of this puzzling behavior is not what the extroverts do before they’ve hit the wrong button, but what they do after. When introverts hit the number nine button and find they’ve lost a point, they slow down before moving on to the next number, as if to reflect on what went wrong. But extroverts not only fail to slow down, they actually speed up
Introverts, in contrasts, are constitutionally programmed to downplay reward—to kill their buzz, you might say—and scan for problems. “As soon as they get excited,” says Newman, “they’ll put the brakes on and think about peripheral issues that may be more important. Introverts seem to be specifically wired or trained so when they catch themselves getting excited and focused on a goal, their vigilance increases.”
Introverts also tend to compare new information with their expectations, he says. They ask themselves, “Is this what I thought would happen? Is it how it should be?” And when the situation falls short of expectations, they form associations between the moment of disappointment (losing points) and whatever was going on in their environment at the time of the disappointment (hitting the number nine.) These associations let them make accurate predictions about how to react to warning signals in the future
Introverts are not smarter than extroverts. According to IQ scores, the two types are equally intelligent. And on many kids of tasks, particularly, those performed under time or social pressure or involving multitasking extroverts do better. Extroverts are better than introverts at handling information overload. Introverts’ reflectiveness uses up a lot of cognitive capacity
Introverts and extroverts also direct their attention differently: if you leave them to their own devices, the introverts tend to sit around wondering about things, imagining things, recalling events from their past, and making plans for the future. The extroverts are more likely to focus on what’s happening around them. It’s as if extroverts are seeing “what is” while their introverted peers are asking “what if”
Part Three: Do All Cultures Have An Extrovert Ideal?
8 - Soft Power: Asian-Americans and the Extrovert Ideal
Describing Asians as a “model minority”—even when meant as a compliment—is just as confining and condescending as any description that reduces individuals to a set of perceived group characteristic
The Americans emphasize sociability and prize those attributes that make for easy, cheerful association. The Chinese emphasize deeper attributes, focusing on moral virtues and achievement
talk is for communicating need-to-know information; quiet and introspection are signs of deep thought and higher truth. Words are potentially dangerous weapons that reveal things better left unsaid. They hurt other people; they can get their speaker into trouble
Mike sounded dismissive of Western communication styles, but he admitted that he sometimes wished he could be noisy and uninhibited himself. “They’re more comfortable with their own character,” he said of his Caucasian classmates
As Mike recounted these details, I thought he was going to tell me that his group had been over the top, inappropriate. But he wasn’t critical of the other students. He was critical of himself.
“When people do things like that, there’s a moment when I feel uncomfortable with it. It shows my own limits. Sometimes I feel like they’re better than I am”
Mike hoped to make a good impression, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. The other students seemed to have no problem joking around and asking intelligent questions
One study comparing European-American and second-generation Chinese-American teens over a five-year period found that the Chinese-Americans were significantly more introverted than their American peers throughout adolescence—and paid the price with their self-esteem. While introverted Chinese-American twelve-year-olds felt perfectly find about themselves—presumably because they still measured themselves according to their parents’ traditional value systems—by the time they got to be seventeen and had been more exposed to America’s Extroversion Ideal, their self-regard had taken a nosedive
In China, he said, “If you’re quiet, you’re seen as being wise. It’s completely different here. Here people like to speak out. Even if they have an idea, not completely mature yet, people still speak out. If I could be better in communication, my work would be much more recognized. Even though my manager appreciates me, he still doesn’t know I have done work so wonderful”
Professor Ni – if you don’t have charisma you can be the most brilliant person in the world and you’ll still be disrespected”
Part 4: How to Love, How to Work
9 - When Should You Act More Extroverted Than You Really Are?
William James – A man has as many social selves as there are distinct groups of persons whose opinion he cares. He generally shows a different side of himself to each of these different groups
the nature-nurture debate was replaced with intersectionism—the insight that both factors contribute to who we are, and indeed influence each other—so has the person-situation debate been superseded by a more nuanced understanding
People who are rejection-sensitive are warm and loving when they feel secure, hostile and controlling when they feel rejected
should we attempt to manipulate our behavior within the range available to use, or should be simply be true to ourselves? At what point does controlling our behavior become futile, or exhausting?
our live are dramatically enhanced when we’re involved in core personal projects that we consider meaningful, manageable, and not unduly stressful, and that are supported by others
Many of us are uncomfortable with the idea of taking on a “false” person for any length of time. And if we act out of character by convincing ourselves that our pseudo-self is real, we can eventually burn out without even knowing why. The genius of Little’s theory is how neatly it resolves this comfort. Yes, we are only pretending to be extroverts, and yes, such inauthenticity can be morally ambiguous (not to mention exhausting), but if it’s in the service of love or a professional calling, then we’re doing just as Shakespeare advised
But Alison’s problem was actually that she was outing out of character in the service of a project she didn’t care about. She didn’t love the law. She’d chosen to become a Wall Street litigator because it seemed to her that this was what powerful and successful lawyers did, so her pseudo-extroversion was not supported by her deeper values
This is not self-monitoring; it is self-negation. Where Jillian acts out of character for the sake of worthy tasks that temporarily require a different orientation, Alison believes that there is something fundamentally wrong with who she is.
It’s not always so easy, it turns out, to identify your core personal projects. And it can be especially tough for introverts, who have spent so much of their lives conforming to extroverted norms that by the time they choose a career, or a calling, it feel perfectly normal to ignore their own preferences. They may be uncomfortable in law school or nursing school or in the marketing department, but no more so than they were back in middle school or summer camp
Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire
10 - The Communication Gap: How to Talk to Members of the Opposite Type
Greg says that Emily should make more of an effort. He accuses her of being antisocial. “I am social,” she says. “I love you, I love my family, I love my close friends. I just don’t love dinner parties. People don’t relate at those parties—they just socialize. You’re lucky because I devote all my energy to you. You spread yours around to everyone.”
But Emily soon backs off, partly because she hated fighting, but also because she doubts herself. Maybe I am antisocial, she thinks. Maybe there is something wrong with me. When she and Greg argue about this, she’s flooded with childhood memories: how school was tougher for her than for her emotionally hardier young sister; how she seemed to worry more than other people did for social issues, like how to say no when someone asked her to get together after school and she preferred to stay home
Being alone for him was a king of Kryptonite; it makes him feel weak. He had looked forward to a married life of shared adventures. He’d imagine being part of a couple at the center of things. And he’d never admitted it to himself, but for him being married meant never having to be by himself. But now Emily is saying that he should socialize without her. He feels as if she’s backing out of a fundamental part of their marriage contract. And he believes there is something indeed wrong with his wife
Probably the most common—and damaging—misunderstanding about personality type is that introverts are antisocial and extroverts are pro-social. But as we’ve seen, neither formulation is correct; introverts and extroverts are differently social. What psychologists call “the need for intimacy” is present in introvert and extroverts alike. In fact, people who value intimacy highly don’t tend to be, as the noted psychologist David Buss puts it, “the loud, outgoing, life-of-the-party extrovert.” They are more likely to be someone with a select group of close friends, who prefers “sincere and meaningful conversations over wild parties”
Emily has a demanding job, and sometimes when she gets home at night she has little energy left. She’s always happy to see Greg, but sometimes she’d rather sit next to him reading than go out for dinner or make animated conversation. Simply to be in his company is enough. For Emily, this is perfectly natural, but Greg feels hurt that he makes an effort for her colleagues and not for him
Celia’s problem was not lack of feeling. It was how to show her emotions without losing control. Reaching for a tissue, she quickly gathered herself, and went straight back into crisp, dispassionate lawyer mode. Those were the two gears to which she had ready access—overwhelming feelings or detached self-possession
When she and Greg disagree, her voice gets quiet and flat, her manner slightly distant. What she’s trying to do is minimize aggression—Emily is uncomfortable with anger—but she appears to be receding emotionally. Meanwhile, Greg does just the opposite, raising his voice and sounding belligerent as he gets ever more engaged in working out their problem. The more Emily seems to withdraw, the more alone, then hurt, then enraged Greg becomes; the angrier he gets, the more hurt and distaste Emily feels, and the deeper she retreats. Pretty soon they’re locked in a destructive cycle from which they can’t escape, partly because both spouses believe they’re arguing in an appropriate manner
These findings suggest something very important: introverts like people they meet in friendly contexts; extroverts prefer those they compete with.
A very different study, in which robots interacted with stroke patients during physical rehabilitation exercises, yielded strikingly similar results. Introverted patients responded better and interacted longer with robots that were designed to speak in a soothing, gentle manner: “I know it is hard, but remember that it’s for your own good,” and, “Very nice, keep up the good work.” Extroverts, on the other hand, worked harder for robots that used more bracing, aggressive language: “You can do more than that, I know it!” and “Concentrate on your exercise!”
When Emily lowers her voice and flattens her affect during fights with Greg, she thinks she’s being respectful by taking the trouble not to let her negative emotions show. But Greg thinks she’s checking out or, worse, that she doesn’t give a damn. Similarly, when Greg lets his anger fly, he assumes that Emily feels, as he does, that this is a healthy and honest expression of their deeply committed relationship. But to Emily, it’s as if Greg has suddenly turned on her
Scores of studies have shown that venting doesn’t sooth angers; it fuels it
Consider that the simplest social interaction between two people requires performing an astonishing array of tasks: interpreting what the other person is saying; reading body language and facial expressions; smoothly taking turns talking and listening; responding to what the other person said; assessing whether you’re being understood; determining whether you’re well received, and, if not, figurin0 gout how to improve or remove yourself from the situation. Think of what it takes to juggle all this at once! And that’s just a one-on-one conversation. Now imagine the multitasking required in a group setting like a dinner party.
So when introverts assume the observer role, as when they write novels, or contemplate unified field theory—or fall quiet at dinner parties—they’re not demonstrating a failure of will or lack of energy. They’re simply doing what they’re constitutionally suited for
This process revealed some surprise findings. The introverts and extroverts participated about equally, giving the lie to the idea that introverts always talk less. But the introvert pairs tended to focus on one or two serious subjects of conversation, while the extrovert pairs chose lighter-hearted and wider-ranging topics. Often the introverts discussed problems or conflicts in their lives: school, work, friendships, and so on. Perhaps because of this fondness for “problem talk,” they tend to adopt the role of adviser, taking turns and counseling each other on the problem at hand. The extroverts, by contrast, were more likely to offer casual information about themselves that established commonality with the other person: You have a new dog? That’s great. A friend of mine has an amazing tank of saltwater fish!
But the most interesting part of Thorne’s experiment was how much the two types appreciated each other. Introverts talking to extroverts chose cheerier topics, reported making conversation more easily, and described conversing with extroverts as a “breath of fresh air.” In contrast, the extroverts felt that they would relax more with introvert partners and were freer to confide their problems. They didn’t feel pressure to be falsely upbeat.
These are useful pieces of social information. Introverts and extroverts feel mutually put off, but Thorne’s research suggests how much each has to offer the other. Extroverts need to know that introverts—who often seem to disdain the superficial—may be only too happy to be tugged along to a more lighthearted place; and introverts, who sometimes feel as if their propensity for problem talk makes them a drag, should know that they make it safe for others to get serious
11 - On Cobblers and Generals: How to Cultivate Quiet Kids in a World That's Can't Hear Them
Dr. Miller – He had so many things he wanted to tell you about. He had more acceptance of his parents than they had of him. He didn’t define them as pathological, just as different from himself. That same kind in a different home would be a model child
Despite what she’d always thought about her daughter’s empathetic nature, might Isabel lack the ability to relate with others
David – People would always tell me, “These are the best years of your life,” he recalls. And I would think to myself, I hope not. I hated school. I remember thinking, I’ve gotta get out of here
They focused less on developing his confidence than on making sure that he found ways to be productive
Photo by Fabrizio Verrecchia on Unsplash