In Quiet, author Susan Cain contends that whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert affects every aspect of your life. Your personality type influences your choice of partner, friends, career, and lifestyle, as well as how those choices play out—for instance, how you advance in your career or handle differences in relationships.
Researchers say a third to a half of Americans are introverts, who tend to be quiet, thoughtful, and need time alone. However, Western society is heavily skewed toward extroverts. Our culture, including schools, social institutions, and workplaces, celebrates and is shaped around an “Extrovert Ideal”—a belief that the ideal personality type is someone who is bold, sociable, and seeks the spotlight.
Yet introverts have many underappreciated strengths, including empathy, persistence, concentration, creativity, and the ability to solve complex problems. “Quiet” thinkers are responsible for many important discoveries and artistic achievements, including Einstein’s theories of gravity, Chopin’s Nocturne, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Besides scientists and artists, high-achieving introverts include Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Al Gore, and Warren Buffett.
Rather than establishing strict definitions of introversion and extroversion, this book explores broad questions, such as whether introverts can be leaders, whether they should ever act like extroverts, and whether introversion/extroversion is biologically or socially determined. Further, it advocates a balance in society, school, and work that lets introverts be true to themselves and where the two personality types complement each other.
There’s no universally accepted definition of introversion/extroversion based on objective criteria, but many psychological researchers agree that:
Introverts are stereotyped as recluses or loners who dislike people. This may be true of some introverts, but most are as friendly as anyone. Another stereotype is that introverts are shy. Although some introverts may be shy, there are key differences between introversion and shyness. Shy people dislike social situations because they’re afraid of embarrassment, while introverts dislike social situations because they’re too stimulating.
Introverts also may be “highly sensitive,” which is a psychological term meaning more apt to respond with strong feelings to something—for instance, to be moved by a sad story or be upset by violence.
We’ve built our society almost entirely around extroversion. In school systems, for example, this is reflected in the way classrooms are organized and taught: Desks are arranged to facilitate group projects and high levels of interaction and activity. Most teachers believe students should be extroverts.
In the workplace, we’re expected to engage in relentless self-promotion to develop and promote our personal “brand.” To advance in many careers, extroversion usually is essential.
Introverts, as both children and adults, are constantly pushed to be more outgoing. Parents and teachers urge children to “come out of their shell” and be more sociable and to participate more in class. Adults are chided for being “in their head” too much, or seen as disengaged at work when they want to think rather than react off the cuff.
But this focus on extroversion has downsides. One downside in the business world is a preference for “Groupthink” that prioritizes teamwork above all. It’s based on the erroneous belief that creativity and intellectual achievement come from collaboration. In reality, an exclusive focus on teamwork actually undercuts creativity, which requires solitude and intense concentration (two things associated with introverts).
Groupthink is responsible for three work phenomena that hinder creativity:
The way to encourage creativity and achievement while avoiding the pitfalls of Groupthink is to redesign the collaboration process so it incorporates the strengths of both extroverts and introverts. For example:
Another downside of a focus on extroversion is the business world’s unbalanced preference for bold, charismatic leaders. Many extroverted leaders are highly reward-sensitive, meaning that when obsessed with the potential for a big payoff, they may act irrationally and ignore warning signs of problems ahead. The author argues that rash decisions fueled by unbridled extroversion led to the fall of Enron and the 2008 financial crisis.
Multiple studies indicate that extroversion is overrated when it comes to effective leadership. A Brigham Young study of 128 CEOs of major companies found that those viewed as charismatic didn’t perform any better than less-charismatic leaders. Further, some research shows that introverted leaders perform better than extroverted leaders in certain circumstances, such as when managing proactive (rather than passive) employees. Researchers concluded that introverts are effective at leading proactive employees because they tend to listen and are more willing to implement suggestions as opposed to dominating the situation.
It’s important for companies to have both extroverts and introverts in leadership roles in order to maximize employee output.
Introversion and sensitivity are highly correlated: one study found that 70% of people categorized as “highly sensitive” are introverts. Research suggests there are clear benefits to being a sensitive person, such as the ability to think deeply and the tendency to have a strong conscience. The research suggested that having a stronger conscience may promote future altruism, personal responsibility, and better relationships.
One researcher theorizes that the trait of extreme sensitivity may have survived the evolutionary process because of other survival enhancing attributes associated with it, such as astute observation, the tendency to look before leaping, and the tendency to thoroughly process information.
Former Vice President Al Gore, an introvert, is an example of a leader whose sensitivity and conscience benefited society: long before most people cared about it, he engaged in a decades-long campaign to raise awareness of the danger posed by global warming. The welfare of society and even the planet may depend on the capabilities of highly sensitive people, as much as on those of bold doers.
Studies of personality suggest that introversion and extroversion are biologically based. Introversion is associated with traits observable starting in infancy, including high reactivity to stimulation, alertness, sensitivity to nuance, and feeling emotions more intensely.
However, while your innate temperament influences you throughout your life, you have the ability to stretch your personality beyond your comfort zone and act in ways that don’t come naturally to you. Psychologist Brian Little argues that it’s worth it to act out of character in order to pursue “core personal projects” or goals that matter deeply to you. For instance, an introvert can be a passionate teacher if sharing his subject with others is a “core project” to him.
Still, acting out of character takes a mental and emotional toll. Introverts manage this by creating “restorative niches” for themselves—mental breaks or physical spaces in which they can recharge. For example, many introverts take a break in the bathroom after giving a speech or during a long social event. You can also create restorative niches by giving yourself a relaxing weekend before a big event, take breaks for yoga or meditation, or replace a face-to-face meeting with a phone call or email.
Introverts and extroverts are often drawn to each other in the way that opposites seem to attract. The two personality types can balance each other: one talks and the other listens; one is always ready for action, while the other wants to consider all the options. But problems can occur when a couple’s different personality types pull them in opposite directions.
People often wrongly believe that introverts are anti-social and extroverts are highly sociable. In fact, the two personality types both have a need for connection but they’re differently social.
Here are some key differences:
The key to a good relationship is understanding and accepting the different way the other person communicates, resolves differences, and socializes.
Introverted children face unique challenges at home and at school, where parents and teachers try to get them to act like their extroverted peers.
For instance, an extroverted parent may push a quiet child to play team sports or have a lot of friends. Whether they’re extroverted or introverted themselves, parents may fear an introverted child won’t be able to function in society without changing. When a parent wants to change a child, it’s a bad parent-child fit, according to one psychologist. However, parents can be a good fit for an introverted child by being accepting and learning to see the world from the child’s perspective. Here are some key steps:
Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, be true to yourself. In addition, if you’re an introvert:
Remember that there are many different kinds of powers. The heroes and heroines of myths and fairy tales discovered and used the power granted to them. Like Alice in Wonderland, introverts are granted keys that can unlock unique worlds and adventures.
In Quiet, author Susan Cain argues that whether you’re an introvert or extrovert affects every aspect of your life. Your temperament influences your choice of partner, friends, career, and lifestyle, as well as how those choices play out—for instance, how you advance in your career or handle differences in relationships. It even plays a role in daily activities, such as exercise and sleep, as well as your pursuit of passions, challenges, and downtime.
Scientists and writers dating back to the Romans, Greeks, and the Bible have studied introversion and extroversion extensively. They’ve even found that some animals can be identified as introverts or extroverts. The two personality types working together can create effective partnerships like, for instance, that of Martin Luther King Jr. (an extrovert) and Rosa Parks (an introvert). Her quiet defiance in refusing to give up her bus seat made her an appealing symbol King could use to rally others to the cause of integration.
A third to a half of Americans are introverts, according to studies. They tend to be quiet and thoughtful and prefer less stimulation. There’s a good chance that you’re an introvert yourself—or you live, work, or are friends with an introvert. You may not realize when you’re associating with introverts, however, because many of them act like extroverts when necessary, either consciously or unconsciously. Some people don’t realize they’re actually introverts until a change in their lives, such as a divorce or layoff, allows them to live in a way that aligns with their true nature.
The U.S. is one of the most extroverted nations, according to studies, and our society is skewed toward favoring extroverts. Our culture, including schools, social institutions, and workplaces, celebrates and is shaped around an “extrovert ideal”—a belief that the ideal personality type is someone who is highly sociable, self-assured, and enjoys the spotlight.
We typically think of an extrovert as a person of action, who takes risks and readily makes decisions. He or she is gregarious and flourishes as part of a team or as its leader. While we claim to value independence and individuality (qualities of introverts), the only independent type we seem to celebrate is the loner who comes up with technological innovations and gets rich. Anyone else with introvert tendencies is suspect.
Society often views introversion, which can encompass sensitivity and shyness, as an undesirable personality trait that should be suppressed or changed. Because extroversion has become the norm to which everyone must conform, introverts are left feeling devalued because of an innate quality.
Research shows we rate people more positively when they have qualities we associate with extroverts. For instance, talkative people are considered more intelligent, attractive, interesting, and likely to make better friends. People who talk faster are rated as more capable than those who talk slower. In groups, those who talk the most are seen as smarter than those who are quiet.
In the U.S., we’ve built our society and values almost entirely around extroversion. In school systems, for example, this is reflected in the way classrooms are organized and taught: Desks are arranged to facilitate group projects and high levels of interaction and activity. Most teachers believe students should be extroverts.
Television programs aimed at children feature extroverted rock-star personalities who relish the spotlight—for instance, Hannah Montana, Carly Shay of iCarly, and Sid the Science Kid, a program aimed at preschoolers. They’re a big departure from the quieter Cindy Bradys and Opie Taylors of the past, who were unremarkable kids doing ordinary things.
In the workplace, teamwork, open offices, and “people skills” are prized. We’re expected to engage in relentless self-promotion to develop and promote our personal “brand.” To advance in many careers, extroversion usually is essential. Even in professions often seen as hospitable to introverts, being an extrovert still helps you get ahead. For example, the scientists who are the most self-confident and brash often get the most funding.
Introverts, as both children and adults, are constantly pushed to be more outgoing.
Parents and teachers urge children to “come out of their shell” and be more sociable and to participate more in class. Adults are chided for being “in their head” too much, or they’re seen as disengaged at work when they want to think rather than react off the cuff.
Yet introverts have many underappreciated strengths, including empathy, a strong social conscience, persistence, concentration, creativity, and solving complex problems. A more balanced approach that takes advantage of the strengths of both personality types and offsets each one’s weaknesses would serve society better.
Quiet thinkers are responsible for many discoveries and artistic achievements, including:
Other introverts notable for their achievements include Eleanor Roosevelt, Al Gore, Warren Buffett, Gandhi, and Rosa Parks.
Rosa Parks: A Quiet Revolutionary
Civil rights icon Rosa Parks was an introvert who abhorred the spotlight. Yet her quiet, one-word response to being told to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and a national movement against racial segregation in public facilities.
On December 1, 1955, after a long day of ironing in the basement of the Montgomery Fair department store, Parks boarded a bus for home and sat down in the first row of the Colored section. When the driver ordered her to give up her seat, she simply said, “No”
The driver threatened to have her arrested, and she replied, “You may do that.” A police officer arrived and asked her why she wouldn’t move and she asked him in turn, “Why do you all push us around?” “I don’t know,” he said, “but the law is the law …” and he arrested her.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. recognized that Parks’s quiet, unassuming nature plus her integrity and character made her a sympathetic and credible plaintiff for the lawsuit that ended bus segregation by order of the Supreme Court a year later. While King spoke for and promoted her, she remained humble and shunned the limelight. Yet she had taken considerable risk—she was fired from her job and received death threats for years.
News coverage of the Supreme Court order didn’t even mention Parks—the newspapers praised King and carried photos of boycott leaders standing in front of buses. Meanwhile, Parks was at home, caring for her mother.
In her brief autobiography Quiet Strength, published in 2010, she again resisted the opportunity to claim any credit, instead citing the many who died in the civil rights struggle.
Introverts’ unique strengths, like Rosa Parks’s quiet determination, can be advantages in many situations. But, steeped in the extrovert ideal, they may not recognize their own capabilities. For instance, author Susan Cain, an introvert and former Wall Street lawyer, recounts an instance early in her legal career, in which she was called upon to renegotiate the terms of a loan for an important client. While she was nervous initially, her low-key introvert approach of refusing to be adversarial, asking questions, listening, and focusing on solutions helped both sides reach an agreement. She was so successful that she received an offer of more work from her client and a job offer from her opponent.
What differentiates introverts from extroverts? The definition is still not completely agreed upon, and has changed over the years.
Psychologist Carl Jung’s 1921 book Personality Types popularized the terms as key to one’s personality. He described introverts as internally focused on thoughts and feelings and extroverts as externally focused on people and activities. Introverts focus on analyzing events while extroverts want to be part of events. Introverts draw energy from being alone while extroverts are energized by interacting with others.
The Myers-Briggs personality test used by many organizations is based on Jung’s theories of introversion and extroversion. But today there’s no universally accepted definition based on objective criteria.
Some personality psychologists belong to the “Big Five” school, believing that personality consists of five core traits: extroversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. They define introversion by qualities introverts lack—assertiveness, sociability—rather than by their attributes.
Some think Jung’s ideas are outdated, while others still tout them. But many psychological researchers agree on several key points:
Introverts are stereotyped as recluses or loners who dislike people. This may be true of some introverts, but most are as friendly as anyone. Another stereotype is that introverts are shy. Although some introverts may be shy, like T.S. Eliot, there are key differences between introversion and shyness. Shy people dislike social situations because they’re afraid of embarrassment, while introverts dislike social situations because they’re too stimulating.
It’s actually possible to be a shy extrovert, like Barbra Streisand, who has stage fright, or an introvert who’s not shy, like Bill Gates. To further complicate things, an introvert who’s not speaking because she’s overstimulated and an extrovert who’s not speaking due to shyness can both come across as shy.
Introverts also may be “highly sensitive,” which is a psychological term meaning more apt to respond with strong feelings to something—for instance, to be moved by music or a sad story or be upset by violence. Researchers don’t know how many introverts are highly sensitive, but they’ve determined that 70% of highly sensitive people are introverts.
If you’re not sure whether you’re an introvert, you can get an idea by considering the extent to which the following traits, which many introverts share, apply to you (this isn’t a scientifically valid personality assessment):
The more items you agree with, the more introverted you may be. However, people usually fall on a spectrum between introverted and extroverted and no one is introverted or extroverted in all circumstances. Your introversion or extroversion also is affected by your personal experiences and other personality traits, such as sensitivity.
If you’re an introvert, some aspects of this book will apply to you while others won’t. Rather than establishing strict definitions, this book explores broad questions, such as whether introverts can be leaders, whether they should ever act like extroverts, and whether introversion/extroversion is biologically or socially determined.
What the author hopes you’ll gain from the book is a sense of entitlement to be yourself, which can be life-changing.
A half to a third of Americans are introverts, according to studies. They tend to be quiet, thoughtful, and prefer less stimulation than extroverts. They also may prefer to work alone, focusing on one task, while extroverts are multitaskers and thrive in busy environments.
Where do you fall on the introversion-extroversion scale? Which personality traits, preferences, or behaviors make you believe you're more introverted, more extroverted, or a balance of both?
What are some strengths you have because of your personality type?
Can you point to a situation where these strengths benefited you? In what way?
U.S. society has not always promoted extroversion as the ideal. Up until the start of the twentieth century, the focus was on character rather than personality. The ideal person was serious, self-disciplined, and moral. How you behaved in private—your virtue—was more important than outward charm or impressing others. (Exceptions were sometimes made in politics, where brashness drew admiration and votes.)
A shift from a “culture of character” to a “culture of personality” occurred at the turn of the century in response to a convergence of economic forces, including industrialization; migration from rural areas to cities; and the rise of retail giants such as Woolworths, J.C. Penney, and Sears Roebuck.
In retail, it became important to make a good impression on others with whom you had no past connection, in contrast to interacting with people in small towns whom you’d known all your life. The burgeoning retail sector needed a different kind of employee—a gregarious salesman with the ability to get along with anyone and be comfortable in any situation. Having a “good personality” became paramount. At the same time, Americans developed a fascination with celebrities, further elevating charisma over character.
Self-help advice, advertising, and psychology fueled the transition to a culture of personality. You had to sell yourself, not just products. And to do that, you had to be a performer.
At the forefront of the personality transformation movement was Dale Carnegie, founder of the Dale Carnegie Institute and author of best-selling books, including How to Win Friends and Influence People. The son of a poor Missouri farmer, Carnegie was impressed in 1902 by a traveling lecturer who had transformed himself by learning public speaking. Later in college, Carnegie entered speaking contests and eventually became such a successful speaker that others began asking him for lessons.
After college, Carnegie offered a public speaking class in New York City, which was an overnight success. Thereafter, in books and seminars, he touted public speaking and developing a winning personality as essential skills for succeeding in the competitive business world.
Advertising and magazine advice columns emphasized self-improvement. Men were urged to develop “a masterful personality,” while women were to cultivate an appearance of charm and beauty.
Advertisements focused on the need to perform well in the glare of the spotlight. For instance, a shaving cream ad declared, “Critical eyes are sizing you up right now.” A Lux soap ad assured women that by using Lux on lingerie, sofa cushions, and so on, they would enjoy “a sure, deep inner conviction of being charming.”
A 1920 advice manual stressed the need for having “a ready command of manners” sufficient to convince others you are “a mighty likable fellow.” Magazines like the Saturday Evening Post carried columns on the art of manners and conversation.
Psychologists began to weigh in on the importance of projecting self-confidence. Carl Jung, who had defined the introvert and extrovert personality types, recognized that introverts were falling out of favor. Their natural reserve might “arouse all the current prejudices” against those seen as lacking a good personality, he wrote.
In the 1920s, psychologist Alfred Adler introduced a new term for those who felt insecure and inadequate in comparison to the extrovert ideal: they had an “inferiority complex.” Adler argued that children felt inferior to adults and older peers, but successful children learned to channel these feelings into the pursuit of their goals as they matured. Children who weren’t successful at this developed an inferiority complex, which would be a huge social and economic disadvantage. Magazines gave mothers advice on how to help their kids avoid this fate.
The inferiority complex soon became a pat explanation for many problems in life. For instance, in 1924, Collier’s magazine published an article about a woman who was reluctant to marry a man whom she thought had an inferiority complex and would thus turn out to be a loser. At the same time, experts advised that an inferiority complex could be overcome. In fact, they claimed, many successful people, including Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Edison, once had inferiority complexes.
Parents were exhorted to raise a self-confident child. Experts warned that having a “maladjusted personality” as a child, namely shyness, would lead to alcoholism and suicide later in life; an extroverted personality was key to social and economic success. They advised parents to focus on socialization, while schools should get involved with personality development in addition to children’s learning.
By the mid-fifties, parents, teachers, and psychologists accepted the extrovert ideal for all children. They discouraged solitary activities and stressed socialization; they sent children to school earlier to learn to be sociable at younger ages. Quiet and introverted children were singled out for intervention. Most parents felt extroversion was necessary for their children to learn to succeed in the “real world.”
In The Organization Man, William Whyte quoted officials at Harvard and Yale, who declared that their schools were interested only in young men of “the healthy, extrovert kind” and had no use for the “intellectually overstimulated” type. That attitude reflected the prevailing business culture of group camaraderie, which clearly wasn’t designed for introverts. For instance, IBM gathered its sales force every morning to sing company songs.
For adults who needed an extra assist, the pharmaceutical companies stepped up in the fifties and sixties to offer the first anti-anxiety drugs. For instance, in introducing the drug Miltown, Carter-Wallace redefined anxiety as a reaction to a highly social and competitive world. It immediately became a best-seller. Others soon followed. By 1960, a third of all prescriptions were for one of two anti-anxiety drugs. One ad claimed, “Anxiety and tension are the commonplace of the age.”
Since then, the pressure to sell yourself has only grown. The number of Americans identifying as shy grew from 40% in the 1970s to 50% in the 1990s, possibly a response to escalating standards for self-promotion. One in five people has “social anxiety disorder” (pathological shyness); psychologists consider fear of public speaking to be a pathology when it undermines job performance.
Dale Carnegie’s books and training continue to be popular, as are organizations like Toastmasters, established in 1924 to practice public speaking. The culture of personality has redefined how we must be. But we may have lost something important in the transition without realizing it.
One hundred years after the advent of the culture of personality, we’ve elevated extroversion to hyper-extroversion and equated it with leadership. It permeates the self-improvement industry, business schools, corporate culture, and even churches. But charismatic leaders aren’t as effective as most people think—in some circumstances, introverted leaders may be more effective.
Today’s hyper-extrovert is personified by self-help guru Tony Robbins, whose high-energy workshops on building self-confidence (the $895 four-day entry-level session is called “Unleash the Power Within”) draw thousands. They culminate in a voluntary walk across hot coals.
Robbins has a “hyperthermic” or extreme extrovert temperament characterized by one psychiatrist as “exuberant, upbeat, over-energetic, and overconfident”—which are traits touted as assets in business, particularly sales. Indeed, Robbins is a salesman, constantly urging attendees at his sessions to buy additional higher-priced packages.
At first, the culture of personality urged people to develop an extrovert personality to stand out from competitors. Robbins’s message, however, is that extroversion not only ensures success but also makes you a better person. Selling yourself is a way of contributing to the world. In this view, what some might see as hucksterism is the ultimate in leadership.
Harvard Business School, which trains many nationally prominent business and political leaders, starts with a premise of hyper-extroversion. The curriculum forces students to be extroverts, in keeping with the findings of a study that verbal ability and sociability are the most important determinants of success in a corporate culture.
Participation in learning teams or study groups is mandatory, as is class participation. Students who speak up frequently and forcefully are viewed as leaders or players. Because leaders in business must confidently make decisions on incomplete information, in Harvard’s view, students must take positions and defend them forcefully regardless of how confident they are in the positions.
In fact, hyper-extroversion is central to many company cultures. As a manager at General Electric explained, you can’t have a casual conversation—everything you say and how you say it is a presentation. People try to look like extroverts, whether they are or not, which in terms of sociability can mean being sure to work out at the same health club as the CEO and drinking his favorite drink.
In essence, our culture continues to promote the same personal qualities as in the 1920s, except to a greater extreme. We have even stronger anti-anxiety drugs to help. For instance, in 2000, Paxil was marketed as a cure for social anxiety disorder. One ad showed a business executive, presumably with a boost from Paxil, concluding a deal. The caption was, “I can taste success.”
One problem with worshipping a decisive, forceful leadership style is that it can lead to less-than-optimal decisions, as a traditional class exercise at Harvard demonstrates.
In the exercise, called the Subarctic Survival Situation, students imagine being survivors of a plane crash in the arctic. They’re assigned to groups, which must rank fifteen salvaged items in order of their importance to the group’s survival. In an instance recounted in Quiet, one group ignored a quiet classmate who was an expert in wilderness survival, deferring instead to the views of more talkative, less-knowledgeable students, which resulted in a lower group score.
Studies of group dynamics show that we view talkers as smarter than quiet people and as leaders. We rate fast talkers as more capable than slower ones. The more someone talks, the more attention he draws from the group and the more influential he becomes as the discussion progresses.
But more talk doesn’t translate to greater insight. In one study, in which groups of college students solved math problems and rated each others’ intelligence, those who spoke first and most often got the highest ratings, yet their contributions were no better than those of quieter students.
Sometimes, when people do something because they were carried away by the most vocal person in a group, they end up wondering later, “What were we thinking?” The U.S. Army has a metaphor for the phenomenon: “taking the bus to Abilene.” It works like this:
A group is sitting around on a porch in Texas feeling bored and someone says, “Why don’t we go to Abilene?” They all go, but when they get there, someone else says, “You know, I didn’t really want to do this.” Others admit, “I didn’t either—I thought you wanted to.” In the Army, whenever people are unthinkingly jumping on a bandwagon, anyone can put the brakes on the conversation by saying, ”I think we’re getting on the bus to Abilene.”
The bias toward talkers also plays out in the way businesses and venture capitalists sometimes value presentation skills over substance. In his book Iconoclast, Gregory Berns recounts how a software company seeking new product ideas countered the management’s tendency to be swayed by a flashy performance. Instead of having employees present new ideas to a panel of judges, the company solicits ideas via an online “idea market,” where the focus is on substance.
Like Harvard Business School, many evangelical churches promote the Extrovert Ideal in both leaders and parishioners. They prize extroversion because they view the church’s mission as proselytizing, outreach, and community-building, which are social pursuits. They even associate extroversion with godliness.
For example, Saddleback Church in California, one of the largest evangelical churches in the country, is built on the culture of personality. Extroversion is a prerequisite for leadership and services and activities are built around social interaction: attendees are personally greeted and services are participative and boisterous. Members are urged to join a range of groups and activities targeted to various topics and interests, such as cooking and sports. Sharing one’s faith is part of practicing it.
However, this approach is off-putting to many potential leaders and members, according to Adam McHugh, an introvert and a Presbyterian minister who aims to make churches more comfortable for introverts. In his book, Introverts in the Church: Finding our Place in an Extroverted Culture, he argues that practicing one’s faith should involve listening as well as talking and that silent prayer and contemplation should have a larger place.
When you look at how businesses actually function, the Harvard Business School model of the charismatic, extrovert leader is overrated.
A Brigham Young study of 128 CEOs of major companies found that those viewed as charismatic didn’t perform any better than less-charismatic leaders, although they were paid more. Much of the time, leaders don’t actually need to be overly outgoing to be effective, one Harvard management professor conceded. Leaders communicate more often in small-group meetings, emails, and videos than by making presentations to large groups. Although big presentations are important—and leaders need presentation skills—they’re not daily requirements.
Many introverts have been outstanding leaders, including Charles Schwab, Bill Gates, Lou Gerstner of IBM, and Sara Lee CEO Brenda Barnes.
Management expert Peter Drucker wrote that the most effective CEOs he encountered actually lacked charisma. Similarly, Good to Great author Jim Collins, who studied high-performing companies, found that the best CEOs were known for a combination of humility and determination rather than charisma. (Shortform note: Read our summary of Good to Great here.)
For example, CEO Darwin Smith of paper company Kimberly-Clark was shy and mild-mannered. However, despite opposition, he made the courageous decision to sell the paper mills producing coated paper and shift the company’s focus to consumer products. This ended up strengthening the company. Collins concluded that corporations don’t need outsized personalities—they need leaders who focus, not on stroking their egos, but on building the business.
Introverted leaders perform better than extroverted leaders in certain circumstances, according to research by Wharton School professor Adam Grant.
In one study, he and his colleagues analyzed profits of one of the largest pizza chains in the U.S. and found that: 1) stores with extroverted leaders delivered 16% higher profits when employees were passive and did what they were told, and 2) stores with introverted leaders delivered 14% higher profits over the stores led by extroverts when employees proactively worked to improve procedures.
In a second study in which teams of college students competed to fold the most t-shirts, the teams with introverted leaders were more effective when the team members were proactive and came up with a way to do the work faster. Teams led by extroverts were more effective when the teams passively followed the leader’s direction.
Researchers concluded that introverts are effective at leading proactive employees because they tend to listen and are more willing to implement suggestions as opposed to dominating the situation.
Also, in the t-shirt folding study, the introvert-led teams reported they were motivated to work harder by the leader’s openness to their input. In contrast, extrovert leaders may be so focused on doing things their way that they don’t hear suggestions. However, extroverts also have the ability to inspire passive employees to perform better.
Grant argues that it’s important for companies to have both listeners and talkers as leaders in order to maximize employee output.
Technology and the internet have created a new, non-face-to-face environment for communicating, in which introverts may excel as leaders. Social media platforms enable a form of leadership different from the Harvard Business School model.
For instance, introvert Craig Newmark has successfully connected millions of people through his online platform Craigslist. Besides being a place to exchange services, his website functions as a sort of public commons. It connected stranded people with help during Hurricane Katrina and helped people find rides during New York City’s 2005 transit strike. Newmark has written that his site has the ability to connect people “to fix the world.”
The online world lets introverts play a more social role than they’re uncomfortable with in person. Studies have shown that introverts are more likely than extroverts to provide personal facts about themselves online and enter into certain online discussions. In addition, they’re more likely to say they can express who they really are online.
The online environment may yield better results for some activities by allowing introverts to communicate effectively without being overshadowed by more talkative types. For instance, consider how differently Harvard’s Subarctic Survival exercise might turn out if extrovert and introvert opinions got equal time.
Many corporate cultures favor extroverts—action-oriented talkers with great presentation styles. Studies have shown that we rate people who talk the most as smarter than those who are quiet. However, ignoring or overlooking input from quiet, thoughtful people can lead to poor decisions.
Think about your colleagues at work—which do you think are introverts and which are extroverts? Whose voices are listened to most?
Think of a recent group decision. Were contrary voices heard? How did it turn out?
The next time a decision is being made, what can you do to help ensure that a full range of views is taken into consideration?
U.S. institutions, including our schools and workplaces, are structured to serve the extrovert ideal. The organizing principle is “Groupthink,” which prioritizes teamwork above all. Groupthink practices, such as “cooperative learning” in schools and open offices and brainstorming in the workplace, are based on the erroneous belief collaboration is necessary for creativity and intellectual achievement.
The Groupthink notion that creativity is the product of teamwork has influential advocates, including prominent author Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote that innovation is “fundamentally social.” Organizational consultant Warren Bennis claimed in Organizing Genius that the “great group” has replaced the “great man.” However, in reality, an exclusive focus on collaboration actually undercuts creativity and achievement.
The belief in teamwork above all dominates the corporate workplace. Organizing employees into teams became a popular practice in the 1990s—half of all companies used teams by 2000, while nearly all do so today. Most managers believe teamwork is necessary for success.
Some teams work together remotely while others work face-to-face, but all require a large investment in time, which can include online or in-person meetings, retreats, and team-building exercises, brainstorming sessions, working on shared documents, and keeping track of everyone’s time with shared online calendars.
To facilitate face-to-face teamwork on site, many companies have implemented open- office designs with no walls or private offices and little or no privacy. While 70% of employees work in an open setting, the amount of space per employee has shrunk by 300 square feet since the 1970s. As one CEO described it, work has shifted from “I” or individually focused settings to “we” settings.
The demands of business for employees who can work in teams have reshaped teaching—schools are training children via cooperative and group learning methods to fit into the culture of corporate America.
As a fifth-grade public school teacher in Manhattan explained it, children are being taught that success and respect depend on verbal abilities rather than on originality and insight. “You have to be someone who speaks well and calls attention to yourself.”
Besides teamwork, children are also being taught leadership and managerial skills with an eye to the needs of the business culture. For instance, a third-grade teacher explained how she had put a quiet child who preferred to work independently in charge of the safety patrol so he could practice leadership.
Cooperative learning entails grouping children’s desks into pods to facilitate group activities. There are rules for group work—for instance, one fourth-grade teacher’s rule was that children couldn’t ask a teacher for help unless everyone in their group had the same question, presumably to encourage students to help each other find answers. Even math and creative writing, which used to be thought of as individual activities, are sometimes taught through group work.
The cooperative learning approach supposedly encourages students to take responsibility for their education. However, training all children to function in a corporate or team-oriented environment ignores the skills needed to achieve excellence—for instance, intense practice alone (more on this later).
The trends of corporate teams, open offices, and cooperative learning in schools were fueled by the rise of the Internet and lessons drawn from it.
The internet demonstrated the power of collaboration. Shared intelligence and creativity produced resources such as Wikipedia, the open-source operating system Linux, and the grassroots political organization MoveOn.org. Successful collaborations like these, whose results exceeded the sum of their parts, created enthusiasm for the so-called wisdom of the crowd or hive mind.
The success of online collaboration reinforced the belief in the value of face-to-face collaboration and teamwork in workplaces and schools. However, proponents of teamwork and open-office transparency didn’t consider that online collaboration works differently from in-person collaboration—in-person interactions are more susceptible to Groupthink in problem-solving and to style over substance.
The corporate teamwork environment marginalizes the contributions of introverts, who like to work alone. By contrast, the early Web allowed introverts to work independently on ideas and also share and build on the ideas of others. According to a study of the U.S., Australia, and the U.K., many of the earliest computer developers were introverts who worked alone but contributed to the greater good. For example, Apple’s Steve Wozniak worked alone on a prototype PC, but he shared ideas with a group called the Homebrew Computer Club.
Research has found that creativity requires 1) solitude and 2) intense concentration. Because these are the preferred work styles of introverts, it’s not surprising that many of the most creative people are introverts.
In the 1960s, researchers at UC Berkeley compared a group of extremely creative people, including scientists, engineers, writers, and architects, to a group of less-creative types to learn what drives creativity. They found that the most creative people tended to be independent, individualistic, and shy and solitary as teenagers. Other studies have supported these findings. But what gives introverts a creative edge? The likely explanation is that their preference for working in solitude fuels their creativity.
We know from the studies of psychologist Anders Ericsson that intense solitary work drives extraordinary achievement. When Ericsson studied violinists, he found that the best spent the most time practicing alone. Ericsson found the same was true for other kinds of high achievers—for instance, for top tournament chess players, serious study alone was the strongest predictor of success.
Ericsson contended that the key to outstanding achievement—“deliberate practice”—can only be undertaken alone. In deliberate practice, you identify what you need to learn, work on it, and track your progress. It would be harder to focus on improving in the areas most crucial to you if you practiced in a group. (Shortform note: Read our summary of Peak by Anders Ericsson here.)
This kind of solitary, intense focus on a passion is typical of creative people. Steve Wozniak compared himself to an artist, needing to work alone to control his creation. “I don’t believe anything really revolutionary has been invented by a committee,” he wrote.
Focus on a passion often starts in adolescence—for instance, Wozniak was fascinated by electronics as a teenager and spent hours working on them alone. A 1995 study of 91 extremely creative people found that they were loners as adolescents because their passion made them different from their peers. Examples include author Madeleine L’Engle and Charles Darwin. However, the kind of solitude that drives creativity and achievement is hard to come by in teams and open offices.
Although companies are enamored of open offices, studies have shown that open-office designs reduce rather than enhance productivity.
For instance, consultant Tom DeMarco and colleagues studied 600 computer programmers in ninety-two companies and found that the top performers worked in settings providing the most personal space, privacy, and control over their surroundings and the least interruption. Since the results of the so-called Coding War Games study were reported in 1987, other studies have also shown that performance and productivity lag in open-office environments.
For one thing, open offices are characterized by interruptions and noise, which create stress. A study of 38,000 knowledge workers found that being interrupted is one of the biggest deterrents to productivity. Workers in open offices are more likely to have high blood pressure and get the flu. They experience more friction with coworkers, argue with them more, and worry about others overhearing their phone calls and peeping at their computer screens. A noisy environment also gets in the way of learning. Research shows that people learn better after a quiet walk in the woods than a noisy walk on a city street.
Multitasking is another productivity myth. Current research shows that the brain can’t focus on two things at the same time—it actually switches back and forth between tasks, which lowers productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50%.
Employees are often well aware of the drawbacks of overly stimulating open-office environments. For example:
Brainstorming in a group, another favorite of the Groupthink or team-oriented culture, also fails to deliver more creative or better ideas.
Alex Osborn, an advertising man and author in the 1940s and ‘50s, came up with the idea of brainstorming because he was concerned that employees at his ad agency weren’t producing very creative material. He believed this was because they were afraid to share their ideas for fear of judgment, so he created a discussion process intended to remove the threat of criticism. The rules were:
With this process, Osborn believed that groups produced better ideas than people working alone. He made grandiose claims for it and other companies picked up the idea. Brainstorming soon was incorporated into the business culture of teamwork.
However, it doesn’t actually work as advertised. In 1963, a study of mining company employees by a psychology professor showed that people working on their own, whether they were executives or research scientists, produced more ideas than those working in groups and the ideas were of the same or better quality.
Research over the last forty years has also underscored that brainstorming doesn’t produce better ideas. Among the findings: idea-generating performance gets worse as brainstorming groups get bigger. For instance, groups of nine produce fewer and worse ideas than groups of six; groups of six do worse than groups of four. Organizational psychologist Adrian Furnham concluded that based on the scientific evidence, businesses would be crazy to use brainstorming. When you want efficiency or creativity, he said, it’s better to let people work alone.
According to psychologists, there are three reasons brainstorming doesn’t work:
Research has shown that group influence also can hinder discovering the best ideas: people tend to go along with others, even when they know the others are wrong, in order to fit in. In fact, the fear of rejection can be so strong that it makes us change our perceptions.
Despite the evidence against brainstorming, it remains popular. Studies show that participants usually believe their group performed much better than it actually did. The reason may be that it makes people feel connected—which may have value—but it doesn’t inspire good ideas.
In contrast to brainstorming in a group meeting, brainstorming online can be effective.
When brainstorming online, well-managed groups are more effective than individuals at coming up with viable ideas. Unlike face-to-face brainstorming, research shows that the larger the online brainstorming group, the better it does. The same applies to online collaboration on academic research. Professors who work together online produce research that has greater impact than the work of those meeting face-to-face or working alone.
In spite of its drawbacks, face-to-face collaboration does have some benefits—for instance, studies show that it creates trust more readily than online collaboration does. And sometimes being around people without directly interacting with them—for instance, in a cafe where people are working individually—helps your mind work. But working in a cafe is different from working in an open office because you have some control over your environment—for instance, deciding when to arrive and how long to stay, as well as where to sit and whether to interact with anyone.
The key to effective collaboration isn’t to stop meeting face-to-face, but to improve the process to take advantage of the strengths of both extroverts and introverts. For example, balance the membership of groups with both introverts and extroverts, and assign tasks in accordance with people’s strengths.
Also, create work environments where people can choose to connect in social spaces or to work alone in a quiet space. In schools, we should teach children to work with others, but also to engage in “deliberate practice” by themselves.
Some companies, such as Pixar and Microsoft, are creating office designs that include a mix of quiet work spaces, meeting areas, and social spaces like cafes where people can talk without interrupting coworkers’ focus. For example, Microsoft offices have sliding doors and moveable walls that employees can adjust to fit the level of interaction they want. These flexible spaces accommodate both introverts and extroverts.
Many companies have open office floor plans with little or no private space in an effort to encourage collaboration and creativity, although studies show open offices actually reduce productivity. The noise and interruptions common in these settings can create stress.
In what kind of work environment are you most productive? How does that compare to where you actually work? What is your office design?
How could you make your current work environment more conducive to your temperament and work style?
Think about the aspects of your work that require collaboration. Could any of them be handled more effectively with online collaboration? How?
Studies of personality support the premise that introversion and extroversion can be biologically based. Introversion is associated with traits observable in infancy, including high reactivity, alertness, sensitivity to nuance, and emotional intensity.
In 1989, developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan of Harvard began a longitudinal or years-long study of 500 four-month-old babies and was able to tell which ones would turn out to be extroverts and which would be introverts based on innate temperament.
By introducing stimuli such as voices, popping balloons, or smells, Kagan determined which infants were highly reactive (crying and throwing their arms around) and which were low-reactive. Counterintuitively, he predicted the highly reactive babies were likely to be quiet or introverts as teenagers, which turned out to be the case.
He did further testing of their reactions to new things—for instance, a clown and a woman wearing a gas mask—when the children were two, four, seven, and eleven. Most of the children turned out exactly as Kagan expected: high-reactive children turned out to be introverts while low-reactive children were extroverts.
Kagan also found that highly reactive children are more sensitive to their environment.
Besides noting the children’s behavioral reactions to strange situations, Kagan measured their heart rate, blood pressure, and finger temperature, which are controlled by the amygdala region—or emotional control center—of the brain. One function of the amygdala is to detect new or threatening things and trigger a reaction, such as ducking when a ball comes at your head. He found that highly reactive infants’ nervous systems reacted strongly to unfamiliar things while quiet infants’ nervous systems were unaffected.
As highly reactive children grow, parents and teachers may notice a wary reaction to unfamiliar people or the first day of preschool and may assume a child is shy. But what they’re really reacting to is newness. High reactives are just more sensitive to their environment. One psychologist calls this “alert attention”—they notice not only alarming things, but also most things in general.
High-reactive children also tend to more thoroughly process what they’ve observed and to apply more nuance to everyday experiences. For instance, they may spend a lot of time thinking about others’ actions, considering potential reasons why another child did what he did.
Kagan found that highly reactive kids seem to feel emotions more strongly as well—for instance, they feel more intense guilt if they break something than low-reactive children feel. They’ll also concentrate more intensely on something that interests them.
Other studies of personality also support the premise that introversion and extroversion are biologically based. But the temperament you were born doesn’t necessarily dictate what you do in every situation. Nurture and environment also play a role in shaping personality.
According to one theory, people with certain inherited traits tend to seek out experiences that reinforce them. Children who are low reactive may seek out exciting, even dangerous experiences, building up a tolerance for risk over time. Chuck Yeager could become an astronaut because of his years of courting danger as a test pilot. Conversely, high-reactive children who are internally focused may become professors, scientists, writers, and artists, whose work involves more mental stimulation than external activity.
Yet environment still can affect temperament. Low-reactive, extroverted kids raised in nurturing environments can grow up to become high achievers like Oprah or Richard Branson. But some psychologists believe a low-reactive child raised by negligent parents or raised in a bad neighborhood could channel a bold temperament into bullying or delinquency.
High-reactive kids are also influenced by their environment. Science writer David Dobbs explained the effect of environment on children with what he called the “orchid hypothesis.” Many children are like dandelions, able to flourish anywhere. However, others such as high-reactives are like the more sensitive orchids—they wilt easily, but with proper care become something extraordinary.
Such children are strongly affected by their experiences, whether positive or negative. For instance, they’re more likely to react to marital tension or abuse with anxiety and depression. However, in a nurturing environment, they develop more social skills and have fewer emotional problems than low-reactive children. They’re conscientious and caring, disturbed by injustice and cruelty. While they don’t seek attention, they’re often highly successful at things that interest them.
Further research by Dr. Carl Schwartz at Massachusetts General Hospital on Kagan’s subjects as teenagers showed that we can stretch beyond our inherited characteristics, but only to a point. Our temperaments continue to influence us throughout our lives.
Schwartz used an fMRI machine that measures brain activity. He showed participants a fast-moving series of photos of people’s faces to simulate the experience of walking into a crowded room. Some of the photos were repeated and became “familiar,” while new ones were continually added to the sequence. The people who had been highly reactive as children were more sensitive—they reacted more strongly—to the photos of unfamiliar faces.
Some of the high-reactives had grown into socially engaged and friendly teenagers who were not outwardly bothered by new experiences, but their brains still reacted more strongly to the unfamiliar faces.
Our personalities are somewhat like rubber bands, able to stretch but only so far. Introvert Bill Gates can hone his social skills but he’ll never be as gregarious as Bill Clinton—and Clinton will never be a solitary computer genius like Gates.
When the emotional center of our brain—the amygdala—reacts with anxiety to a situation, another part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, can send a counter-message to calm down.
Thus, we can teach ourselves to react differently, although we may revert to our old reactions under stress.
Both introverts and extroverts can stretch beyond their comfort zones when it’s to their advantage, particularly to further a career. For example, an introvert can learn and practice skills to be more comfortable interacting socially, while an extrovert can learn to slow down and be more reflective by cultivating friendships with introverts.
As an introvert, author Susan Cain struggled with public speaking, yet it was something her work often required her to do. To make the experience less stressful, she took a class in public speaking and also taught herself a number of stress-reduction techniques, such as:
(Shortform note: View Cain’s 2012 TED talk on “The Power of Introverts” here.)
Even though you can stretch your temperament, you can often be more effective by working within your comfort zone as much as possible.
Your comfort level in any environment depends on the level of stimulation you receive. Stimulation is the amount of input you receive from the world around you. If you’re an extrovert you thrive on a lot of stimulation, while if you’re an introvert you want much less.
In the 1960s, research psychologist Hans Eysenck identified this difference between introverts and extroverts. In one experiment, he placed lemon juice on people’s tongues and found that introverts salivated more—they reacted more strongly to the sensory stimulation. Another study in which people were asked to play a word game while wearing noise-emitting headphones found that more noise (a form of stimulation) hindered the introverts’ performance, while too little noise had the same effect on the extroverts’ performance.
Eysenck theorized that we all seek a level of stimulation that’s “just right” for us, neither too much nor too little. Thus, introverts prefer shutting their office doors and delving into projects alone—they find mental activity stimulating, while feeling distracted by external stimulation like noise and interruptions by colleagues. On the other hand, extroverts seek interaction through group activities and meetings.
Once you understand your preference levels for stimulation, you can seek out environments that work best for you or try to tailor your environment—in other words, look for your “sweet spot” where you’re optimally stimulated.
People already do this to an extent in their personal lives. For instance, an introvert may spend much of a weekend at home reading, then realize she’s starting to feel understimulated and call a friend to go out for lunch. However, that experience can turn to overstimulation if other friends join them.
You can manage your stimulation level so you spend as much time as possible in your sweet spot by the way you organize your home life, relationships, hobbies, and social life. This can apply to your professional life as well.
For example, a tax lawyer named Esther was an introvert who enjoyed solitary legal research, however her legal group periodically had to give public presentations. Extroverted colleagues were comfortable “winging it” and expected Esther to do the same. However, she wasn’t effective at speaking off the cuff. Her solution was to insist on advance notice from her colleagues, which gave her time to prepare for her speeches, allowing her to deliver them from within her comfort zone.
Since 1997, Dr. Elaine Aron, a research psychologist, has further explored the trait of high reactivity, which she has recharacterized as sensitivity. She found that highly sensitive people, 70% of whom are introverts, share a set of distinct attributes that, when recognized, can benefit society.
Aron’s list of twenty-seven characteristics, based on interviews and questionnaires with people who described themselves as being introverted or easily overwhelmed by stimulation, dovetailed with Kagan’s findings as well as with other research. The research found that highly sensitive people:
These attributes suggest that sensitive people are deep thinkers, which might be a reason they dislike superficial small talk. Another study found that sensitive people reacted particularly strongly to photos of accidents, pollution, and people who were injured, scarred, or experiencing strong emotions.
Life-Changing Empathy
Eleanor Roosevelt was a highly sensitive person known for her empathy for others’ suffering. As first lady to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she was often described as “Franklin’s conscience” for her efforts to raise his awareness of social problems and get him to enact policies to address them.
For instance, in 1933, she spent three months traveling the country, listening to stories of the people devastated by the Great Depression, which she reported to FDR while urging action. Among other things, she:
Proposed programs to help starving miners in Appalachia
Urged the inclusion of women and African-Americans in government work programs
Arranged for African-American singer Marian Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution canceled another performance in Washington, D.C., because of her race.
Later in her career, as a delegate to the United Nations, Eleanor helped secure passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Her sensitivity and empathy enabled her to help change the lives of millions of people.
Studies of highly sensitive toddlers found they had a stronger conscience than other children—they got more upset when they believed they had broken a borrowed and highly valued toy. Later in life, these children were less likely to cheat and break rules; they also had stronger moral traits such as empathy and had fewer behavior problems. The research suggested that having a stronger conscience may promote future altruism, personal responsibility, and better relationships.
Sensitivity may be physical as well as emotional. Researchers found that highly reactive introverts sweated more in reaction to noises, strong emotion, and other stimuli, while low-reactives sweated less. The less reactive you are, the thinner and cooler (less sensitive) your skin is. This may be where the description of being socially “cool” came from.
High-reactives are more prone to blushing as well. While they often find it annoying, it can be a socially useful and positive trait. Because it’s involuntary, blushing is viewed by others as an authentic sign of embarrassment, modesty, or humility—people who blush may be trusted more as a result.
Aron theorizes that the trait of extreme sensitivity may have survived the evolutionary process because of other survival enhancing attributes associated with it, such as astute observation, the tendency to look before leaping, and the tendency to thoroughly process information.
In the animal kingdom, those who “watch and wait” and those who like to “just do it” have complementary value. The watchers notice danger, while the doers seize opportunities. The two strategies pay off at different times in different situations, which is known as the trade-off theory of evolution. Scientists have found that about 20% of many species are “slow to warm up,” while the other 80% are “fast” or bold.
The trade-off idea also applies to humans. In the same way that antelope herds depend on their most watchful and sensitive members for survival, so might human society depend on the compassion and empathy of people like Eleanor Roosevelt, who helped the country through the Great Depression and racial tensions.
Former Vice President Al Gore, an introvert, is another example of a leader whose conscience benefited society: long before most people cared about it, he engaged in a decades-long campaign to raise awareness of the danger posed by global warming. The welfare of society and even the planet may depend on the capabilities of highly sensitive people, as much as on those of bold doers.
Introverts and extroverts think differently when it comes to making decisions, taking chances, recognizing and heeding warning signs, and solving complex problems. Both have strengths that they can leverage to their benefit when they also mitigate the downsides of their way of thinking. Companies can benefit by making sure both kinds of thinkers are involved in key decisions.
A big difference between introverts and extroverts is how they view potential rewards or benefits they might get from taking certain actions. Extroverts are often reward-sensitive, meaning they’re highly motivated to seek rewards, whether job promotions, gambling winnings, or goals such as money, social status, sex, and influence. In contrast, introverts are better at controlling their emotional response to potential rewards and delaying gratification.
Some researchers believe the tendency to seek rewards—from alpha status to money and sex—is a key characteristic of extroversion. Reward-seeking drives them to be more ambitious and social than introverts. Extroverts get a “high” (pleasure and excitement) from pursuing and reaching their goals. This takes the form of a jolt of dopamine (a chemical response) in the brain. Introverts don’t experience a high as easily.
Reward-seeking gives extroverts the courage to take chances and take on challenges, but it can also get out of hand. An obsession with a big payoff can drive people to act irrationally and ignore clear warning signs.
Janice Dorn, a “financial psychiatrist” who studies reward sensitivity, has seen the downside first hand. She recalled counseling an investor who kept buying and selling stock despite continuously losing money in 2008 (the year of the big market crash)—to the point of ultimately losing $700,000. He was so excited at the possibility of ultimately making a lot of money that he ignored the warning signs to slow down and actually escalated his buying when he shouldn’t have. According to Dorn, the extroverted traders she works with are more likely to get carried away by potential rewards, while introverts heed warning signals and are more able to control their emotions.
Similarly, company directors buying other companies can get so caught up in beating other bidders that they pay more than the target company is worth. Behavioral economists call this phenomenon “deal fever,” and its result the “winner’s curse” (the consequences of a bad deal). The AOL-Time Warner merger in 2000 is an example: Time Warner’s directors approved the deal despite signs that AOL’s stock was overvalued. Time Warner shareholders lost $200 billion.
Further, University of Wisconsin researchers found that when reward-sensitive extroverts run into roadblocks or warning signs while pursuing a goal, they press ahead even harder without considering the warning signs. In contrast, introverts stop, question themselves, and become more vigilant. Because they stop and reassess, introverts are better able to learn from setbacks or mistakes and to foresee future problems.
Along with making risky investment decisions, extroverts are prone to downplay or ignore danger in other areas. For instance, extroverts are more likely than introverts to:
All this suggests that when it comes to making group decisions, extroverts would do well to listen to introverts, especially when introverts see problems ahead.
Genetics may be a factor in risk-taking. One researcher found that extremely reward-sensitive extroverts who have one variant of a dopamine-regulating gene are more likely to take financial risks. However, introverts who have another gene variant—of a serotonin-regulating gene—take 28% less financial risk. These introverts outperformed others at complicated gambling games. In another study, of traders at a large investment bank, the best performers were even-keeled introverts.
Introverts also may be better at delaying gratification—in studies where participants had a choice of an immediate reward or a larger one later, extroverts tended to go for the immediate reward, while introverts waited for the larger one.
Looking back at the 2008 financial crisis where financial institutions made risky loans, some analysts contended a major cause was that aggressive risk-takers dominated the decision-making process and pushed more cautious people aside.
A similar thing happened at Enron in 2001. The energy company’s business culture favored risk-taking extroverts, who ostracized introverts and pushed for reckless business deals that ultimately led to bankruptcy. (Shortform: Read our summary of The Smartest Guys in the Room here.)
Besides helping them avoid financial disaster, introverts’ caution and reflectiveness can help them excel academically and solve complex problems.
In elementary school, extroverts get better grades, but in high school and college, introverts surpass them. In college, introversion is a more accurate predictor of academic performance than is cognitive ability. A disproportionate share of graduate degrees and Phi Beta Kappa keys are earned by introverts. They surpass extroverts on a critical thinking assessment often used by businesses in hiring. Introverts are good at what psychologists call “insightful problem-solving.”
Here are some ways the two groups differ in processing information:
Both introvert and extrovert approaches to problem-solving have value—however, our society seems to overvalue action and the highs that come from reward-seeking. Businesses would benefit by incorporating both approaches in key decisions. As an individual, you can also benefit from understanding where you fall on the reward-sensitivity spectrum and moderating your emotional responses.
If you’re highly motivated by the highs of reward-seeking, you can use it to accomplish big things and inspire others. Focus your energy on high-impact activities rather than quick highs. Also, learn to stop and consider warning signs and learn from mistakes. Recognize when you’re fixating on rewards and susceptible to acting recklessly; associate with people who can slow you down when necessary.
If you’re an introvert, be true to your nature: use your persistence, absorption, imperviousness to rewards, and analytical ability to solve complex problems and avoid pitfalls. Don’t let others rush your deliberations. Stay independent, trust your instincts, and apply your ideas as effectively as you can.
For example, be like investor and introvert Warren Buffet, who made billions for himself and shareholders by using persistence, careful analysis, and attention to warning signs. Buffet is known for stepping back to reflect when others are charging heedlessly ahead. He contends that having an even temperament and ability to control impulses that drive others is more important to successful investing than having above-average intelligence.
Introverts and extroverts differ in how they view potential rewards or benefits they might get from taking certain actions. Extroverts are often reward-sensitive, meaning they’re highly motivated to seek rewards, such as promotions, money, social status, sex, and influence. In contrast, introverts are less sensitive to potential rewards and better at delaying gratification.
Where do you think you fall on the reward-sensitivity spectrum? Why do you say that?
Have you ever made a risky or off-the-cuff decision you later regretted? What happened?
Knowing the degree to which you’re reward-sensitive, what steps can you take to ensure that you make good decisions in the future?
The extrovert ideal isn’t as “natural” or as revered everywhere as Americans might think. Whether extroversion or introversion predominates may depend on where you live or the culture in which you were raised.
In 2004, research psychologist Robert McCrae published a map of the world based on the personality traits most prominent in various countries and cultures: Asia is introverted while Europe and the U.S. are highly extroverted. While it’s important to avoid stereotyping entire cultures and assigning group characteristics to individuals, it would be a mistake to ignore Asian cultural differences and introversion—there are aspects of Asian cultural style and personality the Western world can learn from.
A great deal of research underscores that there are cultural/personality type differences between East and West. For example, one study comparing children in Shanghai and Ontario, Canada, found that while shy and sensitive personalities were discouraged in Canada, children with those personalities were popular in China and were more likely to have leadership roles. In another study, Chinese students told researchers they preferred friends who were sensitive, humble, helpful, and honest, while American students wanted friends who were cheerful, enthusiastic, and gregarious. Chinese students valued moral qualities and achievement, while Americans focused on sociability.
When researchers asked Asian-Americans and European-Americans to think out loud while solving logic problems, the latter group did better. However, the Asian-Americans did much better when allowed to work on the problems silently.
In Asian culture, talk is for communicating necessary information; being quiet is a sign of thoughtfulness. The East and West have contrasting proverbs about silence. For instance:
One reason for the different attitudes may be group identity. Asians see themselves as part of a larger entity, whether a family, community, or company. They often put group interests ahead of personal interests to promote group harmony. In contrast, Western culture celebrates the individual—everyone is free to express themselves and follow their destinies. While individuals are sociable, they don’t defer to a group—rather, they seek to stand out or compete.
Asians value traits that promote group harmony, such as sensitivity and humility; Western culture favors those that promote individuality, such as verbal ability and assertiveness.
In one study of brain activity, American and Japanese participants were shown pictures of men in dominant and submissive postures. The Americans’ brain pleasure centers reacted more strongly to the dominant images, while the Japanese reacted more to the humble/submissive images. However, while Westerners may view deference as subordination, to many Asians, it reflects concern for others, which is known as “relationship honoring.” In Japan, social anxiety disorder isn’t fear of embarrassing yourself, as it is in the West; it’s fear of embarrassing others.
Some Asian-American students and professionals face challenges as introverts are forced to function in an extrovert culture.
This is even true in the technology epicenter of Cupertino, California, home of Apple and Google, where 77% of students in the Monta Vista High School in 2010 were Asian-American.
The school culture, which values quiet, smart students, is something of a cocoon—introverts are accepted and even admired, and studying takes priority over socializing.
However, the Asian-American students worry about adjusting when they leave school and enter a world where extroversion dominates (where, for instance, class participation is required). In interviews with author Susan Cain, they talked about feeling conflicted while trying to meet the dictates of two cultures. They sometimes lost sight of the value of their Asian cultural ideals. They might try to be “Asian superstars,” who do well academically like “traditional Asians,” but who also try to be outgoing and get noticed.
One study showed Chinese-American twelve-year-olds felt good about themselves and adhered to their parents’ value system. But when they reached age seventeen and had greater exposure to the extrovert ideal, their self-esteem fell.
Besides losing self-esteem, Asian-Americans eventually pay another price—their cultural differences can translate into lower paychecks. In his book on meritocracy, The Big Test, journalist Nicholas Lemann concluded that meritocracy works for Asian-Americans until graduation; then, they lag because they don’t have gung-ho cultural style needed to get ahead.
Similarly, the wives of Chinese professionals in Cupertino told author Susan Cain that their husbands commuted to jobs in China because their less flamboyant styles prevented them from advancing in U.S. businesses, where promotion depends on presentation skills. Other Asian-American professionals sought training in American-style extroversion.
Adapting to an extrovert culture isn’t the only path to success, however. You can succeed and still be true to yourself.
There’s an Asian concept of “soft power,” or leadership “by water rather than by fire.” It consists of getting what you want by being subtle, by winning people over with strong convictions and caring, rather than by strong-arming or rolling over them. The organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving succeeded in rallying people to their cause through soft power—the strength and emotional resonance of their message.
Soft power is quiet persistence in building a team or support through day-to-day personal interactions—Mother Teresa, the Buddha, and Gandhi were extraordinarily effective in wielding this kind of power.
Gandhi was shy, quiet, and fearful as a child. These traits later evolved into a strength—restraint and nonresistance. For instance, when Gandhi was excommunicated by his caste for going to England to study law, he accepted the unfair judgment and abided by the caste dictums.
Because of his nonresistance, the caste left him alone and later even helped in his political work. Had Gandhi fought back, he and caste leaders would have been in perpetual conflict. Gandhi’s non-resistance or refusal to challenge others became a hallmark of his life. He viewed passivity not as weakness, but as “firmness in the pursuit of the truth.” Because he stayed focused on his ultimate goal rather than being diverted by unnecessary fights, Gandhi’s restraint (rooted in his shyness) turned out to be one of his greatest assets.
The soft power of quiet persistence isn’t limited to moral heroes like Gandhi. It drives many Asian-Americans’ academic success. Students from Asian countries consistently get top scores in the TIMSS exam, the Trends in International Mathematics Study, which is given every four years to children around the world. Researchers found that those who excelled on the test were the most persistent. Other studies have also found high levels of persistence and the ability to resist distraction among Asian children.
Embracing soft power—applying the strengths of conviction and persistence—may be more effective in some circumstances than traditional leadership styles.
As noted in Chapter 5, whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, you have the ability to stretch your personality beyond your comfort zone and act in ways that don’t come naturally to you.
Introverts, in particular, often act like extroverts in pursuit of goals they care about. They succeed by using techniques such as self-monitoring and creating “restorative niches,” where they can take timeouts to recharge.
Some introverts become so good at acting out of character that the people around them have no idea how out of character they really are. For instance, Professor Brian Little, by nature an introvert, pushed so hard to act like an extrovert that he seemed to have a dual personality. Before he retired, he was a Harvard University psychology lecturer and acclaimed teacher/performer who was so popular with students that his classes were standing room only and often ended in ovations. He also was a popular speaker for a variety of organizations, including the military. However, in his “off” time, Little lived in a cabin in the woods of Canada, with few visitors other than family. He spent his time there reading and writing in solitude. Eventually, the “acting” led to burnout and now he focuses on research—among other things, studying how and why introverts often successfully masquerade as extroverts.
A few psychologists—”situationists”—have argued that personality traits aren’t fixed—that we have various “selves” instead of a core personality and we shift or change our personality to suit the situation we find ourselves in.
However, Little believes we have fixed traits that remain fairly constant throughout our lives and profoundly influence us. Most psychologists, including Carl Jung and more recent researchers, agree with this view.
So how can many introverts act out of character so convincingly? Little argues that we have both fixed and “free” personality traits. According to his “free trait theory,” we’re born with certain traits like introversion, but we can act out of character when pursuing “core personal projects” or goals that matter deeply to us.
For instance, an introvert might join the PTA at his daughter’s school because his family is important to him. Similarly, Little could be a passionate teacher because sharing his excitement for his subject was a “core project” to him.
You won’t succeed in acting out of character to advance a project you don’t care about. However, introverts may have difficulty identifying their core personal projects because they’re used to ignoring their own preferences and feeling uncomfortable in many situations. For an introvert functioning in an extrovert-dominated world, it’s like spending time in a foreign country —it can be exciting, but you don’t feel like you fit in.
Here are three steps to help identify your core personal projects:
Researchers studied how introverts adapt their personalities by asking them to act like extroverts while teaching a class. The researchers measured such things as eye contact, confident posture, and smiling. Researchers found that introverts who do the best job of acting like extroverts are skilled at self-monitoring. To adjust their behavior to the social demands of a situation, they look for cues from others to tell them how to act.
Some people are better at self-monitoring than others. Little, like the best teachers, took cues from his student audiences—for instance, adjusting his lectures if the students weren’t following them. In contrast, “low” self-monitors are less sensitive to external cues and are instead guided internally by their interests and motivations.
You can gauge your self-monitoring skill level by answering questions from psychologist Mark Snyder’s Self-Monitoring Scale, for instance:
The more often you answer yes to questions in the assessment, the more skilled a self-monitor you are.
While some may view self-monitoring and adjusting your behavior as being phony, Little views it as being accommodating to situations and people, rather than putting your own interests first.
Even if you’re pursuing a core personal project, you don’t want to act out of character for too long because it takes a lot of energy.
In the process, you need to create “restorative niches,” where you can relax and be yourself. These niches can be a physical place—many introverts take a break in the bathroom after giving a speech or during a long social event. While giving a series of lectures to military officers, Little took a walk by himself between lectures, rather than having lunch with the top brass. You can also create restorative niches by giving yourself a relaxing weekend before a big event, taking breaks for yoga or meditation, or replacing a face-to-face meeting with a phone call or email.
You can even create a restorative, or at least a less stressful, niche during a meeting or event by choosing when you arrive, where you sit, and how you communicate. These choices help you establish physical distance and perspective.
Before accepting a job, you might want to consider the availability of restorative niches that fit your personality—for instance, would you have private work space or face the constant interruptions of an open office?
You also might ask yourself how much time the job would allow you to spend in-character. An extrovert might ask whether the job/environment would provide enough stimulation and contact with people. Sometimes you can re-engineer a job—for instance, getting permission to work remotely—so you’re acting in-character most of the time.
In your personal life, you might have to negotiate what Little calls a “Free Trait Agreement” with a spouse or partner, in which you each agree to act out of character on occasion, in exchange for being in-character most of the time. For instance, you’ll attend your wife’s best friend’s wedding, but you’ll skip the pre-wedding social activities.
You can even negotiate a Free Trait Agreement with yourself—for instance deciding the number of social events you’ll force yourself to attend in exchange for most evenings at home.
Even if you’re pursuing a goal important to you, acting out of character for too long takes a lot of energy. To recharge, you need to create “restorative niches,” where you can relax and be yourself. They can be places you go to get away from the pressure or mental breaks such as meditation.
Think of a situation where you had to act in a way that was out of character and stressful for you—for instance, giving a speech or socializing with the boss. What aspects required the most energy and when did you start running out of energy?
What did you do when your energy began to flag? How much did this action help?
What are some restorative niches you can build in to help you succeed at a similar event in the future?
Introverts and extroverts are often drawn to each other in the way that opposites seem to attract. The two personality types can be complementary: one talks and the other listens; one is always ready for action, while the other wants to consider all the options; one schedules activities, while the other pays the bills.
But problems can occur when a couple’s different personality types pull them in opposite directions. The key to a lasting relationship is understanding and accepting the different ways that each communicates, resolves differences, and socializes.
Greg, an extrovert, and Emily, an introvert, are an example. They have a generally compatible relationship, but they reached an impasse over Friday night dinners, which Greg, a music promoter, has been hosting for years. Emily, a staff attorney for an art museum and a very private person, dreads them. When she gets home, she wants to unwind alone, not entertain a crowd. She volunteered to visit her sister on Friday nights as a compromise, but he doesn’t want to host the dinners by himself. Greg feels as though Emily is backing out of a key part of their marriage contract and he feels alone. He believes she’s anti-social; Emily feels defensive and wonders whether he’s right.
People often wrongly believe that introverts are anti-social and extroverts are highly sociable. In fact, the two personality types both have a need for connection but they’re differently social.
Introverts prefer to socialize with a few close friends and have meaningful, in-depth conversations. Extroverts need to be surrounded by a lot of people to feel as though they’re having a social impact. Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert determines how many friends you have, but not whether you’re a good friend. Researchers have found that introverts and extroverts are equally likely to be agreeable and friendly to other people—in other words, introverts aren’t anti-social.
Being “differently social” leads to conflict when it means each person’s needs aren’t being met by the other. Typically, the introvert wants downtime and understanding at the same time as the extrovert wants his partner’s attention and company.
Extroverts need to understand how desperately introverts need time to recover from a hectic day, and introverts need to understand that their silence can come across as rejection of their partners.
Introverts and extroverts also have different ways of handling conflict or differences. Introverts are uncomfortable with emotions, so they become quiet and dispassionate when dealing with a conflict. Extroverts raise their voices and become emotional, especially as their partners seem to withdraw. To put it another way, introverts try to avoid conflict while extroverts are comfortable with a confrontational style of disagreement.
In the Emily-Greg example, the more she backs away, the angrier he gets. The way they disagree gets in the way of resolving the matter they disagree on—Greg’s Friday night dinner parties. Emily needs to learn that it’s OK to let Greg know she’s angry, so Greg doesn’t think she’s withdrawing. Meanwhile, Greg has to learn that venting his anger in an argument makes the situation worse. He needs to understand what needs are driving his anger and express them in a way that’s not a personal attack on Emily.
Emily needs to stop reacting to Greg’s anger defensively, as though she did something wrong. She also must acknowledge when Greg makes legitimate points and be more comfortable disagreeing forcefully.
For introverts, participating in a social event takes a significant mental toll; it’s difficult for them to process information from multiple people simultaneously without feeling distracted and stressed. By contrast, extroverts are good at handling competing demands on their attention and therefore aren’t overwhelmed by the stimulation of a social event.
An interaction in a social setting involves many tasks, including:
Because of the mental demands, introverts tend to be quiet observers at parties or engage one-on-one. In individual conversations, introverts tend to talk about a problem and assume an advisor role, while extroverts talk about more light-hearted topics. This can result in a productive conversation—introverts appreciate extroverts’ focus on less-mentally taxing topics and extroverts appreciate the fact that introverts listen closely and ask questions.
For Emily and Greg, this means it’s natural for Emily to feel overwhelmed by social events, but she can enjoy conversations one-on-one. So they resolved their impasse by changing the format of their Friday get-togethers from sit-down dinners to buffets with people eating and conversing in small groups. They also agreed to host two parties a month instead of four.
Introverted children face unique challenges at home and at school, where parents and teachers try to get them to act like their extroverted peers.
Parents may try to change introverted children—for instance, an extrovert parent may push a quiet child to play team sports or have a lot of friends. Whether they’re extroverted or introverted themselves, parents may fear an introverted child won’t be able to function in society without changing. When a parent wants to change a child, it’s a bad parent-child fit, according to one psychologist. However, both introverted and extroverted parents can be a good fit for an introverted child by being accepting and learning to see the world from the child’s perspective.
For instance, Joyce’s seven-year-old daughter, Isabel, was sensitive, empathetic, and easily overwhelmed. Isabel didn’t want her mother arranging activities for her after school because, as an introvert, she was tired after her school day and wanted to be alone or with only her mother. Until Joyce understood introversion, she thought something was wrong with Isabel. Then she changed the way she parented, following her daughter’s lead when Isabel wanted downtime and helping her come up with strategies for handling relationships and speaking up at school. Instead of trying to change Isabel, Joyce values her uniqueness.
Introverted parents also face pitfalls in raising introverted children. Sometimes their own painful past experiences can get in the way of parenting. They may feel responsible for passing on the “burden of shyness” to their children and try to protect them. Again, it’s important for parents to accept children as individuals and see things through their eyes, not relive their own childhoods.
Besides being accepting, another key way to help an introverted child is to help him adjust to new people and things.
Remember that he’s not afraid of people or being anti-social. He’s showing an introvert’s natural reaction to newness (caution) or overstimulation (withdrawing). Accept that it’s his style to be cautious and examine a situation before getting involved. Gradually expose him to new situations and people, while respecting his limits even when they seem over the top. Unlike overprotection or pushing too hard, this approach boosts his confidence. When a child takes risks, commend his efforts. Eventually, he’ll see the rewards of persevering through discomfort and will learn to moderate his tendency toward caution.
Never shame a child for being shy. Be a role model for how to meet new people by being calm and friendly when greeting strangers. Introduce her to new social situations gradually. Discuss them beforehand and walk through them if possible—for instance, by walking a child through a new school when it’s not busy,
Teach her strategies for handling uncomfortable moments—for instance, how to look confident when you don’t feel that way by smiling, standing up straight, and making eye contact.
Remember that schools are typically designed for extroverts, emphasizing group activities and participation. There’s nothing superior about teaching this way—it’s a result of society’s bias toward the extrovert ideal. However, it’s unnatural for introverts, who prefer to work independently and socialize one-on-one. The school environment saps their energy rather than channeling it.
As adults, we get to choose the occupations, people, and environments we’re comfortable and thrive in—psychologists refer to this as finding the right “person-environment fit.” But with one-size-fits-all education, kids don’t get to choose environments conducive to their learning styles and personalities. They can’t learn when they feel stressed.
Here are some ways teachers can help:
If you can choose your child’s school, look for a school that:
Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, be true to yourself. In addition, if you’re an introvert:
Remember that there are many different kinds of powers. The heroes and heroines of myths and fairy tales discovered and used the power granted to them. Like Alice in Wonderland, introverts are granted keys that can unlock unique worlds and adventures.