If you’re an introvert someone at some point in time has probably asked you what’s wrong?
Are you feeling ok?
Why are you so quiet?
And you silently in your head want to politely say: Would you please SHUT THE F*CK UP?
But instead you end up saying the same thing you always say: Nothings wrong.
Yes I’m fine.
Or I didn’t realize I was being so quiet.
Hello everyone.
Thought Monkey here.
Today we’ll be exploring the idea of why being an introvert is not as bad as all your
teachers, the media, or friends make it out to be.
The terms introvert and extrovert come from the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (accent).
But our current understanding of the idea comes more from the German psychologist Hans
Eysenck (accent).
The idea can be thought of as a spectrum.
On one side you have the extreme extrovert that is super outgoing, talkative, and energetic
while on the other you have the extreme introvert who is very reserved and solitary.
Most of us lie somewhere on this spectrum, and some of us even lie in the middle and
would be considered an ambivert.
Ambiverts get the best of both worlds and have been scientifically shown to be better
sales people than both extroverts and introverts, but that’s beside the point.
Some people mistake an introverted person as a shy person.
But the two are actually unrelated.
Shyness is a fear of social judgment.
While introversion is simply how one responds to stimulation – whether social or not.
Introverts simply feel more alive in quiet, low key environments.
Part of this has to do with science.
First, all humans have something called an Ascending Reticular Activating System which
is part of the brain stem that regulates how much stimulation we need to feel good.
You see, your brain wants to feel good and needs a certain amount of stimulation in order
to reach a happy point.
While introverts already have a lot of stimulation going on in their brains, they don’t need
as much external stimulation to get to that happy point.
The opposite is true of extroverts who have less stimulation going on in their brains
and thus need more external stimulation to reach their happy point.
Second, our personality traits are linked to our genetics to an extent.
There are studies that show that extroverts share two copies of one allele that introverts
lack.
Third, brain scans of both show that introverts have a thicker frontal lobe than extroverts
which is linked to a tendency toward deep thought and planning over impulsive action,
but are also linked to anxiety and depression.
Finally, in another study in which extroverts and introverts were asked to look at photos
of people, the brains of extroverts responded more strongly when seeing groups of people
in photos, implying that introverts don’t need as much social connection to feel good.
The book by Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
explains how our society is structured for extroverts, and how that might limit the creative
progress of it.
You see Cain found that a third to half of the population are introverts, but if you
look at schools or the work place, nearly all people are expected to work cooperatively
in groups and the leaders that emerge are generally the most outspoken and extroverted.
And while this happen frequently the research shows introverts may be better leaders due
to their careful and thoughtful consideration of ideas and their ability to allow those
they lead to feel more autonomous.
Some introverted leaders in history include Abraham Lincoln, Ghandi, and Rosa Parks.
Cain also says that solitude is a crucial ingredient to creativity.
In fact Charles Darwin is famous for turning down dinner invitations and taking long walks
by himself in the woods.
You can also see this in most world belief systems – where the likes of the Buddha,
Jesus, and Muhammad all go off on a solo journey, finding wisdom, and return with a message.
Sounds like the Hero’s Journey huh?
The fact is, is that there are zero correlations between being the best talker and having the
best ideas.
But our society is structured so that the best talker usually becomes the leader.
How did this happen?
Cains argument is that as people began migrating from rural towns into urban anonymous cities
during the 21st century, our culture shifted.
Before the majority of people lived in cities we lived in “culture of character.”
What she means by this is that our inner character traits such as loyalty, honor, etc. were more
important than our outer character traits such as charisma, magnetism, etc.
She demonstrated this by comparing the most popular self-help books of the 1800s with
those of the 1900s – where early self-help books featured role models like Abraham Lincoln
and other quiet men vs. those written in the 1900s during the time period she calls the
“culture of personality,” that had titles like “How to Win Friends and Influence People,”
which focused on charming those you don’t know.
This makes sense considering the fact that in an anonymous sea of people, like cities,
being able to charm and influence people is better business than having qualities that
are less immediately visible.
Of course Cain isn’t saying that social skills are unimportant or that we shouldn’t
collaborate, she is simply suggesting that we allow introverts to be given the space
to be themselves so that they have the opportunity to be more creative and ultimately help society
in the year 2000 (Conan Music).
Thank you for watching this video!
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