Tuesday January 24

Susan Cain’s Quiet Speaks Volumes on Introverts in Our Noisy World

I enjoy reading what some may call pop-sci, or popular-psychology/science books: Incognito by David Eagleman, Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Todd Gilbert, anything by Malcolm Gladwell -- you get the idea. I find the mystery of our brains fascinating. Whether it’s neurology or psychology, when an author can take science and research and present it in a manner that is interesting and entertaining without becoming laden with technical terms, I eat it up. Quiet by Susan Cain is just that type of book. The author, an introvert herself, presents her case on the value of introverts by looking at studies and research done over the past decades. Being an introvert myself, I found the book that much more interesting.

There is no singular definition of what an introvert (or extrovert) is. Carl Jung first popularized the terms in his book Psychological Types; the Myers-Briggs test that many people are familiar with (and have probably taken) is based on Jung’s thinking. Current psychologists haven’t come to a consensus as to what the “right” definition is for either term, but there is much that they agree on. For example, introverts tend to be more comfortable with less stimulation, enjoying solitude or the company of one or two really good friends over a cup of coffee, whereas extroverts enjoy meeting new people at a party with loud music in the background. The differences can also be found in how they learn, the environments in which they work best, how they communicate, and even at what decibel level they find their headphones to be “just right” (the average, in case you’re curious, is about 17 decibels!). Another important thing to note is that “introvert” is not synonymous with “hermit” or “antisocial.” Some may be surprised to know that many famous people consider themselves to be introverts: J.K. Rowling, Al Gore, Albert Einstein, Steven Spielberg, and Steve Wozniak have all accomplished extraordinary things in their respective fields.

Unfortunately for the thirty-to-fifty percent of the population that fall on the “I” side of the line, our world has become increasingly extrovert-focused. Everything from parenting and education to work-life and social situations lends itself to the extrovert. With the understanding that introverts have strengths that are typically undervalued or unrecognized in today’s society, Cain gives practical advice on how to maximize an introverted personality and highlights the unique gifts that go along with one. She also looks at how those with introverts in their lives (for instance, parents, teachers, spouses, managers) can learn to help make them comfortable and bring out their best.

Quiet is a fun, thought-provoking read that will appeal not only to introverts, but to anyone who enjoys learning more about personality, genetics, and brain function. I also urge you to go to the author’s site where you can take a quick quiz to find out if you are an “I,” and “E,” or an “I/E”: www.thePowerofIntroverts.com

Today we make room for a remarkably narrow range of personality styles. We’re told that to be great is to be bold, to be happy is to be sociable. We see ourselves as a nation of extroverts—which means that we’ve lost sight of who we really are. Depending on which study you consult, one third to one half of Americans are introverts—in other words, one out of every two or three people you know. (Given that the United States is among the most extroverted of nations, the number must be at least as high in other parts of the world.) If you’re not an introvert yourself, you are surely raising, managing, married to, or coupled with one.

If these statistics surprise you, that’s probably because so many people pretend to be extroverts. Closet introverts pass undetected on playgrounds, in high school locker rooms, and in the corridors of corporate America. Some fool even themselves, until some life event—a layoff, an empty nest, an inheritance that frees them to spend time as they like— jolts them into taking stock of their true natures. You have only to raise the subject of this book with your friends and acquaintances to find that the most unlikely people consider themselves introverts.

It makes sense that so many introverts hide even from themselves. We live with a value system that I call the Extrovert Ideal—the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight. The archetypal extrovert prefers action to contemplation, risk- taking to heed-taking, certainty to doubt. He favors quick decisions, even at the risk of being wrong. She works well in teams and socializes in groups. We like to think that we value individuality, but all too often we admire one type of individual—the kind who’s comfortable “putting himself out there.” Sure, we allow technologically gifted loners who launch companies in garages to have any personality they please, but they are the exceptions, not the rule, and our tolerance extends mainly to those who get fabulously wealthy or hold the promise of doing so.

Introversion—along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness—is now a second- class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man’s world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.

The Extrovert Ideal has been documented in many studies, though this research has never been grouped under a single name. Talkative people, for example, are rated as smarter, better- looking, more interesting, and more desirable as friends. Velocity of speech counts as well as volume: we rank fast talkers as more competent and likable than slow ones. The same dynamics apply in groups, where research shows that the voluble are considered smarter than the reticent—even though there’s zero correlation between the gift of gab and good ideas. Even the word introvert is stigmatized—one informal study, by psychologist Laurie Helgoe, found that introverts described their own physical appearance in vivid language ( “green- blue eyes,” “exotic,” “high cheekbones”), but when asked to describe generic introverts they drew a bland and distasteful picture (“ungainly,” “neutral colors,” “skin problems”).

But we make a grave mistake to embrace the Extrovert Ideal so unthinkingly. Some of our greatest ideas, art, and inventions—from the theory of evolution to van Gogh’s sunflowers to the personal computer— came from quiet and cerebral people who knew how to tune in to their inner worlds and the treasures to be found there.

Copyright © 2012 by Susan Cain. From the book QUIET: The Power Of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain, published by Crown, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted with permission.