It's Time For Business People To Rethink Our Definitions of Introvert & Extrovert (And Start Developing The Skills of Both)

“Are you an introvert or an extrovert?” It’s such a common, casual question. Often, it’s part of a getting-to-know-you exercise.

And if you’re like me, you probably want to answer, “Sometimes."

Because, duh—we’re different depending on the situation. Lots of public speakers are energetic on a stage… and then shy at the networking reception afterward. (I’m one of those!) And I know plenty of people who are the life of the party at happy hour after work, but totally quiet in the staff meeting. 

The introversion < > extroversion spectrum has been a mainstay of personality psychology research for decades. But psychologists make it clear that the standard test for introversion/extroversion only tells us how people feel and behave in an average situation. It doesn’t account for scenarios like staff meetings vs. happy hours vs. public speeches.

Complicating things even more, recent psychology research has made clear that there are very different types of introverts and extroverts—the terms are plagued with “persistent conceptual ambiguity”—yet the decades-old tests we use will put a person who is quiet because they like to think into the same “introvert” bucket as someone who is quiet because they are scared of social situations. 

To be specific:

• Contemporary psychologists have identified four different types of introverts: Social, Thinking, Anxious, and Restrained.
• And they’ve shown that extroversion comes in many flavors as well, e.g.: Assertive, Excitement-Seeking, Gregarious, Positive Emotion, and Warm.
• You can be classified as an "introvert" or "extrovert" and only fit into one or two of those sub-categories. They're not the same.

That’s why, outside of scholarly research, it’s unclear how helpful personality measures like The Big 5 actually are to us regular people in our work or lives. 

So you scored a 3.5 out of 5 on General Extroversion… what now?

This has bothered me for some time. But at a recent event by Templeton Foundation I attended, psychology professor Ethan Kross (he runs the Emotion & Self Control Lab at the University of Michigan) said something that struck me as a more useful way to think about this topic. 

Dr. Kross is the author of the forthcoming book Chatter, which is about the power of our “inner voice.” And in the middle of a broader conversation about psychological tendencies and self-talk, he used the phrase “capacity for introspection.”

Now, introspection is mainly a feature of one of the sub-categories of introversion (Thinking). It's the one in which a person tends to often turn inward and focus deeply on their inner thoughts.

And this—introspection—is something that we know people can get better at with practice. Just like we can get better at being outgoing in social situations or as a public speaker with practice.

It may not come naturally or feel comfortable, but we can develop these.

So what if, instead of thinking about ourselves as existing somewhere on a spectrum between general "introversion" or "extroversion," we thought of ourselves as having the capacity for both? Or perhaps better said, the capacity for the useful tendencies of both.

In other words, instead of an either/or, what if introversion and extroversion were more like meter bars we could fill up?

But Isn't Personality Stable?

For decades, we thought (and were taught) that personalities don’t really change, except over long periods of time—like from childhood to adulthood. But in recent years, psychology experiments on volitional personality change by researchers like Drs. Nathan Hudson and R.C. Fraley have shown that not only can people successfully work on changing facets of their personalities, but introversion/extroversion is one of the areas where we’re most able to practice different behaviors and successfully change our tendencies.

Now, many psychologists still disagree on the (ambiguous) definitions of introversion/extroversion—and for years many of us have been told that these traits are about whether you get energy from being alone or with others—so I anticipate some pushback on this argument here. (BTW the energy thing only explains some kinds of introverts and extroverts; e.g. the introversion sub-type “restrained” has little to do with giving or getting energy from people, nor does the extroversion sub-type “assertive.”)

But when we, as people navigating real life, start to think about introversion and extraversion as capacities we can tap into (even when it’s against our nature), we suddenly open up some exciting opportunities for ourselves:

The Benefits of Increasing Our Capacity for Extroversion

One of the things that backfires about using personality tests to categorize ourselves into buckets like Introvert or Extrovert (outside of research, where scholars are looking at populations broadly) is it leads us to say things to ourselves like, “I’m not extroverted.” And that’s incredibly limiting.

But contrast that with saying, “My current capacity for extroversion is low.” 

Now that gives you room for growth. (And by the way, if you want to learn all about subtle shifts in self-talk like this, you really should check out Dr. Kross’s Chatter.)

And what does a capacity for extroversion look like in practice? If we’re just talking about extroversion in the workplace, the following come to mind immediately:

• Having the confidence to speak up with your point of view.
• Being able to capably present your ideas in front of a group.
• Easily approaching people to ask them for help (or offer help).
• Being able to be present “in the moment,” so you can learn and notice (and enjoy!) important things, instead of just being in your head.

It’s hard to argue that any of those are a bad thing to be able to do. They make a huge difference the above ability makes for inclusion, productivity, career growth, etc.!

Of course, if we limit ourselves by thinking that we’re just extroverts, we’ll miss out on a lot of other important things, too.

The Benefits of Increasing Our Capacity for Introversion

“If you were always ‘in the moment,’ you wouldn’t be able to solve problems nearly as well” as if you had the capacity to take time to sit alone and think deeply, Dr. Kross said in the talk I mentioned above.

Being able to turn inward is incredibly valuable. Even the most outgoing, irrepressible people can afford to develop this capacity. (Perhaps especially them!)

So what does a capacity for introversion look like in practice? I’d suggest the following as a starting point: 

• Being able to put a time buffer between events that happen to us and our reactions to those events.
• Reflecting on what we’ve learned through our experiences and integrating them as lessons into our lives.
• Being able to think about and understand our own emotions. (One of the benefits of emotional intelligence skills that my academy teaches in this class here, by the way.)
• Being able to sit and think deeply about things, so we can solve problems more innovatively. (The famous Albert Einstein quote comes to mind here: “If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”)

(By the way, Susan Cain’s book Quiet is a masterpiece on the subject of what we can all learn from successful introverts. I highly recommend it.)

Why Would We Limit Ourselves to Either/Or?

I like breaking introversion and extroversion apart this way because it gives us concrete things to work on, rather than a diagnosis to walk around with.

We can practice speaking up—little by little. We can practice our presentation skills. We can practice mindfulness. We can practice introspection and reflection through journaling. And so on.

We know from science that our personalities can and do change over the course of our lives. (Another great book on this subject: Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent.)

So why don’t we start thinking of things like introversion and extroversion as capacities we can develop—even if they don't come naturally?

I know for me, that makes personal growth sound a lot less daunting than “changing who you are.”

Shane Snow is author of Dream Teams and creator of Snow Academy, where he teaches innovation and leadership habits. If you liked this post, please subscribe!