The rise of the introverts

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1:06People are super duper precious about their personality. Pretty much like all the like introvert worst nightmares were played out. It seems like to me over the last five to eight years, everybody and their mama is proclaiming to be an introvert.

1:20Jonquilyn Hill:A few weeks ago, we got a call from a listener named Liddell. It just seems like the introvert thing is a new hot word that everyone is caught on to and is clinging to, even if they don't demonstrate the qualities. And I'm just curious, is that just a personal observation or something other people are seeing? And also just why? Good question. I gave him a call back. Super crazy. I feel like we're actually homies already because I listen to you so much on hearing your voice. I got this call and I was like, yeah, yeah, let's go down that rabbit hole.

1:59Jonquilyn Hill:Liddell is extremely outgoing. Honestly, same. And he does a good job of putting into words what being an extrovert feels like. Excessive solitude physically drains me. If we get snowed in in Virginia for four days, day three, I'm going somewhere. I'm going to, you know, whether it be just a grocery store, it's not even all about people all the time. This interest in personality types began the way a lot of interests do. He was dating someone who was super into it. I was in a relationship with someone who was an introvert. And they would be reading this book and really like going, oh, ah, oh my gosh.

2:39And so I'm like, what is this book? So I got the name of the book, Introvert Advantage. and I didn't realize when I got it that it would teach me so much about myself.

2:51Jonquilyn Hill:The relationship ended, but his commitment to the introverts in his life is still going strong. I may just suggest instead of hanging out for five hours, we hang out for an hour and a half. Or I may text one of them, an introverted friend under the table and be like, are you good? You mentioned that the way we talk about introverts is changing. What have you noticed? How has it changed? I feel like every now and again online, a word just takes off. Recently, it's been like diabolical. Everything we don't like is diabolical, right? And I was starting to feel like introversion was like that in that as a mass collective, we kind of learned a new word and it sounded cool and intriguing and interesting and like added, you know, a mystique to it.

3:39So people were just clinging to it without really knowing the characteristics of an introvert. I was seeing people who I know who I wouldn't consider to be an introvert proclaiming that they were. And I'm like, you know, wow, like you're out every weekend like swinging from chandeliers like you're probably not an introvert. But I'm not so arrogant that, you know, I feel like I can tell anyone what their temperament is. I respect everyone's take on it, of course.

4:14Jonquilyn Hill:So if you could ask an expert, you know, any kinds of questions about this, what are some of the things you'd ask them? Do we shift towards the introverted side of the spectrum as we age? That sounds like it would be natural, maybe, but I don't know. I definitely feel like the pandemic definitely amplified it to the point where I even hear people say crazy things like, I miss the pandemic. And I'm like, you miss being locked in the house without the freedom to move around and do things like that. That sounds extreme.

4:49I feel like society as a whole is growing more disconnected. And I kind of hate that for us. I truly believe life is a team sport. It's important to be self-aware in terms of, you know, your introversion, extroversion and how you handle people so that they're eager to stick around and sustain those relationships.

5:13Jonquilyn Hill:I'm John Glenn Hill, and this week on Explain It To Me From Vox, we're going to get Liddell some answers. What does it actually mean to be an introvert? Are we more introverted than we used to be? And is it possible to change?

5:32Jonquilyn Hill:Would you describe yourself as an introvert or an extrovert? Neither. Oh, can you do that? Is that legal? Yeah. This is Shannon Sowers-Avala. She's a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, and she researches personality. It's a little bit of a misconception because we think that we can put ourselves into these like discrete categories, but most of the things that we use to describe people are on continua. So you can be more towards the introverted side or more towards the extroverted side, but this is a continuum with different poles. People that are more on the introverted side, they're going to need less stimulation.

6:13They're going to have less sort of energy and they're going to derive less energy from social situations. Whereas people on the more extroverted side are going to be more excitable, have more positivity, and tend to derive a lot of energy from social situations.

6:33Jonquilyn Hill:One of our listeners called in because he suddenly noticed so many more people identifying as introverts on social media, and he wondered if it might have something to do with the pandemic. The pandemic is kind of a huge life event, right? That really changed a lot of our behavior. And, you know, I would consider myself like pretty staunchly in the middle of the continuum, extroverted in some situations, introverted in others. And I remember going out to dinner when we were first allowed to go out to dinner and being like, man, I got weird. Yeah. So I think like any skill, when we are out of practice, we get rusty.

7:12And so I think people maybe kind of confusing discomfort and a little rustiness with like, I'm introverted. But I do think that here in the last decade or so, there's been more recognition of introverts as having qualities that are really desirable. You know what no one talks about? How freaking good introverts are at networking. It's a whole spiritual filtration system that refuses to let surface level conversations sit on the same couch as their souls. When it comes to creativity and to leadership, we need introverts doing what they do best. They tend to be more thoughtful, more measured, better listeners, right?

7:56And so the world is really, I think, set up to reinforce extroversion, you know, being the loudest person in the room, shouting your ideas. and so I think there's been kind of this like renaissance for introverts and now people are like oh it's okay to identify as an introvert I'm a proud introvert and I think that's what we're seeing.

8:19Jonquilyn Hill:Do we get more introverted as we age like I don't know I'm an extrovert but I do notice more and more I'm like I can stay in and read a book by myself today. Yeah so this is actually a really complicated question to answer. So extroversion versus introversion, right, it can be divided up into what we think of as sub facets. So it's not just like one global quality, even though that's how we often talk about it. So one thing that does tend to change or increase on average as people age is what's called social dominance. And this is a facet of extroversion that is the tendency to be assertive and confident.

9:01On the flip side, social vitality tends to decrease. And this is like enthusiasm and energy for social situations, kind of like what you're describing. Like, I don't necessarily, I don't have the same FOMO I used to have. I'm happy to read my book. But what I really want to highlight, though, is that these are on average, and like nobody is really the average person. This is like when we mathematically sum everybody's kind of change in extroversion.

9:29Jonquilyn Hill:You know, I think we have this urge to put ourselves like in these boxes, you know, like I am an extrovert or I am an introvert. You research personality. Is that how you and your colleagues think about it? So most things about people are not categories. We're not this or that. It's more of a matter of degree. I think the way we define personality, the way we measure personality, it's really different from how people are talking about their types at a dinner party. It's really different from what you would think personality is if you took a common personality test on the internet or, you know, through your HR office.

10:15I always say that, you know, academic personality science needs like a PR person because we're not really good at at spreading the word on what personality actually is.

10:29Jonquilyn Hill:Coming up, some personality PR.

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12:55Jonquilyn Hill:It's JQ. This is Explain It To Me. We're back with researcher Shannon Sauer-Zavala. Basically, her job is to unpack the question, what is a personality? So I always like to answer this by talking about what personality is not first. People are super-duper precious about their personality. It is their essence, their sense of humor, their tastes, their values. And that's actually not how academic psychologists define personality. So people think, oh, it's like the core of me. But really, we define personality as your characteristic or habitual way of acting and thinking. And when you think about like that, it's like mental habits and behavioral habits.

13:40And those are things that we change all the time.

13:43Jonquilyn Hill:I'm curious how you measure personality from that scientific standpoint. Most of the commercial personality tests that people have heard of that they're taking in like HR offices, they're very category based, right? They put you into a type and, you know, that's that. What we use, what we think sort of describes personality in a much more nuanced way is the big five or the five-factor model of personality. These are sort of five overarching traits. The first one is openness. And this is the degree to which you are interested in new ideas and aesthetics, philosophy, art, versus folks that are more traditional.

14:25and like, this is how we always do it. Then you have conscientiousness, which is on a continuum with disinhibition. And essentially conscientiousness is like how achievement striving you are, how organized, how reliable. And disinhibition is more like, you know, I kind of act before I think it through. The next is extroversion versus introversion, right? And that's the tendency to be energetic and excitable. Then there's agreeableness versus antagonism. Agreeableness is how oriented you are towards other people, how empathic, how caring, how well you get along with others. The last one is neuroticism, which is on a continuum with emotional stability.

15:12And neuroticism is just your tendency to experience strong negative emotions. Do you tend to get more upset by, you know, stressors in the environment? Do you take longer to calm back down? That sort of thing. I like to think about the big five. You know, if you could imagine like an audio switchboard with all the little dials that you can kind of push up and down. So you might be high in neuroticism, and you might be kind of moderate in extroversion, and you might be moderate in agreeableness, and you might be high in conscientiousness, and you might be high in openness. I'm describing myself.

15:49and the classic high achiever personality.

15:53Jonquilyn Hill:Oh man, yeah, I relate to that. Are there limits to how we can measure or define personality? Well, one of the nice things about the Big Five is that we have tons of really, really good measures of this, right? So if you Google personality test, the first two pages of hits are gonna be like 16 personalities, Myers-Briggs. But if you Google Big Five personality test, There are free versions of this test where you can get this information. And these are super well validated. They actually predict outcomes, like where you fall on these traits versus like these personality type tests are about as good as predicting career success and relationship satisfaction as your zodiac sign.

16:38Jonquilyn Hill:Why do you think we're so interested in knowing our personality types? Like why do we want to put ourselves in buckets so badly? I mean, it's fun, right? Yeah, it is. It is. Right. It's fun. I mean, like my Myers-Briggs type is, I don't actually know what the number is, but like colloquially it's the protagonist, which is like so fun, right? That's much more fun than being like, I'm high in neuroticism and I'm moderate in extroversion. But knowing where you are on those different traits provides you with a lot more nuanced information. And the work that I do in my lab, so I have a research lab at the University of Kentucky.

17:16It's a treatment outcome research lab. So I develop interventions and, you know, for the past 10 years, I've been developing interventions to nudge personality traits. When you're like a type seven, okay, well, what, where do I start with change? Right. But if I'm really high on neuroticism and I want to slide that down a little bit, okay, now I have a really clear goal or, you know, I'm kind of shy of the, the, the midpoint for the introversion, extroversion continuum. And I really want to go for promotion where I have, you know, I have some leadership responsibilities and I need to be more up in front of the group.

17:50Like, how can I make those shifts to my personality?

17:56And so the other like big mistake that people think is that personality set and sewn, you're born with it and you should just like take the test, put yourself in the box and then you should choose partners and careers based on whatever type you are. When really, I think it should be the opposite, right? That you should identify what's important to you, what you value, what important goals you have, and then figure out what are the traits that will help get you there and intentionally cultivate them.

18:31Jonquilyn Hill:Up next, an introvert tries to reinvent herself as an extrovert.

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