In my last post, I let slip the word extrovert. I probably shouldn’t have used the word, since it’s so widely misused, and misunderstood. Lots of people use it as yet another synonym of ‘outgoing’, or ‘gregarious— or ‘sociable’—just as they use introvert as though it meant ‘shy’ or ‘unsociable’ or ‘inward-looking’.
Actually, the world is full of outgoing, gregarious, sociable introverts, and extroverts who prefer their own company (like me). The two words are technical terms, made up by the Swiss psychologist Jung about eighty years ago. He didn’t make them up to refer to something obvious like sociability, but to define a fundamental difference between the ways human beings operate.
He thought that just as people are right-handed or left-handed, people are extrovert or introvert.
The analogy can help to clear up some misunderstandings. Right-handed people don’t use their right hand for everything, all the time. Ditto, left-handed people. (And there are some people called ‘ambidextrous’—though they tend to use just the one hand for signing credit card slips.) We use another hand if it’s better to use it at the time. In the same way, extroverts can often act like introverts, and introverts react like extroverts.
The important point, however, is that just as the fact that you can use your left hand often and well doesn’t stop you being right-handed, being able sometimes to act like an introvert doesn’t stop you being an extrovert. Or vice versa.
So what are the fundamental differences?
You may have noticed that I have already slipped in a crucial difference. Extroverts react; introverts act. (We both do both, of course: just check that you’ve understood my point about handedness.) Extroverts see what needs doing; introverts know what needs doing. And, most importantly, extroverts are stimulated; introverts are motivated.
This leads to characteristic liabilities. Introverts are likely to persist with something when everything around them suggests they should give up. Extroverts are likely to do some other thing (because it looms so large for them at the time) when they should persist with something which matters more to them in the long run.
Like me.
