We explain what it means to be an introvert, differences with shyness and the characteristics of someone who is introverted. Also, what is it to be an extrovert.
What is it to be an introvert?
Someone is said to be introverted when their general personality traits tend towards the enjoyment of solitude, reflection and introspection and less towards the outside or towards contexts of intense socialization. Said differently, introverts are those who recharge their emotional and psychic energy alone, the complete opposite of the so-called extraverts or extroverts.
Both introversion and extroversion are personality typologies. formulated by the Swiss doctor and psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) in his work of 1921, Psychological Types (“Psychological types”). There he proposes the existence of two “poles” of the personality: the one that tends towards the inner world (introverted, that is, turned inward) and the one that tends towards the external world (extravertthat is, poured outwards).
Furthermore, Jung combined these poles with his four main functions of consciousness: two of them judging or rational, which would be thinking and feeling; and two perceptive or irrational, which would be intuition and sensation. Therefore, regarding the introverted attitude, Jung identified four different psychological types:
- Introvert-thinking. People whose experiential priority is the understanding of their own being, and who to explore it tend to ask themselves questions and immerse themselves in the realm of their ideas.
- introvert-feeling. People who are not very accessible to others, who generally live dedicated to their passions, such as musicians and artists, and tend to project an air of autonomy.
- Introverted-feeling. Silent people who live focused on their emotional world, dealing with their inner sensations. They tend to prioritize sensory impressions over any other type of experience.
- introvert-intuition. People who are dreamers and devoted to interior visions, often prone to esotericism and the search for spiritual or religious transcendence.
All of these personality types have in common the prioritization of the internal world over the social world, so that they describe reflective, introspective, and inward-turned forms of personality.
Characteristics of an introvert
Broadly speaking, introverts tend to be:
- Introspective, reflective prone to dabbling in imagination, creativity and inner life.
- Silent even shy, and prefer to go unnoticed.
- Little prone to public activities and leadership to group tasks or to tasks that require socialization skills, such as parties.
- People very connected with their emotions his thoughts and his way of looking at the world.
- More energetic in situations of loneliness and reflection, and less energetic in social situations.
introversion and extraversion
Introversion is exactly the opposite of extraversion, and they are fundamentally distinguished in that Extraverts privilege the social and external world over the internal world of each other, which is why they “recharge their energy” when they are in social activity, that is, surrounded by people.
Extraverts, therefore, tend less towards reflection and inner contemplation, as they feel more comfortable dealing with the real world and with others.
introversion and shyness
Although they can go hand in hand, introversion and shyness are not at all synonymous. As we have seen, the first is a personality typology, a general tendency within which people who are very different from each other can be found, but who always tend towards their inner worlds rather than the social world.
This does not mean that they do not know how to deal with others, or that they have a hard time making friends, it simply means that situations of social contact or group participation require much more energy from them than from extroverts.
Instead, Shyness is a social difficulty that consists of fear of intervening or speaking or to somehow attract attention. Shy people generally feel insecure, anxious, and live social situations with fear: of being judged, of saying the wrong thing, of rejection, etc.
So a person can perfectly be extroverted and shy, which will undoubtedly cause more suffering than if they were introverted, since deep down they want to expose themselves to social situations, but they suffer from them due to their insecurities.
Introversion is a form of personality, that is, a general pattern of being. While shyness is a form of insecurity that can perfectly be worked on and overcome, without this implying at all that one will stop having the personality they have.
Continue with: Qualities of a person
References
- ““Introversion and extraversion” on Wikipedia.
- “Introverts vs. Extroverts, what makes us different? in La Vanguardia (Spain).
- “Introvert” in the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- “The Quiet Power of Introverts” (video) on BBC Ideas.
- “Introvert and Extrovert” in The Encyclopaedia Britannica.
