Overcoming Bias

Share this post

Bias Against Introverts?

www.overcomingbias.com

Discover more from Overcoming Bias

This is a blog on why we believe and do what we do, why we pretend otherwise, how we might do better, and what our descendants might do, if they don't all die.
Over 11,000 subscribers
Continue reading
Sign in

Bias Against Introverts?

Robin Hanson
Mar 9, 2007
Share this post

Bias Against Introverts?

www.overcomingbias.com
18
Share

Echoing an earlier Atlantic article, Mary Carpenter suggests we are biased against introverts:

As Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in a Time magazine column about personality tests, "Their chief function as far as I could tell . . . was to weed out the introverts. When asked whether you’d rather be the life of the party or curl up with a book, the correct answer is always, ‘Party!’ " … self-help books that include blatantly stupid questions … paints introverts as "over-critical," "pessimistic" and "anxious," and describes them as feeling "unaccepted, unacceptable or simply inferior."  It’s enough to make an introvert mad. … My enormous, extended and extroverted family still poses a challenge, especially on the small island where we converge for a few weeks every summer. … But the family is making strides in recognizing its introverted minority.

With a little search I find that the shy and introverted both suffer in many ways: 

Introversion is indeed more active than shyness in inhibiting religious disposition.  … Very Conservative males reported the lowest rate of overall shyness. … Non-shy respondents reported the highest rate of starting their own business, … Non-shyness and extroversion reported the highest household income levels …Shyness has a greater impact on the reduction on eye contact than does introversion. … Those with the lowest rates of eye contact achieve the lowest ranks [at the workplace].

We might posit a grand conspiracy of extroverts to keep introverts down, but a more plausible explanation to me is that extroversion is just valued more by society and business.   

I was a shy young nerd and thought I was an introvert, but eventually learned that I was reacting to the fact that other people didn’t like to be around me.  Once I found people who liked to be around me, I loved to be around them too, and was often the last person to leave from a party.   Of course it is possible that my personality changed.

Share this post

Bias Against Introverts?

www.overcomingbias.com
18
Share
18 Comments
Share this discussion

Bias Against Introverts?

www.overcomingbias.com
Overcoming Bias Commenter
May 15

@miss anonymous

Can you elaborate on the stimulation sources for the introvert? You say that introverts can "entertain themselves without stimulation, as the stimulation is internal... " I am an introvert and I get what you saying for the most part. However, I have one more question for you. Does me reading information on the computer count as internal stimulation? I feel that some external stimulation is required, it is just significantly less than the amount an extrovert would need. Little amounts of information can be contemplated for larger periods of time by an introverted person, in my opinion.

Expand full comment
Reply
Share
Overcoming Bias Commenter
May 15

I think the introvert-extrovert factor has actually been documented by brain scans. From what I remember reading, introverts have relatively dense brains, with lots of activity going on inside them, whereas extroverts generally have much less. As there is so much already going on inside an introvert's head, they (we) can entertain themselves for long periods without stimulation, as the stimulation is internal, whereas extroverts naturally seek external stimulation to start their brain working and can therefore tolerate very much more of it.Anne I can definitely understand your frustration! I think I'm going to put Nick's cartoon on my office door!!

Expand full comment
Reply
Share
16 more comments...
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Robin Hanson
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing