Myths About Introverts

1. "Many studies have confirmed that in predicting actual behavior the more numerous facet or primary level traits are far more effective (e.g. Mershon & Gorsuch, 1988;[25] Paunonon & Ashton, 2001[26])"

2. Most measures are based on self-description.

So we have a personality description which is not very accurate in terms of predicting behaviour and which also leads to a lot of disagreement (as witnessed by the comments here) about what it actually means in terms of behaviour and human interaction!

If a "measure" is (a) not very accurate and (b) confuses rather than clarifies behaviour / human interaction then for me its not very useful no matter how seductive it is.

For example, the opposite of individualistic is communalistic---not "mindless slave to culture and advertising".

Yep, that's exactly my point. The label has been embraced as a way to put a positive spin on social anxiety. I don't necessarily think it's a good way to use the word, but on the other hand, I'm not sure it's accurate to call someone like you who is able to enjoy himself and interact fluently with groups of people an "introvert." The traditional use of the word seems more in line with the idea of an introvert as someone who has an aversion to social interaction rather than a simple preference for other uses of time. Naturally people tend to rationalize, so it's hard to tell.

By the way, I think it's healthy and not entirely unjustified to put a positive spin on social anxiety. Most of my abilities and good qualities come from the time I've spent alone. I just don't think it's sustainable to be in complete denial about it.

The most interesting paper I've found is this one from 1990 called The Biological Bases of extraversion: psychophysiological evidence [1]; which discusses a hypothesis by Sybil Eysenck from 1969.

Essentially, extraversion and introversion are first observed to be personality traits that can be passed genetically. Eysenck's hypothesis was that introverts were more sensitive to stimulation in the reticular activating system. Attempts to confirm this hypothesis have met with mixed success. Eysanck also came up with a personality inventory, similar to the popular MBTI and the "Big Five" inventory used by psychologists.

I haven't yet found anything particularly solid that confirms the connection between those physiological traits and the personality as defined by the Eysanck Questionnaire. Every other paper I have found so far begins by using the Eysanck Questionnaire to sort people into Introverts and Extraverts and does some other tests.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/pubmed...

What I found was that despite me having fun and being confident in talking to people and interacting in group activities, there's just comes a point in my day where I literally just don't want to talk to anyone. Socially (and even physically, albeit to a lesser extent) speaking, I'm completely and totally drained. It becomes almost painful to engage in conversation that I feel isn't too useful or too interesting. And honestly, I kinda want to be left alone so I can just gather myself. Sometimes I need a day, sometimes a week. But ultimately, at some point I need time to recover from the social stimulation of my day.

From my experiences, I think that's where a big divide between introverts and extroverts exist. To the extrovert, when an introvert gets into his/her shell so that they can recover socially, it appears as if they may be aloof or bored with you, when in fact, they're just tired. This is especially irritating with friends who constantly ask me if "I'm okay" or if there's "something wrong". They don't understand that I'm comfortable with silence and for large parts of my day I actually prefer, and it has nothing to do with them.

Also, just a side note. Something I found quite funny is that because I feel that I'm an introvert and had to struggle with social anxiety through my teenage years, I now feel like I have to overcompensate in social settings, so I'm generally the one who leads a conversation and pushes it forward. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there are others who also do this.