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Beyond introvert vs. extrovert

vipshek.com

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Re: Beyond introvert vs. extrovert

#121

Post by rainsford »

akhayam wrote: post #9

Introvert and extrovert is the most widely misunderstood thing I have seen at work and in personal life. This article also doesn’t do justice to the nuance that introverts find interactions with other “draining” … but it’s not necessary that they suck at it. I feel this way: having led teams of hundreds of people, I know I can have deep, meaningful and long conversations… but I don’t find them a source of joy. I enco…

> This article also doesn’t do justice to the nuance that introverts find interactions with other “draining” … but it’s not necessary that they suck at it.

The nuance on the flip side that I see discussed even less is that extroverts are not necessarily actually good at interacting with people, especially in more structured settings, they just maybe enjoy doing it more. Presumably there is at least some correlation between extroversion and good social skills, since if nothing else the extrovert might get more practice. But my anecdotal experience is that they're definitely clearly distinct personality aspects that fairly often do not go together.

Re: Beyond introvert vs. extrovert

#122

Post by em-bee »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #53
pydry wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>introverts find interactions with other “draining” I'm pretty sure this is bullshit. Level of drain = lack of trust in that person X overall level of anxiety If you're highly anxious and socializing with people you dont trust (strangers, acquaintances) then the experience will be stressful and draining. Ive met many self declared introverts who have no problem socializing for long periods in small groups with people…

You're heavily conflating anxiety and introversion. My wife is an extrovert with anxiety - once she gets comfortable she's energized by people. She comes home bouncing off the walls. I'm an introvert - regardless of comfort level I come home and want to go to bed immediately.

hmm, that's an interesting perspective. see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36795067 i can definitely see that the comfort level is a factor. however, it can take a long time before i get comfortable with someone. i have no idea how much, but a few hours at a party are almost never enough, unless we hit the right topic. so yeah, after those conversations i was bouncing off the walls too.

likewise i have given presentations on various topics in front of dozens or hundreds of people. my comfort level depended on how well prepared i was, and how the audience reacted. during the speech part anxiety is higher because i get little to no feedback, but then the Q&A can turn things around if people have lots of questions that show their interest in the topic.

oh, and when i am drained, i can't go to sleep. i have to do something interesting for myself for at least an hour or more in order to divert my thoughts away from the draining experience.

Re: Beyond introvert vs. extrovert

#123

Post by elwell »

rqtwteye wrote: post #26

I never understand why people (especially in the US) have a desire to split everything into two opposing sides. Liberal/conservative, introvert/extrovert and many others. I think it's pretty obvious that most (all?) people are on a spectrum of many dimensions and can't be categorized that easily. These labels can give useful hints but there is way more detail to look at.

Why do people (especially on Hacker News) have the desire to point out that binary simplifications more truly exist on spectrums?

Re: Beyond introvert vs. extrovert

#124

Post by elwell »

Bloating wrote: post #59
rqtwteye wrote: post #26

I never understand why people (especially in the US) have a desire to split everything into two opposing sides. Liberal/conservative, introvert/extrovert and many others. I think it's pretty obvious that most (all?) people are on a spectrum of many dimensions and can't be categorized that easily. These labels can give useful hints but there is way more detail to look at.

Theres 10 types of people, those who understand binary and those who don't

What about the other 8?

Re: Beyond introvert vs. extrovert

#125

Post by jaredhallen »

pydry wrote: post #38
akhayam wrote: post #9

Introvert and extrovert is the most widely misunderstood thing I have seen at work and in personal life. This article also doesn’t do justice to the nuance that introverts find interactions with other “draining” … but it’s not necessary that they suck at it. I feel this way: having led teams of hundreds of people, I know I can have deep, meaningful and long conversations… but I don’t find them a source of joy. I enco…

>introverts find interactions with other “draining” I'm pretty sure this is bullshit. Level of drain = lack of trust in that person X overall level of anxiety If you're highly anxious and socializing with people you dont trust (strangers, acquaintances) then the experience will be stressful and draining. Ive met many self declared introverts who have no problem socializing for long periods in small groups with people…

The lack of trust aspect resonates with me. I find interactions with people I know well and connect with to be the opposite of draining. It seems like different people just have different criteria for what constitutes positive interaction. And my experience says even that varies for an individual, depending on mood, energy level, or whatever other factors.

Re: Beyond introvert vs. extrovert

#126

Post by 22c »

vipshek wrote: post #43
akhayam wrote: post #9

Introvert and extrovert is the most widely misunderstood thing I have seen at work and in personal life. This article also doesn’t do justice to the nuance that introverts find interactions with other “draining” … but it’s not necessary that they suck at it. I feel this way: having led teams of hundreds of people, I know I can have deep, meaningful and long conversations… but I don’t find them a source of joy. I enco…

I did briefly discuss this idea of interactions "draining energy" in the post here: https://www.vipshek.com/blog/interaction#balance-not-batteri... . I understand that the idea of draining vs. charging works for some people, but I always found this concept even more baffling. For me, when I've been in solitude for a while, I feel a restless desire to go out and interact with people. When I'm in that lonely state, I f…

I have a feeling that "need to have solitude" and "need to not feel too lonely" are completely different needs. If the lonely feelings get strong enough, they'll outweigh the need for solitude.

To use a crude analogy, you can be both thirsty and busting to go to the toilet the same time.

Re: Beyond introvert vs. extrovert

#127

Post by sdfadofinio »

codersfocus wrote: post #116
akhayam wrote: post #9

Introvert and extrovert is the most widely misunderstood thing I have seen at work and in personal life. This article also doesn’t do justice to the nuance that introverts find interactions with other “draining” … but it’s not necessary that they suck at it. I feel this way: having led teams of hundreds of people, I know I can have deep, meaningful and long conversations… but I don’t find them a source of joy. I enco…

It is widely misunderstood as a result of people taking that small piece Jung's overall personality theory and ignoring the rest. It's the lowest common denominator tweet sized "elevator pitch" you can extract from the overall theory. You aren't "an" introvert or an extrovert, rather you have cognitive functions that are themselves introverted or extroverted and they are ordered in your personality between strongest…

Jung may have invented the words, but he does not own them. Most will encounter the terms in the context of the Big Five model because Jung's theories have limited relevance today.

Re: Beyond introvert vs. extrovert

#128

Post by munificent »

rqtwteye wrote: post #26

I never understand why people (especially in the US) have a desire to split everything into two opposing sides. Liberal/conservative, introvert/extrovert and many others. I think it's pretty obvious that most (all?) people are on a spectrum of many dimensions and can't be categorized that easily. These labels can give useful hints but there is way more detail to look at.

> I never understand why people (especially in the US)

You are aware that you are creating a dichotomy right here, no?

You might find this interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_opposition

One way to think about is that given a set of items, you want to understand them by finding both commonality and distinction between them. Partitioning into two sets is the simplest form that accomplishes some of both.

If you lump them all into a single set, you may have a sense of commonality, but you've learned nothing about distinguishing them.

If you put each element into its own set, you have distinguished all of them, but learned nothing about what they have in common.

You could form the elements into pairs, but the it's not clear what to do with the odd one out if there is one.

Given multiple items, you can always split them into two sets and how you choose to do that reflects both what the elements in each set have in common, while also showing how the two sets differ.

I suspect that binary opposition is in some ways fundamental to cognition. It certainly shows up profoundly throughout all cultures across all history: sun and moon, night and day, yin and yang, god and devil, woman and man, earth and sky, etc.

Re: Beyond introvert vs. extrovert

#129

Post by magicalhippo »

pydry wrote: post #38
akhayam wrote: post #9

Introvert and extrovert is the most widely misunderstood thing I have seen at work and in personal life. This article also doesn’t do justice to the nuance that introverts find interactions with other “draining” … but it’s not necessary that they suck at it. I feel this way: having led teams of hundreds of people, I know I can have deep, meaningful and long conversations… but I don’t find them a source of joy. I enco…

>introverts find interactions with other “draining” I'm pretty sure this is bullshit. Level of drain = lack of trust in that person X overall level of anxiety If you're highly anxious and socializing with people you dont trust (strangers, acquaintances) then the experience will be stressful and draining. Ive met many self declared introverts who have no problem socializing for long periods in small groups with people…

>> introverts find interactions with other “draining”

> I'm pretty sure this is bullshit.

Both me and my SO are more introvert than not.

We've come to the conclusion that one of the core reasons it's so draining for us is that we puts a lot of thought into interactions and conversations, even superficial small talk ones.

At least in our experience, those who appear more extrovert seem to do less of that. They don't seem to reflect over all our actions, or everything we say. Some of it, or at certain times, sure. But seemingly not to the same degree.

If that is the case, then it is more draining, because we exert more mental effort.

> Level of drain = lack of trust in that person X overall level of anxiety

Speaking for myself at least, anxiety has nothing to do with it, nor lack of trust. I don't feel any anxiety striking a random conversation with someone in a bar or with a family member at home. And when I have a random conversation with someone in a bar, it doesn't matter if I trust them or not, because the topics are almost never intimate. With my family members I know I can trust them, so that's moot as well.

But both conversations can be quite draining, and at least for me, I suspect it has more to do with what I described above.

Re: Beyond introvert vs. extrovert

#130

Post by munificent »

I very much agree with the author's take that introvert/extrovert is a stupidly reductionist categorization for human social behavior. I like their approach to looking at different kinds of social interaction, but I think just focusing on group size misses other important differences:

* How close or long-term the relationship with the others is. Do you like meeting new people or prefer the company of old friends and family? Do you want to be able to let down your guard and be your true self without worry, or do the higher stakes of the long term consequences stress you out?

* How balanced the power is and where you are on it. Do you like rousing a team of minions, give and take with peers, or being inspired to follow a visionary?

* How cooperative versus adversarial the relationship is. Do you want to make sacrifices for the greater good so that we all win, or do you want to defeat your opponent? Do you want to give people the benefit of the doubt and show compassion, or protect others from dangerous bad actors?

Also, not limited to social interaction, I think many people often fail to distinguish:

1. I don't like this thing.

2. I feel anxiety about this thing.

If social interaction stresses you out but you're always glad after you did it, you're not an introvert, you have social anxiety. If you don't want to go to a social function, but you go anyway and it goes perfectly fine, but then afterwards you still wish you hadn't gone, that's more likely to be actual introversion.

I strongly suspect that most self-described introverts (including myself for many years) are actually people with a normal or even high level of extroversion but high social anxiety.

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