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Extraversion and introversion are a central trait theory dimension in human personality theory. The terms were introduced into psychology by Carl Jung, though both the popular understanding and current psychological usage are not the same as Jung's original concept. Extraversion (also spelled extroversion) is typically associated with sociability, talkativeness, and high energy, while introversion is linked to introspection, reserve, and a preference for solitary activities. Jung defined introversion as an "attitude-type characterised by orientation in life through subjective psychic contents", and extraversion as "an attitude-type characterised by concentration of interest on the external object". (1995). 9780006540274, Fontana Press. ISBN 9780006540274
While often presented as opposite ends of a single continuum, many personality theorists, such as Carl Jung, have suggested that most individuals possesses elements of both traits, with one being more dominant. Virtually all comprehensive models of personality include these concepts in various forms. Examples include the Big Five model, Jung's analytical psychology, Hans Eysenck's three-factor model, Raymond Cattell's 16 personality factors, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, and the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator.
His 1921 book Psychologische Typen was published as Personality Types in English in 1923. It described the "introverted" in detail for the first time. In his later paper, Psychologische Typologie, he gives a more concise definition of the introverted type, writing:
He holds aloof from external happenings, does not join in, has a distinct dislike of society as soon as he finds himself among too many people. In a large gathering he feels lonely and lost. The more crowded it is, the greater becomes his resistance. He is not in the least "with it," and has no love of enthusiastic get-togethers. He is not a good mixer. What he does, he does in his own way, barricading himself against influences from outside. He is apt to appear awkward, often seeming inhibited, and it frequently happens that, by a certain brusqueness of manner, or by his glum unapproachability, or some kind of malapropism, he causes unwitting offence to people...For him self-communings are a pleasure. His own world is a safe harbor, a carefully tended and walled-in garden, closed to the public and hidden from prying eyes. His own company is the best. He feels at home in his world, where the only changes are made by himself. His best work is done with his own resources, on his own initiative, and in his own way...
Crowds, majority views, public opinion, popular enthusiasm never convince him of anything, but mere make him creep still deeper into his shell.
His relations with other people become warm only when safety is guaranteed, and when he can lay aside his defensive distrust. All too often he cannot, and consequently the number of friends and acquaintances is very restricted.
In the 1950s, British psychologist Hans Eysenck theorized that the trait of introversion-extraversion could be explained in terms of Clark Hull's drive theory of motivation. He later developed his own arousal theory to explain individual differences in the trait, suggesting that the brains of extraverts were chronically under-aroused, leading them to seek out stimulation from the environment. Introverts, being more cortically aroused, avoid overstimulating environments.Revelle, W. & Oehlberg, K. (2008). Integrating experimental and observational personality research – the contributions of Hans Eysenck. Journal of Personality, 76, 1387-1414. The trait of introversion-extraversion would become one of three central traits in Eysenck's PEN theory of personality.Eysenck, H. J. & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1976). Psychoticism as a dimension of personality. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Mistaking introversion for shyness is a common error. Introversion is a preference, while shyness stems from distress. Introverts prefer solitary to social activities, but do not necessarily fear social encounters like shy people do. Susan Cain, author of the book , argues that modern Western culture misjudges the capabilities of introverted people, leading to a waste of talent, energy, and happiness. (Glor's interview of Susan Cain) Cain describes how society is biased against introverts, and that, with people being taught from childhood that to be sociable is to be happy, introversion is now considered "somewhere between a disappointment and pathology". In contrast, Cain says that introversion is not a "second-class" trait but that both introverts and extraverts enrich society, with examples including the introverts Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Seuss, W. B. Yeats, Steven Spielberg, J. K. Rowling, and Larry Page.
Eysenck originally suggested that extraversion was a combination of two major tendencies, impulsiveness and sociability. He later added several other more specific traits, namely liveliness, activity level, and excitability. These traits are further linked in his personality hierarchy to even more specific habitual responses, such as partying on the weekend.
Eysenck compared this trait to the four temperaments of ancient medicine, with choleric and sanguine temperaments equating to extraversion, and melancholic and phlegmatic temperaments equating to introversion.
Eysenck proposed that extraversion was caused by variability in cortical arousal. He hypothesized that introverts are characterized by higher levels of activity than extraverts and so are chronically more cortically aroused than extraverts. That extraverts require more external stimulation than introverts has been interpreted as evidence for this hypothesis. Other evidence of the "stimulation" hypothesis is that introverts salivate more than extraverts in response to a drop of lemon juice. This is due to increased activity in their ARAS, which responds to stimuli like food or social contact.
Extraversion has been linked to higher sensitivity of the mesolimbic dopamine system to potentially rewarding stimuli. This in part explains the high levels of positive affect found in extraverts, since they will more intensely feel the excitement of a potential reward. One consequence of this is that extraverts can more easily learn the contingencies for positive reinforcement, since the reward itself is experienced as greater.
One study found that introverts have more blood flow in the of their brain and the anterior or frontal thalamus, which are areas dealing with internal processing, such as planning and problem solving. Extraverts have more blood flow in the anterior cingulate gyrus, , and posterior thalamus, which are involved in sensory and emotional experience. This study and other research indicate that introversion-extraversion is related to individual differences in brain function. A study on regional brain volume found a positive correlation between introversion and grey matter volume in the right prefrontal cortex and right temporoparietal junction, as well as a positive correlation between introversion and total white matter volume.Forsman, L. J., de Manzano, Ö., Karabanov, A., Madison, G., & Ullén, F. (2012). Differences in regional brain volume related to the extraversion–introversion dimension—a voxel based morphometry study. Neuroscience research, 72(1), 59–67. Task-related functional neuroimaging has shown that extraversion is associated with increased activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus, prefrontal cortex, middle temporal gyrus, and the amygdala.
Extraversion has also been linked to physiological factors such as respiration, through its association with surgency.
Despite these differences, a meta-analysis of 15 experience sampling studies has suggested that there is a great deal of overlap in the way that extraverts and introverts behave. In these studies, participants used mobile devices to report how extraverted (e.g., bold, talkative, assertive, outgoing) they were acting at multiple times during their daily lives. Fleeson and Gallagher (2009) found that extraverts regularly behave in an introverted way, and introverts regularly behave in an extraverted way. Indeed, there was more within-person variability than between-person variability in extraverted behaviors. The key feature that distinguishes extraverts and introverts was that extraverts tend to act moderately extraverted about 5–10% more often than introverts. From this perspective, extraverts and introverts are not "fundamentally different". Rather, an "extravert" is just someone who acts more extraverted more often, suggesting that extraversion is more about what one "does" than what one "has".
Additionally, a study by Lippa (1978) found evidence for the extent to which individuals present themselves in a different way. This is called expressive behavior, and it is dependent upon the individuals' motivation and ability to control that behavior. Lippa (1978) examined 68 students who were asked to role-play by pretending to teach a math class. The students' level of extraversion and introversion were rated based on their external/expressive behaviors such as stride length, graphic expansiveness, the percentage of time they spent talking, the amount of time they spent making eye contact, and the total time of each teaching session. This study found that actual introverts were perceived and judged as having more extraverted-looking expressive behaviors because they were higher in terms of their self-monitoring. This means that the introverts consciously put more effort into presenting a more extraverted, and rather socially desirable, version of themselves. Thus, individuals are able to regulate and modify behavior based on their environmental situations.
Humans are complex and unique, and because introversion-extraversion varies along a continuum, individuals may have a mixture of both orientations. A person who acts introverted in one situation may act extraverted in another, and people can learn to act in "counter dispositional" ways in certain situations. For example, Brian Little's free trait theory suggests that people can take on "free traits", behaving in ways that may not be their "first nature", but can strategically advance projects that are important to them. Together, this presents an optimistic view of what extraversion is. Rather than being fixed and stable, individuals vary in their extraverted behaviors across different moments, and can choose to act extraverted to advance important personal projects or even increase their happiness, as mentioned above.
Extraverts report experiencing more positive emotions, whereas introverts tend to be closer to neutral. This may be because extraversion is socially preferable in contemporary Western culture and thus introversion feels less desirable. In addition to the research on happiness, other studies have found that extraverts tend to report higher levels of self-esteem than introverts. Others suggest that such results reflect socio-cultural bias in the survey itself. Dr. David Meyers has claimed that happiness is a matter of possessing three traits: self-esteem, optimism, and extraversion. Meyers bases his conclusions on studies that report extraverts to be happier; these findings have been questioned in light of the fact that the "happiness" prompts given to the studies' subjects, such as "I like to be with others" and "I'm fun to be with," only measure happiness among extraverts. Also, according to Carl Jung, introverts acknowledge more readily their psychological needs and problems, whereas extraverts tend to be oblivious to them because they focus more on the outer world.
Although extraversion is perceived as socially desirable in Western culture, it is not always an advantage. For example, extraverted youths are more likely to engage in antisocial or delinquent behavior. In line with this, certain evidence suggest that the trait of extraversion may also be related to that of psychopathy. Conversely, while introversion is perceived as less socially desirable, it is strongly associated with positive traits such as intelligence and "giftedness." Though more recent, large-scale meta-analyses have found that the activity facet of extraversion has the most sizable positive relations with cognitive abilities. For many years, researchers have found that introverts tend to be more successful in academic environments, which extraverts may find boring.
Research shows that behavioral immune system, the psychological processes that infer infection risk from perceptual cues and respond to these perceptual cues through the activation of aversive emotions, may influence gregariousness. Although extraversion is associated with many positive outcomes like higher levels of happiness, those extraverted people are also more likely to be exposed to communicable diseases, such as Airborne disease, as they tend to have more contact with people. When individuals are more vulnerable to infection, the cost of being social will be relatively greater. Therefore, people tend to be less extraversive when they feel vulnerable and vice versa.
Researchers have found that people who live on islands tend to be less extraverted (more introverted) than those living on the mainland, and that people whose ancestors had inhabited the island for twenty generations tend to be less extraverted than more recent arrivals. Furthermore, people who emigrate from islands to the mainland tend to be more extraverted than people that stay on islands, and those that immigrate to islands.
In the United States, researchers have found that people living in the midwestern states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois score higher than the U.S. average on extraversion. Utah and the southeastern states of Florida and Georgia also score high on this personality trait. The most introverted states in the U.S. are Maryland, New Hampshire, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Vermont. People who live in the northwestern states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming are also relatively introverted.
A study comparing regions in the United States found that mountainous terrain was associated with lower extraversion. That study also asked people to choose whether they preferred mountains or the beach. People who chose mountains were less extraverted on average than people who chose the beach.
An influential review article concluded that personality, specifically extraversion and emotional stability, was the best predictor of subjective well-being. As examples, Argyle and Lu (1990) found that the trait of extraversion, as measured by Extraversion Scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), was positively and significantly correlated with positive affect, as measured by the Oxford Happiness Inventory. Using the same positive affect and extraversion scales, Hills and Argyle (2001) found that positive affect was again significantly correlated with extraversion. Also, the study by Emmons and Ed Diener (1986) showed that extraversion correlates positively and significantly with positive affect but not with negative affect. Similar results were found in a large longitudinal study by Ed Diener, Sandvik, Pavot, and Fujita (1992), which assessed 14,407 participants from 100 areas of continental United States. Using the abbreviated General Well-Being Schedule, which tapped positive and negative affects, and Costa and McCrae's (1986). short version of the NEO's Extraversion scale, the authors reported that extraverts experienced greater well-being at two points in time, during which data were collected: first between 1971 and 1975, and later between 1981 and 1984. However, the latter study did not control for neuroticism, an important covariate when investigating relationships between extraversion and positive affect or wellbeing.Vittersø, J., & Nilsen, F. (2002). The conceptual and relational structure of subjective well-being, neuroticism, and extraversion: Once again, neuroticism is the important predictor of happiness. Social Indicators Research, 57(1), 89-118. Studies that controlled for neuroticism have found no significant relationship between extraversion and subjective well-being. Larsen and Ketelaar (1991) showed that extraverts respond more to positive affect than to negative affect, since they exhibit more positive-affect reactivity to the positive-affect induction, yet they do not react more negatively to the negative-affect induction.
Recent longitudinal research by Joshanloo (2023), using a U.S. national dataset over two decades found that the increase in subjective well-being (SWB) predicted increases in extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness over time. Openness also predicted future increases in SWB, suggesting a reciprocal relationship. Joshanloo suggests that this challenges the traditional assumptions that personality traits solely predict well-being and suggests instead a bidirectional relationship. The same study found that neuroticism, while strongly correlated with SWB in cross-sectional data, showed no within-person temporal relationship with well-being.
However, a variety of findings contradict the claims of the social activity hypothesis. Firstly, it was found that extraverts were happier than introverts even when alone. Specifically, extraverts tend to be happier regardless of whether they live alone or with others, or whether they live in a vibrant city or quiet rural environment. Similarly, a study by Ed Diener, Sandvik, Pavot, and Fujita (1992) showed that although extraverts chose social jobs relatively more frequently (51%) than nonsocial jobs compared to introverts (38%), they were happier than introverts regardless of whether their occupations had social or nonsocial character. Secondly, it was found that extraverts only sometimes reported greater amounts of social activity than introverts, but in general extraverts and introverts do not differ in the quantity of their socialization. Similar finding was reported by Srivastava, Angelo, and Vallereux (2008), who found that extraverts and introverts both enjoy participating in social interactions, but extraverts participate socially more. Thirdly, studies have shown that both extraverts and introverts participate in social relations, but that the quality of this participation differs. The more frequent social participation among extraverts could be explained by the fact that extraverts know more people, but those people are not necessarily their close friends, whereas introverts, when participating in social interactions, are more selective and have only few close friends with whom they have special relationships.
However, it was also found that extraverts did not respond stronger to social situations than introverts, nor did they report bigger boosts of positive affect during such interactions.
The study showed that:
This phenomenon, called internalization of self-presentation (IOSP), is thought to be driven by self-presentation efficacy--a person's belief that they have effectively conveyed a desired impression.
Other personality traits, such as neuroticism, also influence well-being and may interact with extraversion in complex ways.
Likewise, in later studies, researchers used assessment scales to test for categories such as self-esteem and life-goal orientation, which they had positively correlated with happiness. Participants' responses to these scales suggested that neuroticism actually had a larger impact than extraversion in measures of well-being.
Similarly, interactions between extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness have demonstrated significant impacts on subjective well-being. In one study, researchers used three scales to assess subjective well-being. They found that extraversion only served as a predictor for one assessment, in conjunction with neuroticism, while the other two assessment outcomes were better predicted by conscientiousness and neuroticism. In addition to the importance of including other factors in happiness assessments, this study also demonstrates the manner in which an operational definition of well-being changes whether extraversion emerges as a salient predictive factor.
For example, one researcher found that between 1958 and 1987, Japanese life satisfaction fluctuated around 6 on a 10-point scale, while Denmark's fluctuated around 8. Comparing ethnic groups within the United States, another study found that European Americans reported being "significantly happier" with their lives than Asian Americans.
Researchers have hypothesized a number of factors that could be responsible for these differences between countries, including national differences in overall income levels, self-serving biases and self-enhancement, and approach and avoidance orientations. Taken together, these findings suggest that while extraversion-introversion does have a strong correlation with happiness, it does not stand alone as a sole predictor of subjective well-being, and that other factors must be accounted for when trying to determine the correlates of happiness.
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