Understanding personality type:

Extraversion and introversion

In the second article in our series, Anita Houghton asks you to consider where you focus your attention--inside or out

I will be examining each of the four pairs of preferences measured by the Myer Briggs type indicator (extraversion/introversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving) in some detail. It is important to remember that in practice these preferences coexist, and any examples given will inevitably include expression of more than one preference.

Picture this

You are arriving early for the first day of a new job. On entering the department, you notice a quiet man collecting a pile of notes and making for one of the rooms off the reception area. His eyes alight on you briefly, as he does so he nods and smiles briefly--long enough to be polite but not to encourage. He vanishes. You look around for someone who might help you, and you notice a woman behind the reception desk. You move towards her, and before you can speak she beams at you and asks if she can help. You explain who you are and she beams another welcome and proceeds to tell you who you should see, when they are likely to arrive, where the toilets are, how to get lunch, who your secretary will be, what the boss is like, and where she went for her holidays.

Introvert and extravert

These are caricatures of the first two preferences measured by the Myer Briggs type indicator, introversion and extraversion, and the behaviours are indications of where these two people like to focus their attention. When you are ambling along deep in thought, not noticing the people you pass, or the noise of the traffic--when nothing short of a cloudburst would draw your attention to what is around you--you are focusing on your internal world (introversion).

When you are chatting with people, watching events, engaging in a group activity, or noticing your environment, you are focusing on your external world (extraversion).

We all focus attention in both places, many times a day, but we have a preference for one or the other, and we tend to be energised by that place, and drained by the other (box 1).

Preferences

People who prefer introversion tend to be reserved reflective people who like to think things through before they speak or act, who prefer to spend time with small numbers of people they know, and who find it easy to concentrate on solitary tasks. Their best work often takes place in their heads, and they feel energised by periods of solitary concentration and drained by meeting new people and multiple activities. After a day of extraverting, which they may well enjoy if it does not happen too frequently, their idea of relaxation is likely to include solitude.

People who prefer extraversion tend to be the outgoing action oriented people in life--the ones who take initiative in groups and at work, who are at ease with new people, and who verbalise their thoughts as they are forming in their minds. Their best work is most often done on the outside, and they are energised by active people filled days and drained by days sitting at a desk, studying, or writing a report. After a day of introverting, their idea of relaxation is likely to involve people or activities.

Extraversion and introversion at work

Like any job or profession, medicine requires all preferences, but some jobs will contain more of certain kinds of activities than others, and the balance between these, and how they match with your own preferences, plays a huge part in your effectiveness and happiness at work (box 2).

Where differences cause problems

We are all different, and although variety is what makes life so interesting and exciting, sometimes differences can cause problems. This is especially so when people do not understand type, and every preference has the potential to bemuse and infuriate someone of a different type. You only have to look at the negative connotations that extraversion and introversion have acquired over the past hundred years to understand that.

An extravert's view of an introvert

To an extravert, introverts may be totally unfathomable. Why on earth do they not speak? Why do I feel like a gabbling idiot when they are around? What are they thinking? In particular, what are they thinking about me? You spend a bit of time with them, and at the end you realise they now know everything about you, and you know as little about them as when you first met.

Perhaps partly because of this discomfort, the word "introverted" has gained all manner of negative connotations over the years, coming to be associated with personality disorders and other forms of mental illness. Psychiatrists, interested in pathology, have tended to measure levels of extraversion and introversion on a scale of "sociability." In other words, being sociable (that is, extravert) is good, while being unsociable (that is, introvert) is bad.

An extravert to an introvert

To an introvert, on the other hand, extraverts can be maddeningly noisy. They come out with half baked ideas, take up all the airtime, and seem to have difficulty sitting still. If they would only shut up for two seconds, they think, I might have a chance to give them the solution, idea, or insight that I've worked out.

Introverts find it difficult to understand that when an extravert says something, they are sometimes just thinking aloud, and use the same quality criteria as they would to assess something they themselves have taken hours, days, or even months to think through. Similarly, extraverts tend to ascribe the weight to the utterances of an introvert that they would to their own, unaware of how long the thoughts have been incubating. As for introversion, extraversion has suffered from negative associations over the years (probably at the hands of introverts)--with noisiness, brashness, and inability to listen.

How type can help

One of the main strengths of the Myer Briggs type indicator is that it is not concerned with pathology but with normality in the most positive sense, and when you understand type some helpful things begin to happen. The first is that you realise that the other person is not difficult, they are just different. They are not being deliberately annoying--they are just like that. Next you realise that you might be just as annoying to them. Finally you realise that their annoying habits may actually be quite useful (box 3). Box 4 gives some tips on how to cope with the things you don't like.

   

           

s