Extraversion and Introversion: Who is Happier? Essay

Feist, J., Feist, G. J., & Roberts, T. (2013). Theories of personality (8th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

The article “Introversion: The Often Forgotten Factor Impacting the Gifted” by Jill D. Burruss and Lisa Kaenzig begins by giving examples of how an introvert may behave. The authors continue by explaining that introversion is in not an issue, but a personality type which differs from that of the “normal,” more outgoing and friendly personality type, extroversion. Introverts and extroverts are different personality types, most people fall into one of the two categories. Typically, an introvert’s main focus is in the internal world of thoughts, while an extrovert's main focus is on the external world of people and events. Introverts tend to enjoy alone time, working on their own, and are usually quiet, and extroverts are typically social, enjoy

“One with a well-developed personality is of course a happy person. As the result of social, physical, financial, and spiritual well-being, happiness is assured.”

Extravert definition is an outgoing, overly expressive person (http://www.dictionary.com/). I am definitely a outgoing person. I do not know a stranger. In my profession as a professional basketball trainer I have to be out going person. I deal with hundreds of kids at once and if I don’t have a personality for that many kids then I will not have positive effect on them. I also am an expressive person but I don’t not think overly. If I am over expressive it has to be on something I love to express to other people. For an example church related things and basketball is something I can be overly expressive about.

In her book Quiet Susan Cain explains that, much like our ideal appearance or ideal economic status, there is also an ideal that extroversion is the socially acceptable way of conversing, interacting and behaving in our society. The argument posed by Cain in Quiet is that everyone is different and often we have introverts forcing themselves to become something they innately “are not” in order to feel/appear socially successful.

Extroverts in today’s society are idolized, and people associate different positive characteristics such as attractiveness and intelligence with extroverts. That misconception has caused many introverts to try and become more extroverted in order to fit in with society. However, the book Quiet by Susan Crain informs that introverts posses many strong traits like leadership or intelligence and therefore can be viewed just as highly as extroverts.

People high in extroversion tend to seek out opportunities for social interaction, where they are often the “life of the party.” They are comfortable with others, gregarious, and prone to action rather than contemplation. People low in extroversion are more likely to be people “of few words,” people who are quiet, introspective, reserved, and thoughtful. The long-term study found that extroversion was fairly stable across the years, indicating that extroverts and introverts do not easily shift into the opposite

As I have gotten older, some of the introversion has faded to a certain extent, but it is still present. Through my job as a Special Education Teacher, I have had to overcome a majority of my introversion so I can effectively do my job. On any given day, I will have to speak to not only my students but also the office staff, coworkers, and possibly some of the children’s parents. Conversation goes both ways, so to be successful at my job; I would have to be willing to be open and communicate with others more. I also have to realize that I need to make the first step sometimes. Not everyone is going to come to me; there are times I am going to have to go to others.

The extravert is likely to be a person that doesn’t fear to speak up in defense of a good cause whereas someone who is completely introvert would not speak up but would keep their thoughts to themselves. The extravert would be more likely to reach out to people and offer comfort and emotional support. If they were completely extraverted then in some situations where they may find themselves alone in life, such as a divorce or in the case of relocating to a different area where they have no acquaintances, they would be more than likely to suffer from depression and anxiety and would have a difficult time with being alone.

According to my IPIP-NEO narrative report I am a very independent, outgoing, calm, and curious person. My comprehensive report shows that I am: high scoring in openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion, average scoring in agreeableness and low scoring in Neuroticism. Raking in the 82nd percentile, extraversion was my second highest scoring trait. This means I am pretty outgoing, extraverted and love people. This is evident my scores of 89 in friendliness, 84 in assertiveness and 75 in activity level. Despite my high score in extraversion, I am on the lower side of average in the excitement-seeking facet with a score or 33. This means that even though I might like a little hustle and bustle and take charge I wont take to many risks and don’t always need a thrill to be satisfied.

This paper is a comparison of three different viewpoints on the subject of personality. Carl Jung, B.F. Skinner, and Carl Rogers all had very different outlooks on what defined someone’s personality. As an added feature I have included myself as a theorist because my views are also different from the previous mentioned theorists. This paper will also look briefly into the background of each theorist because their views on life began in their childhood. Amazingly you will notice the all had similar backgrounds, but came up with completely different ways of looking at life.

The following will reflect this researchers understanding and reflection on personality, how it defines one, what it means, and if one’s personality changes to fit certain situations. At the end this researcher may have a better insight into herself as well as the personalities of others. This insight can help her in her future endeavors.

Satisfaction with life a very useful measure to understand whether or not one needs to change their ways of life in order to be more fulfilled. The purpose of the study is to extrapolate the correlation between satisfaction with life and extroversion, satisfaction with life and fear of negative evaluation, and satisfaction with life and mate-seeking. For satisfaction with life, I used the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and SPSS was employed to statically evaluate the results. The results indicate that satisfaction with life is positively correlated

The study of personality traits is beneficial in identifying the many variables that exist from human to human; the combinations of these variables provide us with a true level of individuality and uniqueness. In the field of psychology, trait theory is considered to be a key approach to the study of human personality (Crowne, 2007; Burton, Westen & Kowalski, 2009). This paper aims to identify a number of significant contributors who have played crucial roles in both the development and application of trait theory. This paper then moves focus to these theorists, outlining their theory and analysing both the strengths and weaknesses of those theories. An illustration of the methods used in trait measurement is given and includes the

According to many psychologists and other social experts, there exist two major social behaviors that are widely adopted globally by a person as they mature into young adulthood: extraversion or introversion. Extroverts are expressive individuals who appear to be energized and enjoy seeking activities that involve socialization with others where as a reserved individual (introvert) prefers solitary pursuits where he or she often partakes in a favorite pastime. In her novel Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life is Your Hidden Strength, Laurie Helgoe statistically explores the fact that more than one half of the American populace claims to be reticent and encourages those folks to embrace their natural selves (“Book Details” 1). Introverts