The Power Of Introverts In Susan Cain's 'Quiet'

Susan Cain, a well known and appreciated writer from America in the field of psychology, recently held a speech on one of the famous TED talks and entirely captured me by trying to give the audience an understanding of introversion.

Susan Cain’s Ted Talk The Power Of Introverts brought a new conversation to society in how introverts are treated. Five years ago (when this took place) this topic was not very well discussed, which made this piece very eye opening for some. Using Aristotle's appeals: logos and pathos, as well as a comparative argument in her ted talk, Cain persuades viewers that we as a society oppress/shame introverts, not allowing them to strive or be themselves in our now extroverted society. She advocates for a more balanced society that serves both introverts and extroverts instead of just extroverts.

In her article Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic? author Susan Cain addresses many of the preconceived notions society has against introverted people. Cain argues that society tends to favor the outgoing and extroverted and shames those who prefer to be alone rather than socialize. The author utilizes certain writing strategies as a way to change her audience’s original views surrounding introversion. Cain’s use of comparing and contrasting, specific examples, and strong transitions that bridge various ideas to each other make her argument, that introverts are essential to society, much more persuasive.

Susan Cain’s “Power of Introverts” talk was all about the importance of people who are considered introvertly inclined in our society. In her talk, she described first how her family influenced her in being an introvert. Reading is her family’s social activity and that one can roam around through his or her own imagination. She also discussed about her memorable summer camp story where she has discovered the way extrovert people live and tried to shift in this kind of life. With all these changes in her life she never left her introverted life and espoused the ideas that when it comes to creativity and leadership, the society needs introverts and the things where they excel most. She explained that introversion is how one responds to stimulation including social stimulation which is different from a person being shy – the fear of social judgment.

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

What scares you the most? Is it spiders, pain, or even death? Most teenagers are afraid of isolation. Teens want to be supported. They want to be part of a group, never isolated. Isolated teens may develop a fear of speech and may be unable to speak up for themselves. This May even result in lowered self-confidence and body image. Ultimately, isolated teens may develop severe mental health problems. Isolation can impact a teen's life in many negative ways, which is why it is a teen's worst fear.

Throughout this fragment of Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson portrays Melinda with an introvertive voice. Melinda is having a hard time warming up to her new high school. The excerpt starts off with Melinda trying to find a place to sit in the lunchroom. “There’s that new girl, Heather, reading by the window. I could sit across from her. Or I could crawl behind a trash can.” (Paragraph 2) Melinda would rarther hide and go unnoticed than interact with other students. This quote shows us that she’s willing to take great measures to avoid being observed. Another example of diction was when Melinda was seen without a hallway pass by Mr. Neck, and when she was asked to explain herself, she just thinks to herself: “It is easier to not say anything… Nobody

Michelle Rosenthal once said, “Trauma creates change you don’t choose. Healing is about creating change you do choose.” Lauren Groff, who has a Masters of Fine Arts in fiction from the University of Wisconsin wrote the short story “Good People” which, shows readers the exact opposite way to recover from trauma. In Groffs short story readers witness a soldier who arrives home after spending three years in war. Although he comes home physically healthy he displays signs of having post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD for short. The soldier and his parents do not say a word to one another during the entire story which rapidly develops tension and makes the readers think that conflict is starting to emerge from this silence. Silence affects numerous issues in society today, but one issue silence affects that tends to be overlooked is PTSD. PTSD not only affects the people who have this illness, but in fact affects everyone around PTSD.

Susan Cain is an honors graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School. Since graduating Cain has become the chief revolutionary and co-founder of the Quiet Revolution and the co-founder of the Quiet Schools Network and the Quiet Leadership Institute. Cain is also the author of the bestsellers Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can’t Stop Talking, which has been on the New York Times bestseller list for almost three years and was named the #1 best book of the year by Fast Company magazine. The goal of the Quiet Revolution is to unlock the power of introverts for the benefits of everyone which was discussed in the TED talk that is being analyzed in this essay. The TED talk “The power of introverts” has been viewed over 17 million times and was named one of Bill Gates all-time favorite talks. The purpose of this speech was to inform the audience about how introversion is not what most people make it out to be. Throughout her speech, Cain compares and contrast introversion with extroversion and

She gives an example of inferiority complex, people who were looked upon as insecure and no good. She then lists all of the names of the inferiority people such as Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Shakespeare who were successful introverts. Hoping to then again gain the attention of people with a personal story by using pathos, by doing so she also tells the readers about men who have done extraordinary, ethical advancements for the country. Abe Lincoln, freed slaves; Teddy Roosevelt, loved and protected nature; and Shakespeare wrote plays to distract people from horrible events going on around them, Cain provided ethical examples of men who were successful introverts and still accomplished many achievements. Cain goes on to talk about how the president of Yale said that to be at this school you do not have to an outstanding but be a well-rounded person. This basically meant that to attend a high-class university you are not required to be an extroverted or introverted person, but a good citizen overall. She does well with this by giving hope to those who do not know whether they are introverted or extroverted, they just have to be a good person. Another topic Cain hits strongly is the story of how Dale Carnegie was a shy introvert who became rich with public speaking, writing a book and creating his own institute. Cain does this to convince the audience that introverts are as capable to

In this book Susan Cain argues against this bias. The first chapter begins with the summary of the life of David Carnegie, One of the first nationally recognized promoters of the extrovert Ideal. His class, lectures and the book he wrote focused on the extrovert personality type and how it was important to have these traits to ensure

Cain writes about shyness, introversion, social anxiety disorder, and extroversion. She compares introversion to extroversion. We need equally kinds of people in society. In my experience, people display both characteristics at the same time. The article shyness and evolutionary tactic is an interesting article because the current social judgment favors extroverts but does a disservice to introverts who also make important contributions to sociality.

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.

She utilizes her time spent at Robbins’ seminar to demonstrate the shift in the Culture of Personality, and how society sees the ideal confident extrovert as a successful leader. People at the seminar were all trying to be enthusiastic and energetic to reach their ideal self, and Cain used this to support her claim. She then utilized her time at Harvard Business School to show that extroverts control social networks, and are highly favored in society, including the business world. She added Chen’s interview to give input on how an introvert feels, and how many great ideas and concepts could be left out in favor of the ideas of those who speak first and control the discussion. This contributes to her derived argument that introverts can make good leaders and be successful, much like extroverts. She uses examples of introverted CEOs such as Bill Gates to prove this point. Cain includes these experiences to illustrate her argument and develop her point of extroverts being highly regarded as successful, and introverts being deemed as

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