Battle of the introverts

[andrewducker]

When I first met Jane I told her that I was introverted. And about two weeks later she laughed at me, pointing out how many friends I have, and how much I socialise.

Last night, when I couldn't sleep at 5am, I did a Myers-Briggs test* (to check that I was still INTP - I still am). And then this morning I got her to do it too.

Turns out that I'm 61% introvert/39% extrovert. And she's 94% introvert/6% extrovert. So to her, I look all the same as those extroverted people who leave the house, and talk to other people. And to me she looks like a tiny dot, fleeing into the introverted distance.

Preempting some of the comments - if you want to claim that MBTI is just a horoscope then you'll have to explain its correlation with the Big Five.

Comments

[agoodwinsmith]

I too, based on this journal alone, would never have thought of you as introverted - you talk to people! You meet people in groups! Often! You genuinely seem to thrive on spending time with others! Argh!

Regarding the popularity of the test: it is used by a lot of human resources departments as a team building tool. It is meant to only be administered by a qualified individual, but even when this is the case, the results are seldom used only by the qualified individual. It is quick and reasonably inexpensive to use, and gives teams a starting point for discussion of how to work together.

My sense (from having experienced its use in several corporate situations) is that it is a tool that extraverts like: either because it confirms their natural leadership skills, or because it remind them that their team members aren't duplicates of themselves.

Living in Canada, we're often measuring ourselves against Americans because we can usually only get American-based textbooks and materials. So, everything is prefaced by "remember that these are American statistics". One of the teams I belonged to spent some time comparing the percentages of the Myers Briggs types by country, and the USA has a much higher percentage of all the extravert types. So, if these personality types were innate, there should be less variation, and thus it is likely that these are personality tendencies, which environment can nurture selectively.

Also: self-reporting. Canadians take pride in being calm and a little reserved; Americans take pride in being friendly and gregarious. So my work answers will be different from my personal answers.

And context: in my family, my Dad's family is a bunch of raving ego-maniacs (confident friendly people), and with them I am a vanishing dot of introversion; but my Mom's family is a bunch of edge-dwelling mice (reserved calm people), and with them I am a raving ego-maniac. :)

And so: based on who I know and who I hang out with, you are one of the more extraverted people I know. :)

PS - poor speller check extravert and extrovert, and has decided to stick with extravert, but there's this:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-difference-between-extraversion-and-extroversion/

[andrewducker]

You don't see me spend two hours enjoying something and then having to come home and spend a few hours in quietly to recover energy from it.

I love company, and people. But it wears me out quickly.

[snippy]

Yes this. I am very social! I like to talk to people, I like parties, I like group activities. I'm not shy. But I am exhausted at the end, overwhelmed and overstimulated if I go past my limits (I actually have timed limits, one for new people and one for longtime friends), and I need to be alone in a quiet room for several hours to recover after being the life of the party.

[agoodwinsmith]

I find the thought of being in groups of people larger than four (counting me) to be exhausting. Ugh.