21: Understanding the science of introversion and extraversion

the Personality Processes Lab. Luke, Hey, Scott, great to have you on here. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, so you teach a course and happiness? Is that right? I teach across several courses, largely in personality and social psychology, but in some of those subjects. Yeah, teach some lectures into well being and happiness, and I've run a few seminars on that. Yeah. And it's great that they have Professor Smiley in the course. Yeah, it's a nice little coincidence,

A big attraction to the course. I find a research really quite fascinating and debunking a lot of the myths about personality variation, particularly in the introversion extroversion dimension. I'm very interested in the core aspects differentiating introverts from extverts because people talk about all these kinds of differences in at comvits there. You know, these things in the popular media really are the core essential aspects. I thought today

we could really get to the nitty gritty of this. Yeah, yeah, it sounds good. I mean, that's yeah. I mean that's something that interests me as well. The disconnect between the popular conception of what extra version introversion is, which is is it's really probably the personality trait that's become a household name, and yet the way in which it's defined in the popular sphere is well, it differs from one person to another, but it also differs sharply with the

definition that's being used in psychological science. So I think there's a lot of confusion around the it's right. I mean, how do we objectively know who's right? I mean, you guys could be wrong. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. I mean I don't think anyone that really owns the you know, can sort of claim that they own the term and that their definition is correct. Yeah. Have you so? Have you read Susan Kane's book Quiet? Yeah? I've read Susan Kaines quiet yeap, what are your thoughts on that on

some of the conceptualizations of introversion. I mean, I think that I think the books really it's its value, I suppose, is that there are a lot of people who identify as an introvert in the way that she defines introversion and feel maybe marginalized or just not not sort of part of not as well accepted by particularly Western society, where extraversion and traits surrounding confidence and talkativeness and outgoingness

are really valued. So I think the book really speaks for a lot of people who who are maybe you know, tired of the what might be perceived to be the most desirable characteristics to have, and she's basically saying, oh, well, there are these other characteristics that people have that can be really valuable too. So that's that's what I think I really like about the book. Yeah, I mean powering

to a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean the disagreement that I guess a lot of people in personality would have is again around that that definition of of introversion. And yeah, I mean there's that's not to say the one you know, who's right and who's wrong there. But it's more, I mean, you could think of it

more as a translation. So when I read Susan Kine's work, I'm really interpreting it as a combination of of low introversion as well as some other traits such as open you mean, well, extroversion, sorry, low, yes, introversion, low extroversion. So when she's talking about introversion, I am indeed interpreting it as introversion, but with some other traits surrounding openness and and also conscientiousness and neuroticism, yeah, nervousism too, so

basically all of personality. Yeah yeah, and there are some occasionally I also see elements of agreeableness there with being She often talks about introverts as being more sort of sensitive to others and more thoughtful and aware of how they're impacting on others, and that's sounding a little bit

like agreeableness as well. So I guess the main disagreement would be that I think there are clearly many people who fit her a definition of introversion, but I don't think that there that trait she's talking about is a sort of exists as a basic dimension of personality. That's where the divergences, I guess between the popula of the term and the terms it's used in psychological science. Let

me say something here. You know, it's possible that even if all the traits and characteristics she puts under the umbrella of introversion don't cohere scientifically as a single source of variation, that doesn't necessarily follow that they don't all belong under the label of introversion. That becomes a conceptual issue. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And you know what I mean, I would say that the I mean, my preference would actually be that psychologists

didn't use the term introversion. Yeah, I mean, it's just sort of stuck. I think it's going to It would take a while to it's such an ingrained term because the dimension has been around for sixty seventy years in personality psychology. But I think it's not. I mean, it means inward focusing, doesn't it. But it's introversion has described as defined by psychologists, is more about just being less active, less bold, less talkative, less social, more quiet, and so

for there's nothing necessarily about inwardness. So I actually quite like the term. I can't remember where he suggested it, but mutual colleague Colin de Young has suggested a term detachment. And you can see why people who identify as introverts really take issue with the way we describe introverts because they're probably saying, now, this sounds like people are really kind of detached and lethargic. We're not solving that sounds and you know, we say, but we're not talking about

you guys. Yes, right, it does get very tricky. I I've had the great pleasure of collaborating with Susan Keenan her research and her team there. This is the new the thing. She just looks the quite quite revolution la, the quite relish. We came up with a new test of introversion, which you know, Collins like, okay with it. You know, so it's got it's got some you know, and you know an Adam Granite Penn really likes the model. Let me tell you the two aspects that we came

up with. Let me see if I can guess. Oh my gosh, I'd love to see it if you guess. And just so you know, I saw the website. I saw the website and I am I scrolled through the items and they're definitely two facets there, and one of them I would say is is classic intro lower sociability idea, and the other is more something more of what I would say is related to conscientiousness, persistence or something like that. Okay, so that's you almost nailed it well. The second ask,

the second aspect is deliberation. Deliberation, yeah, versus action need for deliberation versus you know, tendency towards action immediately without thinking through the consequence. So there's this kind of risk taking as self control aspect to it. Yeah, and that kind of that that sort of resonates with with how Susan talks about introversion of the book. But introverts are these sort of quiet but determined people or people who basically think things through before doing it. You don't just

blurt things out and fly up the handle. They they're kind of considered quiet and considered people. That's right, and that aspect is not very well captured on the Big Five, just at the higher order level. Yeah, I'm trying to think now about how the sort of lower level traits of the aspect of facet level of the Big Five would correlate and even at the aspect level of the b fast model, like conscientiousness, you have orderliness, and orderliness

and ambition or something like that, Like that's seriousness industriousness. Right, it still doesn't quite fit even in those two. Yeah, you know, it's even lower than that. But yeah, I mean I was just because one of the things, of course, is that components of the Big five are are not as independent as people often assume will describe them to be exactly. So, I mean you do have this these sort of margins where some aspects are facets of one

Big five train of highly correlated with another. Yeah. So you know, you constantly see that that low extra version is correlated with very strongly positively related to the withdrawal aspect of neuroticism. And we're talking like we found you know, point six zero correlations there in large samples. Yeah. You can't ignore that, you can't deny that. Yeah yeah yeah.

And so in that first, let's talk about the first aspect of our model, which you described as like sociability to and I it does that is that aspect correlates much much more highly with a Big Five extra version than the deliberation one. However, I don't think you know, we call it stimulation we think it goes it goes above just sociability to this general sort of reward sensitivity, and you know, and and and that really gets to the the heart of a lot of the research you've been

doing on extra version. So that might be a good segue into maybe you can explain a little bit how you've tried to tackle the question of what is extraversion?

What is the core psychological mechanism underlining extra version. Yeah, the reward sensitivity theory is one that I've I've definitely become persuaded by the reward sensitivity theory of extraversion, and I kind of got to that point what you in a way that you might describe as a kind of bottom operapproach that I was very interested in in theories that had suggested that that variation in the functioning of the brain's reward system would likely have consequences for personality.

That is, if they were kind of individual differences in how motivated people were by rewards, and that that that that should come out somewhere as a major trait or that should be related to a major aspect of that personality. And in the nineties and the early two thousands, there was a lot of there still wasn't much consensus about what that trait might look like. Some people were saying in prosivity, and some people had said extraversion. And and

I was at that in the early two thousands. You know, the question that motivated me, or that interested me, if you like, is what is the what is the trait that's really reflecting these differences in reward sensitivity? And I think ten years on, my impression is that there's really now a lot of consensus around reward sensitivity being one of the key underlying mechanisms that accounts for differences in extra version. Yes, you said there is a consensus, right,

I think so I feel that that you. I don't sort of see any evidence of any sort of debate or discussion around It's kind of become definitional now when people describe what extraversion is, if they get anywhere into the theory about it, they're usually saying reward sensitivity or our approach, motivation and sort of related mechanisms usually get at a mention. So I agree, Now, let's be very clear,

we're talking about competitive rewards. Yeah, you know, we're about like you know, like money, sex, you know, uh, power, Yeah, all these things that narcissists like so, I find it interesting there's a very hard correlation between grandiose narcissism and extraversion, probably some mechanisms that play there, which is not surprising, and that, Yeah, not to go too much on a tangent, but that I think one of the other, because we're

talking about conceptualizing extraversion introversion before and one of the conceptual confusions or clarifications. I think that's something needed. People interpret extra version as basically being kind of nice and friendly. There's that blurring between extraversion and agreeableness. But I think in an important sense, a lot of what's underlying extraversion is social. Yeah, is just attention and and uh and and well even selfishness and uh, a strong focus on

gains for oneself. It's such a good point. Such, so good a point. Yeah, and then of course you get these blends where you can get high agreeableness and high extra version and then yeah, and then it has a different flavor than very low extra version and very high agreeableness. It kind of that kind of these people looked at they not look different, but they act differently, They act differently,

they work different. Some have a bitterer forehead. You know, it's this extra vision agreeableness distinction sometimes really vexes some of my students, and I mean, I forget the question, can you you know, can you even have a person who's really extroverted but really low and agreeableness? And my favorite joke, apologies, my favorite joke is yeah, of course you can. They're ever in the business school. Yeah, they're

very urgentic, Yeah yeah, very agentic. Yeah. So you know, it's very interesting how all these blends can you know? Can can? Well, basically, we're just saying that people are complex.

We're saying that, and that's that's also I think, you know, maybe it's an obvious point, but it's also why people have even when they know a lot about models of personality, they might have a little bit of difficulty describing themselves because they're often they're trying to think of these traits in isolation, whereas when you for each individual there they're

complex blends of these traits in most instances. Absolutely, you know, I want to bequre this new test of introversion that we came up with, it was built completely from a self identification of introversion perspective, you know, it was we wanted to see which items would correlate most strongly with the item I identify as an introvert. All right, that's a really interesting approach. Yeah, so it's a different kind

of approach. And the Big Five took and we specifically for the purposes of creating a scale that that interests cauldly identify with, and we found that those were the two. So it's the scientific finding there that might be useful a field is we found these two aspects really get the core of what every day people think of when

they think of introversion. Yeah, okay, that's interesting because if I were to if I were to have made a prediction, I would have expected so you know, in Big five terms, this measure that you have is is like a blend of components of extraversion and components of conscientiousness. Right, what I would have expected in Big five terms, there's a

blend of extraversion and openness. Because the popular conceptualization of the introversion is often this kind of inward person who enjoys their inner mental life, is very curious and not just sort of quiet and and more reserved, but very you know, it loves reading and loves it about ideas and all of these Uh, these these characteristics you're linked

with openness. But keep keep in mind that the the the way that the items if you actually look at the needy, gritty items, there aren't any items like I

love to read, you know. Yeah, so if you just if you think about it for a second, we found that, you know, in the BFS mode and the big aspects, the openest experience to me and has intellect and openness, right, And we found that our scale is negatively correlated with intellect but positively correlated with openness because the kinds of items on the intellect scale or I'm a quick thinker,

I like quickly thinking. Well, well that's a complete odds with with people say I like to deliberate before I think. So I think that this scale kind of highlights the important the distinction, the importance in between quick thinking and deep thinking or reflective reflective thinking. Yeah, that makes sense, so you will. So that's why we don't find our scale. If you look at the higher order level of openness

to experience, you get nothing. But it's only really when you break it into the two aspects then you find like it is positive core with openness. Things like I see beauty, you know, I'm very sensitive to the environment. And we also find that our you know, first aspect of stimulation is very highly related to the withdrawal aspect of neuroticism and the highly sensitive person scale that has

been created by the irons. So there is this course, there is this sensitivity aspect that is You're right, it is part of self identification of introversion. But you really kindly see that when you separate out the intellect kind of items. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Yes, I'm so glad you find that interesting. Yeah, but a lot of this stuff, you know, it really does get definitional and conceptual. There is no objective truth of what the real introversion

is like. Will the real introversion stand up? Yeah, yeah, I mean, which is why that's that's why I think in some ways I'm not saying everybody should stop using the label, but it's it's become a troublesome term because it's because it has so many different It does have quite a few different conceptualizations, I mean, at least troublesome in in in the context of the goals of personality research, I suppose I hear intelligence researchers make the same argument

about intelligence. Yeah. Yeahs like Scott, shut up, shut up, You're making it harder for us to measure g And it's like, you know, well, I'm that were like disrupting your science. But there are real people out there in the world who this this these conceptualizations affect their lives, you know what I mean. But I mean, I like, I totally see it from the point of view the scientists, because I am a scientist too. But yeah, I mean these these these these these impact, these labels do mean

something to people. Yeah, so yeah, I you know, how how do you spot an extrovert or know if you are one? Well, yeah, I mean I'm gonna I'm gonna obviously steak to the Big five definition again. But I mean there's a whole area of research that I haven't I haven't really I haven't done any research necessarily myself.

But that I've that have found really interesting is is in personality judgments, which is really which is really about how how accurately can someone perceive your personality from the outside. Extra Version is always found to be the most easily judged or actually, accuracy is not really the right way to talk about it. You really talk about consensus. So if I how close a match is there between how you describe yourself on extraversion and how others describe you

on extra version. And even if that person has never even met you, and they just see you in a very you know, have been for maybe five minutes, they will get reasonable levels of consensus. They will very quickly be able to pick up on how extroverted you are. And that's because most of the components of extraversion our behavioral visible and so it's quite I mean, I actually had a probably the episode that really convinced me that it sounds like a funny thing to say, but their

personality was real. So I feel like, unknowingly for a while, like when I was doing my PhD personality traits, these were just sort of variables. These were hypothetical variables. I never really thought of them as being sort of real

things about real people. And then I was doing a study where I had extreme scores on extraversion high and low coming into the lab and it was for an EEG study, and it takes about sort of a half hour to get everything ready for the EG study, to put the electrode cap on and to do a range

of things, and I found I was blind to. I didn't know how when they came into the lab, I didn't know what their score was, what group they belonged to when they were hire a low, But I knew about two minutes later because the extroverts were so talkative and so engaged and so kind of wired almost you just knew immediately who was in the high extrovert group. So I think it's actually very easy to spot an extrovert. Yeah, yeah, at the extremes. And I think this brings an interesting

question is what is an ambrovert? What do you believe in the idea of an ambrovert, and what do you say most people really are ambroverts? Yeah, yeah, I would. I mean, I don't think there's I mean, the whole time we've been saying extrovert an introvert, they're just shorthands. Of course, there are no categories, and you know, by the same token, I wouldn't sort of say there's a sort of a category in the middle of ambiverts. But most people, the majority people will not be at the extremes.

By definition, They're going to be somewhere around the middle. And maybe that's another reason why it's often hard to identify that that's that's where it might be hard to identify somebody who's as more or less excerated, because they might not be more or less exuated. They might be somewhere in the middle. And that's where the majority of

people get full. Okay. And so there's this, like, you know, trying to figure out some of these defining characteristics something a lot of introverts say, you know, it really is about how you recharge your batteries, Like do you get energized by people or to get energy or to get not the opposite of energize's it's the opposite of the word energized. What's the opposite of that, de energized? Sorry, do you mean extras being energized? Yes, I just here

energized by people, by people, by by vigorous social interactions. Yeah, I mean I think I would say that it's maybe not inherently social. It happens that I this brings us back to I think the idea of getting energized by social interactions is ultimately consistent with the reward sensitivity idea. So the reward sensitivity idea I've sort of described as extroverts basically get more banged for the fuck they get a lot more of that positive enjoyment out of rewarding

stimulated situations. And I just think one of the most important rewarding situations for human beings are social situations. Human contact is rewarding. Many of the rewards we obtained we get via humans, or they're somehow embedded in social construct some examples. Well, you mentioned power for example, So power and status is rewarding and desirable, and it's inherently embedded

in social context. But also people are I don't I don't want to sort of describe people as a means to an end, but you rely on people to get many of the things you want. It's very difficult to get many of the things you want just on your own. So whether it be you know, getting it to get promoted at work you need there's there's somebody who needs to to actually give you that promotion. So I think people are a lot of a lot of rewards we depend on people to get, and a lot of rewards

are embedded in social processes themselves. That's an excellent point, And Okay, I'm really interested in that because I think for a lot of people, extraversion is quintessentially social. That I'm interested in. And this is something I think is really hard to disentangle. Is is it is? Is it? So? You have some people who who who their kind of version of the reward sensitivity theory of extraversion is are that the mechanism underlying extraversion is a mechanism for attracting

social attention. So that that's sort of that's that's saying the core of extraversion, it's really driven by some essentially social mechanism, Right, But I wonder if if, if if it's broader than that, and it just as I said, it just happens that that so much of what we're motivated by is is somehow embedded within or connected to social processes. Yeah, this is a this is an ongoing debate.

You know, there was that study where they try to measure the social aspect and remove the reward value the way the items ordered, and you know, Colin and I looked at those items were like, wait a minute, these are its actually all just extraversion items. So they're just like, yeah, this is the one maybe about ten years ago. Yeah, because there was this back and forth with other you know, the other research saying I think the cue is this, I think the cues this. You know, it's rewards instead,

you know, it's social attention. Yeah, it is hard to really pinpoint you and and and you know when we say the the core, what we're what we're saying, you know, to translate into into science language, we're just four saying what's the common variance? Yeah, that's what we're saying. That's not really intuitive to the everyday person. What that What

that means? Common variance? You know? Yeah, I mean I think there may be two ways of the two things that were interested in on the science side, and there's the common variant. So that's really what I guess that's the defining characteristics. I suppose, well, what the what the central you know, if extra version is really a cluster of characteristics and traits, what is the the core of those characteristics and traits? But I think another thing is

almost at a kind of different level. It's kind of what's underlying or producing this, what accounts for these traits clustering together so closely. And that's just going back to the reward sensitivity idea again. I mean, that's one thing that I find really compelling about the idea of extraversion being underpinned by the motivation to pursue all kinds of rewards, because I think many of the key traits and characteristics that are kind of bound up in extra version can

be their coherence, the common denominator they have. It seems plausible that that could be approach motivation of the desire to see rewards. So everything from you know, sociability because of all the what we just discussed with reward being im bettered in social context or behavioral activity, to achievement, to social dominance, talkativeness and positive affect yeah, leadership assertiveness. Yeah,

that's right. It's it's also hard to distinguish between they like statements that are just like part of the human condition versus differentiating real like variation, because like when you say something like sometimes that could be really extroverted, but sometimes I like to relax quietly home. Yeah, it's like who is like gonna say, Oh, that's not me at all, Like that's such a that's just called being like freaking human. Yeah yeah right, yeah, yes, So how can you work?

Do you only really get it when you ward things? Like I prefer on average two you know, we're talking about we're talking about average, we're talking about absolutes. Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, I hope I'm on

the right track. I think I think there are sort of two things that relate to what you're saying there, and one is I think when people are responding to one is how we measure how we typically measure personality with a questionnaire, And if you focus on any one item, yeah, you're right, it seems like, well, yeah, any anyone could agree with this, or it might depend on the day

whether I agree with this or not. And and that that really sort of I think that underlies a lot of doubt about how well you can measure personality with these questionnaire items. And I guess what I always encourage people to think about is, I mean, yeah, that you can you can take issue with any one item, but over over sort of twenty of these, if you've consistently agreed with all kinds of different items about the kind of characteristic then then maybe that is starting to say

something meaningful about you. Yeah, just I was going to say. The other the other point that maybe relates to what you were saying is is the I really like the approach of Will Fleeson, who was just going to say yeah, who really formalizes so we've we've kind of tended to conceptualize personality traits as these regularities in the way you behave and regularities and behavior and experience. And he's kind of formalized it by saying, yeah, you know, we're our

behavior and experience. So take characteristics relating to extraversion, dominance, and talkativeness. That's actually varying for everyone all over the place, across time, across situations. But if you look back over though that that time period, you'll you'll you'll see that people have a sort of an average level. And you're saying,

that's what we're talking about. If you if your average level is relatively high, then then you are by definition relatively extroverted, even if you spent many times during the week being quite talkative or you know, whether you're being talkative or not, whether you're being relaxed or really outgoing. Yeah, I really like that approach. It really is. The end of the day, your personality is is simply your habits of behavior and average like that, that's all your personality is.

It's it's like you can change your personality literally if you like change your habits, you know, Yeah, yeah, there's a really I don't know if you've seen this. There's

a really amazing paper. It's sort of amazing in a way that it's taken so long for a paper like this to come out, But it's it's just following up people who who who want to make certain changes to their personality and and I mean, without going into all the details of just it shows what people have suspected for a while, the volitional change in personality is possible.

And yeah, yeah, and you know, in the case of extra version, I mean that may be, as you say, just sort of cultivating a bit your ways of behaving. So can you make yourself more extroverted? Yeah, I mean I think, I mean the kind of I think that's a common goal, particularly when for people who have maybe jobs or situations in which it can be more advantageous to be a little more bold and dominant and talkative.

So like being a lecturer, I'm probably I think overall, I'm probably slightly low on extra version, maybe middling to middling to just below average, made you but it's it's it's helpful. I mean, I can be a better lecturer if I behave in a more extradded way. And I think you cultivate. People can cultivate these ways of behaving in particular situations. But I guess people may also have for whatever reason, they may feel like it would be

better if they were higher or lower extroversion. Maybe they feel they could just be more outgoing and and and energized, and they can cultivate different ways of behaving. Can you make yourself more introverted? I guess so. I mean, certainly the sort of studies that I've been interested in. Again, it was Will Fleeson who developed this paradigm, and I've had a couple of studies in this area as well.

We're just a in a small lab context where they're as an interactive exercise that a few people are working on. You can just instruct people to behave in ways that are more characteristic of being either extroverted or introverted, and I mean people people will behave behave in those ways, and you see effects of acting in a more extroverted way that are reminiscent of actually being more extroverted. Okay,

which is quite interesting. I guess that that whole area of research basically suggests that if extraversion is just typically it is just the kind of you're an average level of certain behaviors and experiences, and if you if you actually engage or disengage in those behaviors, then on average, you by definition, will be lower on lower higher an extroversion.

That's right, That's that's exactly right. I agree. And it doesn't mean that if you're an introvert, you know, meaning you score them extremely high in introversion on the Bell curve, that doesn't mean that you never have extroverted behaviors. No, no, And that's that's another I mean, that's kind of why I like this approach of Will Fleeson's in talking about your average levels, because you know, a typical response when people learn about personality might be, but you know, I'm

I would say, I'm quite introverted. But there are plenty of times where I'm you know, I'll be at a at a party and I'll be being really gregarious and love being in the center of attention at that particular point, and We'll be really talking with all my friends, and but I'm just not like that all the time. That's right, and and that that definition allows for that. You go, yeah, you know, being an introvert does not mean you have an inability to be more extroverted. It just means you

have a tendency to be less extruded. Well, you know, I find it interesting that introversion is is correlated with deficits in social intelligence tests. So maybe there is something going on there which the less you exercise it, the less developed those skills are. Yeah. Possibly. I always find that very interesting, even though of course I don't want to stereotype. There's plenty of introverts with great social skills,

but you do find that correlation. Yeah, it's interesting, And I haven't I haven't sort of seen a really clear picture of what's going on there. The literature seems sort of fragmented there. That there's there's a paper a long time ago that that found some evidence for the idea that it may not be social skills per se, that that introverts lack, but that extras are a little bit better at at at multitasking, and that a lot of what's required in social interaction requires you to keep track

of a lot of different pieces of information. You've got to be keeping track of what you're saying, what the other person's saying, when it's your turn to talk, and so forth, and so it may I mean, there's basically some indication that there are a few I guess more cognitive skills that may vary with extra version that actually may explain some of those more social the parent differences in social skills. That's very interesting, you know that the

it's very fragmented. I haven't seen much on that topic, to be honest, There certainly needs to be more research on it. I find it very interesting that there's such a strikingly high correlation between the autism spectrum, cautient and introversion. Yeah, it's very very high. Yeah, and that I identify a really good hypothesis about that, except just two. I mean, it may be the case that there are kind of there are multiple ways in which you can be less

talkative and sociable and engaged and and so forth. And and the autism question that may be picking up more on a you would you would expect that if picking up more on on kind of skill deficits and and cognitive capacities, whereas introversion may be a little bit more about about sort of preferences and the habitual ways of behaving. I like that. I like that model a lot. There's much more mouths to these these different traits. Yeah, which I guess, which is, you know, the the Thornia side

of of personality. I mean, you could just you could say, oh, it's as simple as that. If you if you don't, if you're not very bold and assertive and talkative and behavioral active, then then you're introutive. But there could be many reasons why somebody is not bold, assertive and talkative. Right, So is it better to be more extroverted or interrouted? Yeah, that's a that's that's probably the question that the popular

writers on introversion really really hate what. I imagine they really dislike what the what A lot of research is shown about extroversion. Well, yeah, a lot of researchers have shown that extraversion is correlated with higher well being, right, Yeah, yeah, that's that's exactly right. And and and yeah, there's a lot of people who who you know, self identify as

an new rote and don't really like that idea. And there's there's a great book chapter by John Zelenski at Carlton or Carleton Carlton University in Canada which kind of walks through all of the objections to this idea that extra rets are happy, you know, perhaps happy or higher on measures of well being. You sent me there, Yeah, I will send it to you. It's it's really, it's really I think it's a nice instructional chapter because it kind of it kind of goes through each different objection

one by one. But I mean, I think I think that the research is pretty clear it's ex orasion for one of the strongest predictors of the range of well being constructs. But I think the caveat maybe or or the the thing that I guess the thing to bear in mind is, I think there are a couple of things to bear in mind which may make you come short of saying that it's that it's therefore better to

be higher an extra version. One. One thing is that the aspects of well being that extra version predict most clearly are really those intense positive emotions the what what's something called activated positive affect. There's feelings of liveliness and excitement and enthusiasm that aroused positive affict and and if you if you kind of narrow the focus to that, then it's it's not immediately clear that that is uh,

you know, the be All and mend All. In fact, there's there's some evidence that people lower an extra version or more introverted people actually prefer lower levels of those intense positive states anyway, right right, And Susan would make

that point. Yeah, yeah, I mean that that would be that I think is probably Yeah, the main reason that you would maybe why come a little bit short of saying, oh, it's therefore better to be more extroverted, because it's I guess because extra resion is not only correlated with the levels of those positive emotions, but also the preferences for

those levels exactly exactly they actually be. I mean, on the one idea of find interesting is that so we've talked about how you can act more or less extraverted, and one idea of find interesting is that the way people habitually act is a that it can partly function as a mood regulation strategy. So extroverts may behave in a way that routinely brings them to these higher levels of positive emotion that they prefer, while introverts may routinely behave in a way that keeps them at those slightly

lower levels of these these particular positive emotions. Yeah, there's two projects I want to work on with some students over the course the next year. One is maybe cataloging some of the more quiet positive emotions like contentments. Yeah, and that and that is not well, this is this paper that that Colin and I, Colin de Young and I've worked on last year. Those emotions are not really those positive emotions are not really predicted by extroversion at all.

That's really important finding, I think, Yeah, I mean, my my sort of take on that issue. It's it's one of those It really was one of those situations where it was hard to know whether I was confused or whether there was a confusion in the literature. And so either the paper clarifies something for the literature or just

clarified my own confusion, and the confusion is. Yeah, that people use the word positive emotions to refer to actually quite a wide range of constructs, and those quieter positive emotions, if you mentioned the only time, the only way in which that seems to be related to higher extraversion is as a result of extrarets tending to be a little

bit lower on some aspects of neurosism. So basically, once you control for neuroticism, there's really no relation between extraversion and those kind of quiet, content, satisfied, relaxed mood says, do you mean like you're basical controlling for emotional stability. Yeah, yeah, not the other end, like yeah, yeah, yeah right, because you would you would think those emotions would be correlated with emotional stability. Yeah yeah, yeah, well that makes that

makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I don't like this question of which which is better, which personality trait is better, because we're talking, we're talking about you know, that's ignoring blends, that's ignoring the all. If there's no all also being equal, you know, all's being equal in the real world, doesn't really make sense. Yeah, I really, I don't know. I kind of explain why I'm really. I mean, I have

the same reaction. I don't like talking about better or worse ends of different personality traits, and that's that's for that reason. One of the kind of finding that I really enjoy when I when I see it come out in a in a paper is where a trait that you normally think of is well, that many people think of as being like the bad end, turns out turns out that's some advantage or or a so called good

trait turns out to predict something undesirable. And I just like those reminders that there's there's really there are strengths and weaknesses of of of high or low ends of any characteristic. I don't think overall any with the exception that I think it's you know, there there are very few advantages to being high in eurobicism or lower and emotional stability. With that exception, maybe I think that that all traits are really positive, or both ends of all

traits have really really positive. I don't know. Tell some of the greatest poets of all time that their high neuroticism was a disadvantage to their poetry. Yeah, yeah, I think, I think. I mean this is just totally anecdotal, but you when thinking about historical characters and characters in film and literature, I think you often see the uh you see it. They often tend to you would characterize as high in eu auticism. But I think you would also

characterize and as being high openness as well. Most in culmination get blended together. I think that's absolutely true, and specifically the openness aspect. Yeah, I agree. I agree. This has been such a fascinating conversation. I want to be respectable of all your time, but we haven't gotten to the neurochemistry yet and all that. Yeah, so what is the role of nature and nurture in determining introversion. I think we can pretty much say that there's a mix

of both. But do you think to some extent introversion next version can be it fooced all by how you're treated by your peers when you're younger. I mean, I guess there's there's some there's I've seen a few ideas

along those lines. For example, that there are often I think extra reds tend to be slightly taller, and there's a there's a sort of a maybe it's sort of a wacky fringe idea that the differences in the height of them impact on how you're treated growing up, maybe by your peers, and and that that may have a role in the the development of a more sort of introverted I guess, a less more or less dominant personality.

So that I mean, there are some ideas that I've seen along those lines, But I guess generally, I feel like a lot of a lot of people seem to take the lesson of all the behavior of genetics research is that a lot of your your the environmental impact is your your unique experiences, right, I haven't haven't really gone to basically zivil. It's you know, how how your your personality doesn't really depend much on those those shared

experiences that are happening within the family environment. They're they're they're being more driven by these unique experiences if you have outside the family environment. But I don't see a lot of sort of following up on that to to kind of start to understand what those unique experiences might be, right, right? Right? Do we just know that unique experiences matter? Yeah? Yeah, So I guess it. I guess the answer is it seems plausible, But I don't of a lot of work

that's so shown that that's fair. So the best we could say right now is its nature nurture. Yeah, okay, I wish, I wish we could see more. Wantitunal studies of personality development from dispositions to traits? Yeah? Well okay, Well what is the role of genes, the brain, and neurochemicals? So do you need a brain? Do you need a brain? Yeah? I mean all of the all personality traits seem to be at least moderately veritable. What does that mean? Uh?

It means that the the reason a large part of the reason that people differ from another or more similar to one another is as a result of differences in genes. And what does that mean? That means that part of the part of your the variation that you see in personality in the population is based in differences in genetics,

in in in a biology. Well, I think that people don't really have a good idea of what that means, of what even differences in genes, it doesn't mean, you know, what does that really mean in terms of the impact on the trade. I saw a study recently that found the higher the heritability is going to blow your mind, you ready, the higher the heritability of an i Q

test item, the more culturally influenced that item was. The higher the higher the heritability of that item, the more culturally influenced that well, that that actually kind of could make some weird, a weird kind of sense. Yes, And so I don't know if this is right. This is the time I've heard this, But I mean, the kind of thought experiment I would think about was imagine, imagine four different cultures that differ really from one another, but each of them have these very they don't have a

lot of variation in the environment within each culture. That's interesting. So if if you had a situation. There's a there's an old saying that I think it's called Hanstein's paradox, which is that if you had, if you had a perfectly even handed environment where everybody was basically under the same environmental conditions, a sort of you know, radical social engineering experiment or something, then all of the variation in

personality would be genetic. And the reason being that there's no environmental variation, and it can't it kind of explain why people are different from one another, So all of the differences will just be a genetic So yeah, yeah, yeah, god, yeah, just so that that that finding, I mean, maybe what it's saying is that the cultures there's a lot more

variation in the environment between cultures than within cultures. And uh and and and therefore the the the aspects the components, So was the components of intelligence or the items of an intelligence, Well, if you look at the items, you find that the group together is either crystallized or fluid intelligence. You find the crystallized items actually have higher heritability than the fluid. The crystallized are, in theory, the ones that

are more independent on learning and culture. Maybe it's just you know, yeah, so this makes sense to you that that'd be higher herritability. Yeah so, but I mean the high heritability may another way of expressing that might might be that there's there's not a lot of variation within any population that's that's impacting upon that particular aspect of the toligence, but there might be variation, a lot more variation when you look at the cultural from one culture

to another. Yeah, no, I think that could make sense. Yeah, maybe maybe it makes sense. We took this interesting. It's sort of a seemingly paradoxical finding exactly which is which is what I just we twined this whole tangent just and I could easily not have brought that up is Yeah, I just you know, I don't think it's as easy like we say, like, well we know that has a heritable coefficient to really know what that really means from

a mechanistic point of view. But but yeah, so we do know that we can say that genes influence the development of introversion. What what have any of those genes been identified? Are? They are? They? Do? They operate on the dop coin your theory they should be dopamine really the gens right? Yeah, yeah, and so we a colleague

of mine, Young Backer at the University of Hamburg. Yeah, we just we just did a review of you know, try to do a really critical review of you know, where is the how how strong is the evidence for this the idea that extra version is underpinned by dopamine function, with dopamine being the neurochemical that is involved in reward processing and and motivation by reward. And the interesting thing is that the genetic evidence and this this is fairly true for a lot of areas of personality, but the

genetic evidence is just really patchy. So by which I mean, even though behavior geneticists have told us, yeah, there's a strong role for genes, identifying which gene are are involved has has been a very uh not a very successful venture. So so so that's where, yeah, it gets sort of mucky in the sense that you're right on hand, there seems to be good evidence that there there are these genetic influences, but actually hitting them down has has not been so successful. Well,

let me ask you something. There's got to be there's got to be a influence of genes related domain because you find it the neurological level that you see striatum, you see you know, you see some of these subcortical dopamine structures, you see differences in them in structure, structure, and functions. But between introverts and extroverts, is there any way is there any universe in which you would see those differences without there being genetic differences at all? You know, like,

what would that mean? I didn't I didn't think so I think gene fluid structure. Yeah, yeah, So genes are obviously coding for proteins that that build the body and the brain, so they do have an influence on structure. I mean, where the evidence seems to be strongest. But the idea that dopamin is involved in the underpinning extraversion is that the neurochemical studies so showing that drugs that impact on the dopamain system influence behavior and experience differently

for extroverts and intro its. So the response to a dominatic drug is very much dependent on how extroverted you are. So I mean that seems to be where the evidence space is really strongest. This this psychopharmacological research, and it's suggesting that the systems that respond to these managing drugs are are quite different and and it seems quite difficult to imagine how that might that would not ultimately be at least partly influenced by genetics. Okay, that's fair, that's fair.

So it is it is possible, It is possible. Yeah. So yeah, and obviously experiences impact the structure of the brain as well. Yeah yeah, yeah, but but I just keep thinking about, you know, a major difference not just being structure, but but you know what what triggers dopamine release? You know, competitive rewards seem to trigger dopamine release and

extroverts more than it does in introverts. And I find that really interesting because I don't think we have a really good biological understanding of like, like what is like why why is that? Like? Why? What is what is what is about that nervous system that that that is more sensitive, you know, that makes this the because of the same quantities of dopamine and extrots next introverts. What

what what differs is what activates the release? Yeah? I think it's I mean, it's not so much that there are different things that activate the release, but there's there seems to be a lower threshold, I suppose, good point. Yeah, so that the the system as a reward processing system.

It's it's working very similarly for experts into it, but it's just got a slightly more kind of hair trigger for extrodots, or very much more hair trigger, depends on where you Events that are motivational significance, any kind of reward events just just really kind of capture the the

the attention of this system. If you like, you know, a rewarding event for an extrovert in being processed by the brains, if this is really important, You've really got to focus on this, right, Yeah, But I mean in terms of why that might be so, I mean, it's it's yeah, the ultimate reason for that is really quite a difficult one to answer. I mean, were you thinking along the lines of, you know, you asked this question

about early experiences. Do you wonder if there could be early experiences that shape that kind of tune the sensitivity of that neurochemical system. Absolutely, it might be these experiences earlier in life that really switch on one child's brain to really be to be really strongly impacted upon by

these incentives and reward events. Yes, I suspect that it has a lot to do with the so called sensitivity gene that have been discovered in recent years that are not that that these genes code for sensitivity to the environment for better or worse, for better and worse, and so early in life, some of these genes may uh you know, like really traumatic life experiences may cause those genes to be hyper sensitive and result in neuroticism as a as a trait or introversion, where but the same

genes in a very welcoming, encouraging environment would would be related to openness to experience and curiosity. And you do you do see some research there on you know, depending on you know, uh, your kind of background experience, you either have intense curiosity or intense fear of the environment of novelty. Yeah, novelty, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, But there's so much that needs to be fleshed out, you know. Yeah.

I mean that's the interesting thing with this whole area of the neurobiology and extra version, I think, and that on the one hand, it's it's often kind of held up as the sort of success story in personality neuroscience that that that's where you know, we know most about

the role of dopamin and an extra version. But then on the other hand, we know so little even about that you know, it's it's it's success story is also an illustration of how how still in its infancy, the whole area of these questions nature and nurture, how genes might influence personality, How are the experiences might influence personality

and shape brain structure in neurochemical response. I mean that there's just there's just there's just sort of questions everywhere, still with with with not not so many firm answers. I mean even the whole even the whole theory. You know, the so called dopamine hypothesis of extras. The actual finer

details of that hypothesis a very vague. It's you know, you could be quite critical and say, okay, so basically full the easy as the years later always saying, is dopamine has something to do something about the dopamine differs between extroverts and introverts. It's still not that precise. No, No, it really isn't. So we don't know anything. What do you think is the future? I'll ask I'll end with this question. This interview has gone really long because it's

I find this stuff stuff still fascinating. But where do you see the future, What tech methodologies? What you know how can we move the field for I I'll answer it my way. I'll answer what I think, and then I love to hear what you think. I think it's I think there needs to be a lot more research on the effects of personality times environment interactions. I think you'll find that that introverts will report higher well being when you stop with living in an extroverted ideal world.

You give them like, you know, like ways to express themselves and that's more conducive to how they on their own terms. You may find that well being increases. So that's that's a possibility, is just looking at those interactions. But yeah, so what do you think? Yeah, I mean

I agree, I do, I do agree. I mean I think there's this really and there seems that does seem to be a sort of an increase in trying to to focus more on interactions between personality and situations, and I think that that will be a real, real growth area. I don't know if I could put my finger on just one thing, but I mean I think they're a cluster of things. I mean, there's the there's I mean that maybe the slightly less interesting one to talk about

is the methodological advances. I mean, I think people at the moment, with all these non replication crises and underpowered the studies are just based on enough on a sufficiently large sample size. I think that's all going to change. I mean, our standards for what is a good study, it's going to change, and that will that will be

a good thing. I mean, I think the you know, the next ten years relative to the last ten years is going to is maybe going to bring a lot more certainty because the the rigor with which we do our research is just going to be held to a

much higher standard. And I think, I mean, maybe one of the really sort of exciting areas to come will will be in the area that that we've already gone across, that we've already sort of skipped across, that we we sort of you know, reach the point where we know that that there's a the nature and nurture is involved

in personality. It's a product of genes in the environment, and starting to pin down some of those specific causes so that we haven't been able to pin down too many specific genes yet, but maybe maybe that's going to improve, and it would be really interesting to see people starting to pin down, Yeah, these unique experiences people have, what what kinds of unique experiences shape particular traits they would be there would be there would be some examples that

I would think what I'd like to see? Wow, well I would love to see the same stuff. Maybe we can collaborate someday. Yeah, that'd be so cool. Man. Well, thank you so much for this chat. It was elucidating. I hope it was listening to my listeners really fun. Thanks. Thanks very much for invoting me in a really interesting conversation. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as

informative and thought provoking as I did. If you'd like to read the show notes for this episode or here past episodes, you can go to the Psychology Podcast dot com