The Reason You’re an Introvert

Western society tends to belittle introversion.

In some ways this is really obvious. (Read my favorite book about why this is wrong Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Won’t Stop.) We make fun of people for being shy. We laugh at bookworms and call them “nerds.” We scorn those who prefer to sit at home and play board games, instead of go out and live the high life.

In other ways it is much less obvious. Extroversion is prized as a value, and introversion discouraged, and we do this so subconsciously. Susan Cain demonstrates this well in an article at the New York Times:

“In a world that prizes extroversion….Children’s classroom desks are now often arranged in pods, because group participation supposedly leads to better learning; in one school I visited, a sign announcing “Rules for Group Work” included, “You can’t ask a teacher for help unless everyone in your group has the same question.” Many adults work for organizations that now assign work in teams, in offices without walls, for supervisors who value “people skills” above all. As a society, we prefer action to contemplation, risk-taking to heed-taking, certainty to doubt. Studies show that we rank fast and frequent talkers as more competent, likable and even smarter than slow ones. As the psychologists William Hart and Dolores Albarracin point out, phrases like “get active,” “get moving,” “do something” and similar calls to action surface repeatedly in recent books.”

But introversion is important. It is a way of being. It’s natural. It isn’t a disease. It isn’t a malfunction. It isn’t an anxiety gone wrong. It isn’t poor social skills, or any such thing.

In fact, introverts can be quite sociable when they feel like it.

It just so happens that they don’t often feel like it.

Why is this the case? Why do I have such rabid pride in my introversion? Why am I so happy being me, like this, curled up in a corner of a dark room, all by myself?

Because evolution made me and my natural body this way.

Introversion and evolution

You are an introvert because it’s in your genes. Sure, you were certainly conditioned by your environment growing up. But you were also born with a predisposition. Your parents, midwives, doctors, and pediatricians could probably all tell you about the introverted personality they spotted in you from a very young age, if not the very time of your birth.

This is because introverts are evolved. Introverts are necessary. Introverts are great survivors. Introverts are persistent in evolution.

So your introversion works for you, and it also works for humanity as a whole. Here’s how.

Why introversion works for you

Introversion is an adaptation on an individual level. Why? Because introverts tend to do more thinking before leaping. Introverts tend to sit back and think. They tend to move less impulsively. They tend to be more aware of their surroundings. They tend to strategize. Imagine every single time you thought before you  leapt, and why in retrospect that was such a good idea.

Pausing like this is wise, and not just for humans.

In the animal kingdom as a whole, an estimated 15 to 20 percent of organisms are watchful, slow-to-warm-up types who stick to the sidelines (sometimes called “sitters”) while the other 80 percent are “rovers” who go forth willy nilly without examining their surroundings. Sitters and rovers favor different survival strategies. Each strategy reaps different rewards.

One of the most famous evolutionary biologists, David Sloan Wilson (here’s one of my favorite books of his, though I’ve read all of them), conducted observations that proved how important this evolutionary trait is.

Wilson dropped metal traps into a pond of sunfish. The “rover” fish couldn’t help but investigate — and were immediately caught. But the “sitter” fish stayed back, making it impossible for Professor Wilson to capture them. Had Wilson’s traps posed a real threat, only the sitters would have survived. In this case, they had the survival edge. They would have been the only ones to pass on their genes, had this been a real live trap.

“Anxiety” about the trap saved the fishes’ lives.

Yet of course it goes both ways. When Wilson trapped both kinds of fish, the “rover” fish adapted better to their new environments.  They tarted eating a full five days earlier than their sitter brethren. In this situation, the rovers had the survival edge. They would have been better able to pass on their genes. Wilson says, “There is no single best … [animal] personality,” Professor Wilson concludes in his book, “Evolution for Everyone,” “but rather a diversity of personalities maintained by natural selection.”

So we find that sometimes roving is adaptive, and sometimes sitting is adaptive.

The same can be said of humans.

About 50 percent of humans are “just introverts” (requiring alone time). About 40% are “just shy” (having social inhibitions). About 20 percent are predisposed to both shyness and introversion.

Introverts, who tend to digest information thoroughly, stay on task, and work accurately, earn disproportionate numbers of National Merit Scholarship finalist positions and Phi Beta Kappa keys, according to the Center for Applications of Psychological Type—even though their I.Q. scores are no higher than those of extroverts. Introverted children are careful and astute, and tend to learn by observing instead of by acting. They notice scary things more than other children do, but they also notice more things in general. Studies dating all the way back to the 1960’s by the psychologists Jerome Kagan and Ellen Siegelman found that cautious, solitary children playing matching games spent more time considering all the alternatives than impulsive children did, actually using more eye movements to make decisions.

This may have evolutionary advantages, as it may render the children more knowledgeable in certain ways.

We find also that, according to Daniel Nettle, a Newcastle University evolutionary psychologist, extroverts are more likely than introverts to be hospitalized as a result of an injury, have affairs (men) and change relationships (women). One study of bus drivers even found that accidents are more likely to occur when extroverts are at the wheel. They tend to be a bit more brash, and a bit more impulsive, and a bit more scattered than introverts.

This data makes introversion seem highly adaptive in comparison. It isn’t, of course. They are about equally adaptive. Extroverts tend to be more sociable and therefore to have more friends and lovers, and therefore more children (in evolutionary history, anyway) than introverts. They also tend to be in leadership positions more often, and to therefore have a certain amount of social capital.

Introversion and extroversion are for that reason equally adaptive. This accounts in part for why 50% of the population tends toward extroversion and 50% tends toward introversion.

There is yet one more reason for this split, however.

It’s the group.

Why introversion works for humanity

Introversion persists throughout evolution in part because it’s a good survival strategy for individuals.

It also persistst throughout evolution because it’s a good survival strategy for groups.

Research has begun demonstrating that differences among individuals help promote group cohesion.

Imagine, for example, if you had a group full of loud, boisterous, hot-headed people (not to hate on you, extroverts, this is an exaggeration 🙂 ). What would happen? Would everyone get along, or would they end up killing each other? Would they make poor strategies for famine, hunting, and war?

Imagine, on the other hand, if you had a group of full people who barely talked to each other, who sat back in the corners, and who never took decisive action when called for (again, introverts, this is an exaggeration)? What would happen? Would everyone socialize, or would they instead sit back in corners and rarely engage one another? Would they make bold moves out in the field? Would they be able to negotiate with other tribes?

Groups composed of just extroverts never work. Groups composed of just introverts never work.

In order for groups both to function as well as to survive long enough to pass on their genes, they must have a balance of introverts and extroverts.

And, remarkably, the balance must be near a neat 50/50 split, otherwise the group topples one way or another.

So next time…

So the next time you’re feeling down on yourself about your introversion (or extroversion), remember that you are exactly this way for a lot of reasons. This is your natural body. This is your natural brain. This is who you are. This is what you need to survive and to thrive. And it is, importantly, what humanity needs, in order to survive and to thrive.

So embrace the disposition Mother Earth has given you!

You will be able to feel more comfortable in your own skin, and be able to help the people around you in the process.

Some resources for introverts!

my favorite book about the power of introverts: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Won’t Stop

And my favorite book on how to harness your introverted power: The Introvert Advantage: How Quiet People Can Thrive in an Extroverted World

And if you’re me, this one is particularly good: The Introverted Entrepreneur: Amplify Your Strengths and Create Success on Your Own Terms

What do you think? Do you see advantages and disadvantages to being introverted, or extroverted? What are YOU like?! I’d love to know!