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The Extrovert Ideal has been documented in many studies, though this research has never been grouped under a single name. Talkative people, for example, are rated as smarter, better-looking, more interesting, and more desirable as friends. Velocity of speech counts as well as volume: we rank fast talkers as more competent and likable than slow ones.
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Susan Cain |
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Perfectionism] keeps your work at a high quality, but often prevents you from getting your ideas out there at all, since pretty much nothing anyone does is ever perfect.
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Susan Cain |
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Proust called these moments of unity between writer and reader "that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude."
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Susan Cain |
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Here's a rule of thumb for networking events: one new honest-to-goodness relationship is worth ten fistfuls of business cards. Rush home afterward and kick back on your sofa. Carve out restorative niches.
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Susan Cain |
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Extroverts are more likely to take a quick-and-dirty approach to problem-solving, trading accuracy for speed, making increasing numbers of mistakes as they go, and abandoning ship altogether when the problem seems too difficult or frustrating. Introverts think before they act, digest information thoroughly, stay on task longer, give up less easily, and work more accurately.
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Susan Cain |
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Introverts often work more slowly and deliberately. They like to focus on one task at a time and can have mighty powers of concentration. They're relatively immune to the lures of wealth and fame.
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Susan Cain |
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One new honest-to-goodness relationship is worth ten fistfuls of business cards.
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Susan Cain |
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Grant says it makes sense that introverts are uniquely good at leading initiative-takers. Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions. Having benefited from the talents of their followers, they are then likely to motivate them to be even more proactive. Introverted leaders create a virtuous circle of proactivity, in other ..
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Susan Cain |
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introverts function better than extroverts when sleep deprived, which is a cortically de-arousing condition
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Susan Cain |
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in the words of psychologists John Brebner and Chris Cooper, who have shown that extroverts think less and act faster on such tasks: introverts are "geared to inspect" and extroverts "geared to respond." But the more interesting aspect of this puzzling behavior is not what the extroverts do before they've hit the wrong button, but what they do after. When introverts hit the number nine button and find they've lost a point, they slow down be..
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Susan Cain |
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when he analyzed what the highest-performing companies had in common, the nature of their CEOs jumped out at him. Every single one of them was led by an unassuming man like Darwin Smith.
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Susan Cain |
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Imagine how much better you'll be at this sweet-spot game once you're aware of playing it. You can set up your work, your hobbies, and your social life so that you spend as much time inside your sweet spot as possible. People who are aware of their sweet spots have the power to leave jobs that exhaust them and start new and satisfying businesses. They can hunt for homes based on the temperaments of their family members--with cozy window sea..
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Susan Cain |
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Even T. S. Eliot's famous 1915 poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock--in which he laments the need to "prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet"--seems a cri de coeur about the new demands of self-presentation."
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Susan Cain |
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We tend to think of coolness as a pose that you strike with a pair of sunglasses, a nonchalant attitude, and drink in hand. But maybe we didn't choose these social accessories at random. Maybe we've adopted dark glasses, relaxed body language, and alcohol as signifiers precisely because they camouflage signs of a nervous system on overdrive. Sunglasses prevent others from seeing our eyes dilate with surprise or fear; we know from Kagan's wo..
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Susan Cain |
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Conviction is conviction, at whatever decibel level it is expressed.
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Susan Cain |
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According to Jay Belsky, a leading proponent of this view and a psychology professor and child care expert at the University of London, the reactivity of these kids' nervous systems makes them quickly overwhelmed by childhood adversity, but also able to benefit from a nurturing environment more than other children do. In other words, orchid children are more strongly affected by all experience, both positive and negative. Scientists have kn..
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Susan Cain |
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You may be so busy trying to appear like a zestful, reward-sensitive extrovert that you undervalue your own talents, or feel underestimated by those around you. But when you're focused on a project that you care about, you probably find that your energy is boundless.
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Susan Cain |
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Many introver- ted kids grow up to have excellent so- cial skills, although they tend to join groups in their own way--waiting a while before they plunge in, or particip- ating only for short periods. That's OK. Your child needs to acquire social skills and make friends, not turn into the most gregarious student in school. This doesn't mean that popularity isn't a lot of fun. You'll probably wish it for him, just as you might wish that he h..
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Susan Cain |
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Everything in the service involved communication," he says with gentle exasperation. "Greeting people, the lengthy sermon, the singing. There was no emphasis on quiet, liturgy, ritual, things that give you space for contemplation."
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Susan Cain |
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Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They're associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues; they worry about coworkers eavesdropping on their phone calls and spying on their computer screens. They have..
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Susan Cain |
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Evangelicalism has taken the Extrovert Ideal to its logical extreme, McHugh is telling us. If you don't love Jesus out loud, then it must not be real love. It's not enough to forge your own spiritual connection to the divine; Is it any wonder that introverts like Pastor McHugh start to question their own hearts?
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extroversion
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Susan Cain |
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A well-known study out of UC Berkeley by organizational behavior professor Philip Tetlock found that television pundits--that is, people who earn their livings by holding forth confidently on the basis of limited information--make worse predictions about political and economic trends than they would by random chance. And the very worst prognosticators tend to be the most famous and the most confident--the very ones who would be considered n..
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Susan Cain |
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a psychologist named Solomon Asch conducted a series of now-famous experiments on the dangers of group influence. Asch gathered student volunteers into groups and had them take a vision test. He showed them a picture of three lines of varying lengths and asked questions about how the lines compared with one another: which was longer, which one matched the length of a fourth line, and so on. His questions were so simple that 95 percent of st..
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Susan Cain |
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It can be hard for extroverts to understand how badly introverts need to recharge at the end of a busy day.
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Susan Cain |
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High-reactive kids also tend to think and feel deeply about what they've noticed, and to bring an extra degree of nuance to everyday experiences.
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Susan Cain |
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Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man's world,
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Susan Cain |
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That's because top performers overwhelmingly worked for companies that gave their workers the most privacy, personal space, control over their physical environments, and freedom from interruption. Sixty-two percent of the best performers said that their workspace was acceptably private, compared to only 19 percent of the worst performers; 76 percent of the worst performers but only 38 percent of the top performers said that people often int..
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Susan Cain |
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you want to make sure that your spouse cares what other people think. It's better to mind too much than to mind too little.
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Susan Cain |
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Aron and a team of scientists have also found that when sensitive people see faces of people experiencing strong feelings, they have more activation than others do in areas of the brain associated with empathy and with trying to control strong emotions. It's as if, like Eleanor Roosevelt, they can't help but feel what others feel.
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Susan Cain |
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Many psychologists would also agree that introverts and extroverts work differently. Extroverts tend to tackle assignments quickly. They make fast (sometimes rash) decisions, and are comfortable multitasking and risk-taking. They enjoy "the thrill of the chase" for rewards like money and status. Introverts often work more slowly and deliberately. They like to focus on one task at a time and can have mighty powers of concentration. They're r..
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Susan Cain |
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Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's capacity to act.
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flow
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Susan Cain |
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If you're thinking in more complicated ways," she told me, "then talking about the weather or where you went for the holidays is not quite as interesting as talking about values or morality."
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Susan Cain |
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Parks herself seemed aware of this paradox, calling her autobiography Quiet Strength--a title that challenges us to question our assumptions. Why shouldn't quiet be strong? And what else can quiet do that we don't give it credit for?
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Susan Cain |
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Scientists now know that the brain is incapable of paying attention to two things at the same time. What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50 percent.
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Susan Cain |
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If this is true--if solitude is an important key to creativity--then we might all want to develop a taste for it. We'd want to teach our kids to work independently. We'd want to give employees plenty of privacy and autonomy. Yet increasingly we do just the opposite.
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Susan Cain |
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Studies have shown that, indeed, introverts are more likely than extroverts to express intimate facts about themselves online that their family and friends would be surprised to read, to say that they can express the "real me" online, and to spend more time in certain kinds of online discussions. They welcome the chance to communicate digitally. The same person who would never raise his hand in a lecture hall of two hundred people might blo..
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Susan Cain |
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Maybe they're not even introverts--only 70 percent of sensitive people are, according to Aron, while the other 30 percent are extroverts (although this group tends to report craving more downtime and solitude than your typical extrovert).
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Susan Cain |
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Aron has noted that sensitive people tend to speak softly because that's how they prefer others to communicate with them.
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Susan Cain |
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One of the best things you can do for an introverted child is to work with him on his reaction to novelty. Remember that introverts react not only to new people, but also to new places and events. So don't mistake your child's caution in new situations for an inability to relate to others. He's recoiling from novelty or overstimulation, not from human contact.
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Susan Cain |
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As an introvert might be expected to do, he'd prepared thoroughly for the speech, not only rehearsing his remarks but also making sure he could cite the latest research. Even
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Susan Cain |
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He also suffered from a certain amount of what he calls "reputational confusion," in which he became known for being over-the-top effervescent, and the reputation fed on itself. This was the persona that others knew, so it was the persona he felt obliged to serve up."
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Susan Cain |
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our reverence for alpha status blinds us to things that are good and smart and wise. For
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Susan Cain |
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Men who were too quiet around women risked being thought gay; as a popular 1926 sex guide observed, "homosexuals are invariably timid, shy, retiring."
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Susan Cain |
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shy and introverted people might choose to spend their days in behind-the-scenes pursuits like inventing, or researching, or
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Susan Cain |