The Gift of Introversion

Mistaking introversion for shyness is a common error. Introversion is a preference, while
shyness stems from distress. Introverts prefer solitary to social activities, but do not
necessarily fear social encounters like shy people do. Susan Cain argues that modern
Western culture misjudges the capabilities of introverted people, leading to a waste of
talent, energy and happiness. Cain describes how society is biased against introverts,
and that, with people being taught from childhood that to be sociable is to be happy,
introversion is now considered "somewhere between a disappointment and
pathology". In contrast, Cain says that introversion is not a "second-class" trait but that
both introverts and extraverts enrich society, with examples including the introverts J. K.
Rowling, Avicii, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Seuss, W. B.
Yeats, Steven Spielberg and Larry Page.
Ambiversion
Although many people view being introverted or extraverted as mutually exclusive, most
contemporary trait theories measure levels of extraversion-introversion as part of a
single, continuous dimension of personality, with some scores near one end, and others
near the half-way mark. Ambiversion is falling more or less directly in the middle. An
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