The Gift of Introversion

ambivert is moderately comfortable with groups and social interaction, but also relishes
time alone, away from a crowd.
Relative Prevalence
Susan Cain's 2012 book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop
Talking reports that studies indicate 33–50% of the American population are
introverts. Particular subpopulations have higher prevalence, with a 6000-subject MBTIbased
survey indicating that 60% of attorneys, and 90% of intellectual
property attorneys, are introverts.
Measurement
The extent of extraversion and introversion is most commonly assessed through selfreport
measures, although peer-reports and third-party observation can also be used.
Self-report measures are either lexical or based on statements. The type of measure
is determined by an assessment of psychometric properties and the time and space
constraints of the research being undertaken.
Lexical Measures use individual adjectives that reflect extravert and introvert traits,
such as outgoing, talkative, reserved and quiet. Words representing introversion are
reverse coded to create composite measures of extraversion/introversion running on a
continuum. Goldberg (1992) developed a 20-word measure as part of his 100-word Big
Five markers. Saucier (1994) developed a briefer 8-word measure as part of his 40-
word mini-markers. However, the psychometric properties of Saucier's original minimarkers
have been found suboptimal with samples outside of North America. As a
result, a systematically revised measure was developed to have superior psychometric
properties, the International English Mini-Markers. The International English Mini-
Markers has good internal consistency reliabilities and other validity for assessing
extraversion/introversion and other five factor personality dimensions, both within and,
especially, without American populations. Internal consistency reliability of the
Extraversion measure for native English-speakers is reported as .92, that for non-native
English-speakers is .85.
Statement Measures tend to comprise more words, and hence consume more
research instrument space, than lexical measures. Respondents are asked the extent to
which they, for example, Talk to a lot of different people at parties or Often feel
uncomfortable around others. While some statement-based measures of
extraversion/introversion have similarly acceptable psychometric properties in North
American populations to lexical measures, their generally emic development makes
them less suited to use in other populations. For example, statements asking about
talkativeness in parties are hard to answer meaningfully by those who do not attend
parties, as Americans are assumed to do. Moreover, the sometimes colloquial North
American language of statements makes them less suited to use outside America. For
instance, statements like Keep in the background and Know how to captivate
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