The Gift of Introversion

Introverts, in contrast, decorate less and tend to arrange their workspace to discourage
social interaction.
Despite these differences, a meta-analysis of 15 experience sampling studies has
suggested that there is a great deal of overlap in the way that extraverts and introverts
behave. In these studies, participants used mobile devices to report how extraverted
(e.g., bold, talkative, assertive, outgoing) they were acting at multiple times during their
daily lives. Fleeson and Gallagher (2009) found that extraverts regularly behave in an
introverted way, and introverts regularly behave in an extraverted way. Indeed, there
was more within-person variability than between-person variability in extraverted
behaviors. The key feature that distinguishes extraverts and introverts was that
extraverts tend to act moderately extraverted about 5–10% more often than introverts.
From this perspective, extraverts and introverts are not "fundamentally different".
Rather, an "extravert" is just someone who acts more extraverted more often,
suggesting that extraversion is more about
what one "does" than
what one "has".
Additionally, a study by Lippa (1978) found
evidence for the extent to which individuals
present themselves in
a different way. This is
called expressive behavior, and it is
dependent upon the
individuals' motivation
and ability to control that behavior.
Lippa (1978) examined 68 students
who were asked to role-play by
pretending to teach a math class.
The students' level of extraversion and
introversion were rated based on their
external/expressive
behaviors such as stride
length, graphic
expansiveness,
the
percentage of time they spent
talking, the amount of time they spent making eye contact, and the total time of each
teaching session. This study found that actual introverts were perceived and judged as
having more extraverted-looking expressive behaviors because they were higher in
terms of their self-monitoring. This means that the introverts consciously put more effort
into presenting a more extraverted, and rather socially desirable, version of themselves.
Thus, individuals are able to regulate and modify behavior based on their environmental
situations.
Humans are complex and unique, and because introversion-extraversion varies along a
continuum, individuals may have a mixture of both orientations. A person who acts
introverted in one situation may act extraverted in another, and people can learn to act
in "counter-dispositional" ways in certain situations. For example, Brian Little's free trait
theory suggests that people can take on "Free Traits", behaving in ways that may not be
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