For my entire life, I’ve considered myself an extrovert. When I’m around people I know, I feel pretty comfortable making myself known. However, in my recent personality psychology class, we went over the differences between introversion and extraversion, and the problems with how people self-identify into these categories.
As an exercise, the professor had us each think of a word we associated with extraversion. The results were words like fun, bubbly, outgoing and friendly. Then, we did the same exercise for introversion; the results came out to be words like solitude, shy, anxious and brooding. These associations seemed overwhelmingly more negative, even though this class consisted of primarily self-identifying introverts. It made me wonder why people think of these two traits so differently.
Because I often find myself going out and mingling, it’s always seemed obvious to me that I would be considered an extrovert. On the other hand, I have a highly sensitive social battery and need plenty of time alone to recharge myself to enter those situations. I beat myself up whenever I want a night in and have to force myself to get ready and go out with friends, especially my first semester of college.
According to Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, these details would make me a textbook introvert. His theory states that introversion is defined by those who are “recharged” or energized by their alone time, and extraversion involves those who are recharged through their time in social situations.
This distinction made me realize that maybe I had been inclined to define myself as an extrovert because of the associations people have with each group. Extroverts always want to be going out and having fun, and introverts do not. Could it really be that black and white? To clarify, there is nothing wrong with not wanting to go out as much, but is it possible that introverts identify themselves as extroverts because they associate introversion with being “boring”?
In my opinion, how we choose to categorize ourselves sometimes causes us to act in certain ways to try and fit better into our selected category. Much beyond the labels of extrovert and introvert (which may only matter to nerdy psych majors like me), deciding to try to fit into a box as to how you’re supposed to live your social life may make it much more difficult for you to indulge in new experiences.
Different people can fit into several different places at different times in their lives. We are complicated. The best way to go about your social life is to listen to your body when you need a break. Introverts are capable of loving going out and just need some time to recharge. Extroverts are capable of preferring to stay in and relax once in a while.
You should do what feels best for you at that moment and not worry about if it fits into the idea of what you should do according to a category you think you should fit into. It is entirely possible that these labels don’t affect some people’s perceptions of themselves, but questioning these basic labels has implications for our human tendency to categorize ourselves forcefully.
We want to be a certain thing, so we act a certain way, and not vice versa. Maybe everyone would be more comfortable if we took the pressure off of labels and worked on trusting our natural selves more.