July 25, 2015 • 71 mins
We have Dr. Luke Smillie on the podcast to elucidate the research and conceptualizations surrounding introversion and extraversion. Topics include psychometrics, well-being, cultural values, neurochemistry personality traits, nature vs. nurture and much more. With this episode we wanted to clear up controversy and delve deep into this hot topic to help the listener get the lay of the land. We hope you enjoy!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain,
behavior and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest
who will stimulate your mind and give you a greater
understanding of yourself, others, and the world we live in.
Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Today we have
(00:35):
Luke Smiley on the podcast. Luke is a personality researcher
and senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne. He runs
the Personality Processes Lab. Luke, Hey, Scott, great to have
you on here. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, so
you teach a course and happiness? Is that right? I
(00:57):
teach across several courses, largely in personality and social psychology,
but in some of those subjects. Yeah, teach some lectures
into well being and happiness, and I've run a few
seminars on that. Yeah. And it's great that they have
Professor Smiley in the course. Yeah, it's a nice little coincidence,
(01:19):
A big attraction to the course. I find a research
really quite fascinating and debunking a lot of the myths
about personality variation, particularly in the introversion extroversion dimension. I'm
very interested in the core aspects differentiating introverts from extverts
because people talk about all these kinds of differences in
at comvits there. You know, these things in the popular
(01:41):
media really are the core essential aspects. I thought today
we could really get to the nitty gritty of this. Yeah, yeah,
it sounds good. I mean, that's yeah. I mean that's
something that interests me as well. The disconnect between the
popular conception of what extra version introversion is, which is
is it's really probably the personality trait that's become a
(02:05):
household name, and yet the way in which it's defined
in the popular sphere is well, it differs from one
person to another, but it also differs sharply with the
definition that's being used in psychological science. So I think
there's a lot of confusion around the it's right. I mean,
how do we objectively know who's right? I mean, you
(02:27):
guys could be wrong. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. I mean
I don't think anyone that really owns the you know,
can sort of claim that they own the term and
that their definition is correct. Yeah. Have you so? Have
you read Susan Kane's book Quiet? Yeah? I've read Susan
Kaines quiet yeap, what are your thoughts on that on
some of the conceptualizations of introversion. I mean, I think
(02:50):
that I think the books really it's its value, I suppose,
is that there are a lot of people who identify
as an introvert in the way that she defines introversion
and feel maybe marginalized or just not not sort of
(03:13):
part of not as well accepted by particularly Western society,
where extraversion and traits surrounding confidence and talkativeness and outgoingness
are really valued. So I think the book really speaks
for a lot of people who who are maybe you know,
(03:37):
tired of the what might be perceived to be the
most desirable characteristics to have, and she's basically saying, oh, well,
there are these other characteristics that people have that can
be really valuable too. So that's that's what I think
I really like about the book. Yeah, I mean powering
(04:00):
to a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean
the disagreement that I guess a lot of people in
personality would have is again around that that definition of
of introversion. And yeah, I mean there's that's not to
say the one you know, who's right and who's wrong there.
(04:22):
But it's more, I mean, you could think of it
more as a translation. So when I read Susan Kine's work,
I'm really interpreting it as a combination of of low
introversion as well as some other traits such as open
you mean, well, extroversion, sorry, low, yes, introversion, low extroversion.
(04:44):
So when she's talking about introversion, I am indeed interpreting
it as introversion, but with some other traits surrounding openness
and and also conscientiousness and neuroticism, yeah, nervousism too, so
basically all of personality. Yeah yeah, and there are some
(05:09):
occasionally I also see elements of agreeableness there with being
She often talks about introverts as being more sort of
sensitive to others and more thoughtful and aware of how
they're impacting on others, and that's sounding a little bit
like agreeableness as well. So I guess the main disagreement
(05:31):
would be that I think there are clearly many people
who fit her a definition of introversion, but I don't
think that there that trait she's talking about is a
sort of exists as a basic dimension of personality. That's
where the divergences, I guess between the popula of the
(05:52):
term and the terms it's used in psychological science. Let
me say something here. You know, it's possible that even
if all the traits and characteristics she puts under the
umbrella of introversion don't cohere scientifically as a single source
of variation, that doesn't necessarily follow that they don't all
belong under the label of introversion. That becomes a conceptual issue. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
(06:16):
And you know what I mean, I would say that
the I mean, my preference would actually be that psychologists
didn't use the term introversion. Yeah, I mean, it's just
sort of stuck. I think it's going to It would
take a while to it's such an ingrained term because
(06:36):
the dimension has been around for sixty seventy years in
personality psychology. But I think it's not. I mean, it
means inward focusing, doesn't it. But it's introversion has described
as defined by psychologists, is more about just being less active,
less bold, less talkative, less social, more quiet, and so
(07:00):
for there's nothing necessarily about inwardness. So I actually quite
like the term. I can't remember where he suggested it,
but mutual colleague Colin de Young has suggested a term detachment.
And you can see why people who identify as introverts
(07:22):
really take issue with the way we describe introverts because
they're probably saying, now, this sounds like people are really
kind of detached and lethargic. We're not solving that sounds
and you know, we say, but we're not talking about
you guys. Yes, right, it does get very tricky. I
(07:45):
I've had the great pleasure of collaborating with Susan Keenan
her research and her team there. This is the new
the thing. She just looks the quite quite revolution la,
the quite relish. We came up with a new test
of introversion, which you know, Collins like, okay with it.
(08:06):
You know, so it's got it's got some you know,
and you know an Adam Granite Penn really likes the model.
Let me tell you the two aspects that we came
up with. Let me see if I can guess. Oh
my gosh, I'd love to see it if you guess.
And just so you know, I saw the website. I
saw the website and I am I scrolled through the
items and they're definitely two facets there, and one of
(08:27):
them I would say is is classic intro lower sociability idea,
and the other is more something more of what I
would say is related to conscientiousness, persistence or something like that. Okay,
so that's you almost nailed it well. The second ask,
(08:48):
the second aspect is deliberation. Deliberation, yeah, versus action need
for deliberation versus you know, tendency towards action immediately without
thinking through the consequence. So there's this kind of risk
taking as self control aspect to it. Yeah, and that
kind of that that sort of resonates with with how
(09:09):
Susan talks about introversion of the book. But introverts are
these sort of quiet but determined people or people who
basically think things through before doing it. You don't just
blurt things out and fly up the handle. They they're
(09:30):
kind of considered quiet and considered people. That's right, and
that aspect is not very well captured on the Big Five,
just at the higher order level. Yeah, I'm trying to
think now about how the sort of lower level traits
of the aspect of facet level of the Big Five
would correlate and even at the aspect level of the
(09:51):
b fast model, like conscientiousness, you have orderliness, and orderliness
and ambition or something like that, Like that's seriousness industriousness. Right,
it still doesn't quite fit even in those two. Yeah,
you know, it's even lower than that. But yeah, I
mean I was just because one of the things, of course,
is that components of the Big five are are not
(10:14):
as independent as people often assume will describe them to
be exactly. So, I mean you do have this these
sort of margins where some aspects are facets of one
Big five train of highly correlated with another. Yeah. So
you know, you constantly see that that low extra version
(10:36):
is correlated with very strongly positively related to the withdrawal
aspect of neuroticism. And we're talking like we found you know,
point six zero correlations there in large samples. Yeah. You
can't ignore that, you can't deny that. Yeah yeah yeah.
And so in that first, let's talk about the first
aspect of our model, which you described as like sociability
(10:59):
to and I it does that is that aspect correlates
much much more highly with a Big Five extra version
than the deliberation one. However, I don't think you know,
we call it stimulation we think it goes it goes
above just sociability to this general sort of reward sensitivity,
and you know, and and and that really gets to the
(11:19):
the heart of a lot of the research you've been
doing on extra version. So that might be a good
segue into maybe you can explain a little bit how
you've tried to tackle the question of what is extraversion?
What is the core psychological mechanism underlining extra version. Yeah,
the reward sensitivity theory is one that I've I've definitely
(11:44):
become persuaded by the reward sensitivity theory of extraversion, and
I kind of got to that point what you in
a way that you might describe as a kind of
bottom operapproach that I was very interested in in theories
that had suggested that that variation in the functioning of
(12:07):
the brain's reward system would likely have consequences for personality.
That is, if they were kind of individual differences in
how motivated people were by rewards, and that that that
that should come out somewhere as a major trait or
that should be related to a major aspect of that personality.
And in the nineties and the early two thousands, there
(12:32):
was a lot of there still wasn't much consensus about
what that trait might look like. Some people were saying
in prosivity, and some people had said extraversion. And and
I was at that in the early two thousands. You know,
(12:55):
the question that motivated me, or that interested me, if
you like, is what is the what is the trait
that's really reflecting these differences in reward sensitivity? And I
think ten years on, my impression is that there's really
now a lot of consensus around reward sensitivity being one
of the key underlying mechanisms that accounts for differences in
(13:22):
extra version. Yes, you said there is a consensus, right,
I think so I feel that that you. I don't
sort of see any evidence of any sort of debate
or discussion around It's kind of become definitional now when
people describe what extraversion is, if they get anywhere into
(13:44):
the theory about it, they're usually saying reward sensitivity or
our approach, motivation and sort of related mechanisms usually get
at a mention. So I agree, Now, let's be very clear,
we're talking about competitive rewards. Yeah, you know, we're about
like you know, like money, sex, you know, uh, power, Yeah,
(14:11):
all these things that narcissists like so, I find it
interesting there's a very hard correlation between grandiose narcissism and extraversion,
probably some mechanisms that play there, which is not surprising,
and that, Yeah, not to go too much on a tangent,
but that I think one of the other, because we're
(14:32):
talking about conceptualizing extraversion introversion before and one of the
conceptual confusions or clarifications. I think that's something needed. People
interpret extra version as basically being kind of nice and friendly.
There's that blurring between extraversion and agreeableness. But I think
in an important sense, a lot of what's underlying extraversion
(14:55):
is social. Yeah, is just attention and and uh and
and well even selfishness and uh, a strong focus on
gains for oneself. It's such a good point. Such, so
good a point. Yeah, and then of course you get
(15:18):
these blends where you can get high agreeableness and high
extra version and then yeah, and then it has a
different flavor than very low extra version and very high agreeableness.
It kind of that kind of these people looked at
they not look different, but they act differently, They act differently,
they work different. Some have a bitterer forehead. You know,
(15:38):
it's this extra vision agreeableness distinction sometimes really vexes some
of my students, and I mean, I forget the question,
can you you know, can you even have a person
who's really extroverted but really low and agreeableness? And my
favorite joke, apologies, my favorite joke is yeah, of course
(16:01):
you can. They're ever in the business school. Yeah, they're
very urgentic, Yeah yeah, very agentic. Yeah. So you know,
it's very interesting how all these blends can you know?
Can can? Well, basically, we're just saying that people are complex.
(16:22):
We're saying that, and that's that's also I think, you know,
maybe it's an obvious point, but it's also why people
have even when they know a lot about models of personality,
they might have a little bit of difficulty describing themselves
because they're often they're trying to think of these traits
in isolation, whereas when you for each individual there they're
(16:46):
complex blends of these traits in most instances. Absolutely, you know,
I want to bequre this new test of introversion that
we came up with, it was built completely from a
self identification of introversion perspective, you know, it was we
wanted to see which items would correlate most strongly with
the item I identify as an introvert. All right, that's
(17:08):
a really interesting approach. Yeah, so it's a different kind
of approach. And the Big Five took and we specifically
for the purposes of creating a scale that that interests
cauldly identify with, and we found that those were the two.
So it's the scientific finding there that might be useful
a field is we found these two aspects really get
the core of what every day people think of when
(17:29):
they think of introversion. Yeah, okay, that's interesting because if
I were to if I were to have made a prediction,
I would have expected so you know, in Big five terms,
this measure that you have is is like a blend
of components of extraversion and components of conscientiousness. Right, what
(17:51):
I would have expected in Big five terms, there's a
blend of extraversion and openness. Because the popular conceptualization of
the introversion is often this kind of inward person who
enjoys their inner mental life, is very curious and not
(18:12):
just sort of quiet and and more reserved, but very
you know, it loves reading and loves it about ideas
and all of these Uh, these these characteristics you're linked
with openness. But keep keep in mind that the the
the way that the items if you actually look at
the needy, gritty items, there aren't any items like I
(18:34):
love to read, you know. Yeah, so if you just
if you think about it for a second, we found that,
you know, in the BFS mode and the big aspects,
the openest experience to me and has intellect and openness, right,
And we found that our scale is negatively correlated with
intellect but positively correlated with openness because the kinds of
items on the intellect scale or I'm a quick thinker,
(18:55):
I like quickly thinking. Well, well that's a complete odds
with with people say I like to deliberate before I think.
So I think that this scale kind of highlights the
important the distinction, the importance in between quick thinking and
deep thinking or reflective reflective thinking. Yeah, that makes sense,
so you will. So that's why we don't find our scale.
(19:16):
If you look at the higher order level of openness
to experience, you get nothing. But it's only really when
you break it into the two aspects then you find
like it is positive core with openness. Things like I
see beauty, you know, I'm very sensitive to the environment.
And we also find that our you know, first aspect
of stimulation is very highly related to the withdrawal aspect
(19:37):
of neuroticism and the highly sensitive person scale that has
been created by the irons. So there is this course,
there is this sensitivity aspect that is You're right, it
is part of self identification of introversion. But you really
kindly see that when you separate out the intellect kind
of items. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Yes, I'm so
(20:00):
glad you find that interesting. Yeah, but a lot of
this stuff, you know, it really does get definitional and conceptual.
There is no objective truth of what the real introversion
is like. Will the real introversion stand up? Yeah, yeah,
I mean, which is why that's that's why I think
in some ways I'm not saying everybody should stop using
(20:24):
the label, but it's it's become a troublesome term because
it's because it has so many different It does have
quite a few different conceptualizations, I mean, at least troublesome
in in in the context of the goals of personality research,
(20:48):
I suppose I hear intelligence researchers make the same argument
about intelligence. Yeah. Yeahs like Scott, shut up, shut up,
You're making it harder for us to measure g And
it's like, you know, well, I'm that were like disrupting
your science. But there are real people out there in
the world who this this these conceptualizations affect their lives,
(21:10):
you know what I mean. But I mean, I like,
I totally see it from the point of view the scientists,
because I am a scientist too. But yeah, I mean
these these these these these impact, these labels do mean
something to people. Yeah, so yeah, I you know, how
how do you spot an extrovert or know if you
are one? Well, yeah, I mean I'm gonna I'm gonna
(21:37):
obviously steak to the Big five definition again. But I
mean there's a whole area of research that I haven't
I haven't really I haven't done any research necessarily myself.
But that I've that have found really interesting is is
in personality judgments, which is really which is really about
(22:00):
how how accurately can someone perceive your personality from the outside.
Extra Version is always found to be the most easily
judged or actually, accuracy is not really the right way
to talk about it. You really talk about consensus. So
(22:22):
if I how close a match is there between how
you describe yourself on extraversion and how others describe you
on extra version. And even if that person has never
even met you, and they just see you in a
very you know, have been for maybe five minutes, they
(22:46):
will get reasonable levels of consensus. They will very quickly
be able to pick up on how extroverted you are.
And that's because most of the components of extraversion our
behavioral visible and so it's quite I mean, I actually
(23:08):
had a probably the episode that really convinced me that
it sounds like a funny thing to say, but their
personality was real. So I feel like, unknowingly for a while,
like when I was doing my PhD personality traits, these
were just sort of variables. These were hypothetical variables. I
never really thought of them as being sort of real
(23:29):
things about real people. And then I was doing a
study where I had extreme scores on extraversion high and
low coming into the lab and it was for an
EEG study, and it takes about sort of a half
hour to get everything ready for the EG study, to
put the electrode cap on and to do a range
(23:50):
of things, and I found I was blind to. I
didn't know how when they came into the lab, I
didn't know what their score was, what group they belonged
to when they were hire a low, But I knew
about two minutes later because the extroverts were so talkative
and so engaged and so kind of wired almost you
(24:14):
just knew immediately who was in the high extrovert group.
So I think it's actually very easy to spot an extrovert. Yeah, yeah,
at the extremes. And I think this brings an interesting
question is what is an ambrovert? What do you believe
in the idea of an ambrovert, and what do you
say most people really are ambroverts? Yeah, yeah, I would.
(24:37):
I mean, I don't think there's I mean, the whole
time we've been saying extrovert an introvert, they're just shorthands.
Of course, there are no categories, and you know, by
the same token, I wouldn't sort of say there's a
sort of a category in the middle of ambiverts. But
(24:58):
most people, the majority people will not be at the extremes.
By definition, They're going to be somewhere around the middle.
And maybe that's another reason why it's often hard to
identify that that's that's where it might be hard to
identify somebody who's as more or less excerated, because they
might not be more or less exuated. They might be
(25:19):
somewhere in the middle. And that's where the majority of
people get full. Okay. And so there's this, like, you know,
trying to figure out some of these defining characteristics something
a lot of introverts say, you know, it really is
about how you recharge your batteries, Like do you get
energized by people or to get energy or to get
(25:42):
not the opposite of energize's it's the opposite of the
word energized. What's the opposite of that, de energized? Sorry,
do you mean extras being energized? Yes, I just here
energized by people, by people, by by vigorous social interactions. Yeah,
I mean I think I would say that it's maybe
(26:05):
not inherently social. It happens that I this brings us
back to I think the idea of getting energized by
social interactions is ultimately consistent with the reward sensitivity idea.
So the reward sensitivity idea I've sort of described as
extroverts basically get more banged for the fuck they get
(26:25):
a lot more of that positive enjoyment out of rewarding
stimulated situations. And I just think one of the most
important rewarding situations for human beings are social situations. Human
contact is rewarding. Many of the rewards we obtained we
get via humans, or they're somehow embedded in social construct
(26:49):
some examples. Well, you mentioned power for example, So power
and status is rewarding and desirable, and it's inherently embedded
in social context. But also people are I don't I
don't want to sort of describe people as a means
to an end, but you rely on people to get
(27:11):
many of the things you want. It's very difficult to
get many of the things you want just on your own.
So whether it be you know, getting it to get
promoted at work you need there's there's somebody who needs
to to actually give you that promotion. So I think
people are a lot of a lot of rewards we
(27:32):
depend on people to get, and a lot of rewards
are embedded in social processes themselves. That's an excellent point,
And Okay, I'm really interested in that because I think
for a lot of people, extraversion is quintessentially social. That
I'm interested in. And this is something I think is
(27:53):
really hard to disentangle. Is is it is? Is it? So?
You have some people who who who their kind of
version of the reward sensitivity theory of extraversion is are
that the mechanism underlying extraversion is a mechanism for attracting
social attention. So that that's sort of that's that's saying
the core of extraversion, it's really driven by some essentially
(28:17):
social mechanism, Right, But I wonder if if, if if
it's broader than that, and it just as I said,
it just happens that that so much of what we're
motivated by is is somehow embedded within or connected to
social processes. Yeah, this is a this is an ongoing debate.
(28:39):
You know, there was that study where they try to
measure the social aspect and remove the reward value the
way the items ordered, and you know, Colin and I
looked at those items were like, wait a minute, these
are its actually all just extraversion items. So they're just like, yeah,
this is the one maybe about ten years ago. Yeah,
(29:00):
because there was this back and forth with other you know,
the other research saying I think the cue is this,
I think the cues this. You know, it's rewards instead,
you know, it's social attention. Yeah, it is hard to
really pinpoint you and and and you know when we
say the the core, what we're what we're saying, you know,
to translate into into science language, we're just four saying
(29:20):
what's the common variance? Yeah, that's what we're saying. That's
not really intuitive to the everyday person. What that What
that means? Common variance? You know? Yeah, I mean I
think there may be two ways of the two things
that were interested in on the science side, and there's
the common variant. So that's really what I guess that's
(29:45):
the defining characteristics. I suppose, well, what the what the
central you know, if extra version is really a cluster
of characteristics and traits, what is the the core of
those characteristics and traits? But I think another thing is
almost at a kind of different level. It's kind of
what's underlying or producing this, what accounts for these traits
(30:11):
clustering together so closely. And that's just going back to
the reward sensitivity idea again. I mean, that's one thing
that I find really compelling about the idea of extraversion
being underpinned by the motivation to pursue all kinds of rewards,
(30:31):
because I think many of the key traits and characteristics
that are kind of bound up in extra version can
be their coherence, the common denominator they have. It seems
plausible that that could be approach motivation of the desire
(30:52):
to see rewards. So everything from you know, sociability because
of all the what we just discussed with reward being
im bettered in social context or behavioral activity, to achievement,
to social dominance, talkativeness and positive affect yeah, leadership assertiveness. Yeah,
(31:18):
that's right. It's it's also hard to distinguish between they
like statements that are just like part of the human
condition versus differentiating real like variation, because like when you
say something like sometimes that could be really extroverted, but
sometimes I like to relax quietly home. Yeah, it's like
(31:38):
who is like gonna say, Oh, that's not me at all,
Like that's such a that's just called being like freaking human.
Yeah yeah right, yeah, yes, So how can you work?
Do you only really get it when you ward things?
Like I prefer on average two you know, we're talking
about we're talking about average, we're talking about absolutes. Yeah,
(31:59):
I mean, I think, I mean, I hope I'm on
the right track. I think I think there are sort
of two things that relate to what you're saying there,
and one is I think when people are responding to
one is how we measure how we typically measure personality
with a questionnaire, And if you focus on any one item, yeah,
(32:21):
you're right, it seems like, well, yeah, any anyone could
agree with this, or it might depend on the day
whether I agree with this or not. And and that
that really sort of I think that underlies a lot
of doubt about how well you can measure personality with
these questionnaire items. And I guess what I always encourage
(32:45):
people to think about is, I mean, yeah, that you
can you can take issue with any one item, but
over over sort of twenty of these, if you've consistently
agreed with all kinds of different items about the kind
of characteristic then then maybe that is starting to say
something meaningful about you. Yeah, just I was going to say.
(33:10):
The other the other point that maybe relates to what
you were saying is is the I really like the
approach of Will Fleeson, who was just going to say yeah,
who really formalizes so we've we've kind of tended to
(33:31):
conceptualize personality traits as these regularities in the way you
behave and regularities and behavior and experience. And he's kind
of formalized it by saying, yeah, you know, we're our
behavior and experience. So take characteristics relating to extraversion, dominance,
and talkativeness. That's actually varying for everyone all over the place,
(33:51):
across time, across situations. But if you look back over
though that that time period, you'll you'll you'll see that
people have a sort of an average level. And you're saying,
that's what we're talking about. If you if your average
level is relatively high, then then you are by definition
relatively extroverted, even if you spent many times during the
week being quite talkative or you know, whether you're being
(34:14):
talkative or not, whether you're being relaxed or really outgoing. Yeah,
I really like that approach. It really is. The end
of the day, your personality is is simply your habits
of behavior and average like that, that's all your personality is.
It's it's like you can change your personality literally if
you like change your habits, you know, Yeah, yeah, there's
(34:39):
a really I don't know if you've seen this. There's
a really amazing paper. It's sort of amazing in a
way that it's taken so long for a paper like
this to come out, But it's it's just following up
people who who who want to make certain changes to
their personality and and I mean, without going into all
the details of just it shows what people have suspected
(35:03):
for a while, the volitional change in personality is possible.
And yeah, yeah, and you know, in the case of
extra version, I mean that may be, as you say,
just sort of cultivating a bit your ways of behaving.
So can you make yourself more extroverted? Yeah, I mean
I think, I mean the kind of I think that's
(35:29):
a common goal, particularly when for people who have maybe
jobs or situations in which it can be more advantageous
to be a little more bold and dominant and talkative.
So like being a lecturer, I'm probably I think overall,
(35:51):
I'm probably slightly low on extra version, maybe middling to
middling to just below average, made you but it's it's
it's helpful. I mean, I can be a better lecturer
if I behave in a more extradded way. And I
(36:12):
think you cultivate. People can cultivate these ways of behaving
in particular situations. But I guess people may also have
for whatever reason, they may feel like it would be
better if they were higher or lower extroversion. Maybe they
feel they could just be more outgoing and and and energized,
(36:34):
and they can cultivate different ways of behaving. Can you
make yourself more introverted? I guess so. I mean, certainly
the sort of studies that I've been interested in. Again,
it was Will Fleeson who developed this paradigm, and I've
had a couple of studies in this area as well.
(36:55):
We're just a in a small lab context where they're
as an interactive exercise that a few people are working on.
You can just instruct people to behave in ways that
are more characteristic of being either extroverted or introverted, and
I mean people people will behave behave in those ways,
(37:17):
and you see effects of acting in a more extroverted
way that are reminiscent of actually being more extroverted. Okay,
which is quite interesting. I guess that that whole area
of research basically suggests that if extraversion is just typically
(37:38):
it is just the kind of you're an average level
of certain behaviors and experiences, and if you if you
actually engage or disengage in those behaviors, then on average,
you by definition, will be lower on lower higher an extroversion.
That's right, That's that's exactly right. I agree. And it
(38:00):
doesn't mean that if you're an introvert, you know, meaning
you score them extremely high in introversion on the Bell curve,
that doesn't mean that you never have extroverted behaviors. No, no,
And that's that's another I mean, that's kind of why
I like this approach of Will Fleeson's in talking about
your average levels, because you know, a typical response when
(38:25):
people learn about personality might be, but you know, I'm
I would say, I'm quite introverted. But there are plenty
of times where I'm you know, I'll be at a
at a party and I'll be being really gregarious and
love being in the center of attention at that particular point,
and We'll be really talking with all my friends, and
(38:46):
but I'm just not like that all the time. That's right,
and and that that definition allows for that. You go, yeah,
you know, being an introvert does not mean you have
an inability to be more extroverted. It just means you
have a tendency to be less extruded. Well, you know,
I find it interesting that introversion is is correlated with
(39:08):
deficits in social intelligence tests. So maybe there is something
going on there which the less you exercise it, the
less developed those skills are. Yeah. Possibly. I always find
that very interesting, even though of course I don't want
to stereotype. There's plenty of introverts with great social skills,
but you do find that correlation. Yeah, it's interesting, And
(39:31):
I haven't I haven't sort of seen a really clear
picture of what's going on there. The literature seems sort
of fragmented there. That there's there's a paper a long
time ago that that found some evidence for the idea
that it may not be social skills per se, that
that introverts lack, but that extras are a little bit
(39:56):
better at at at multitasking, and that a lot of
what's required in social interaction requires you to keep track
of a lot of different pieces of information. You've got
to be keeping track of what you're saying, what the
other person's saying, when it's your turn to talk, and
so forth, and so it may I mean, there's basically
(40:18):
some indication that there are a few I guess more
cognitive skills that may vary with extra version that actually
may explain some of those more social the parent differences
in social skills. That's very interesting, you know that the
(40:42):
it's very fragmented. I haven't seen much on that topic,
to be honest, There certainly needs to be more research
on it. I find it very interesting that there's such
a strikingly high correlation between the autism spectrum, cautient and introversion. Yeah,
it's very very high. Yeah, and that I identify a
(41:06):
really good hypothesis about that, except just two. I mean,
it may be the case that there are kind of
there are multiple ways in which you can be less
talkative and sociable and engaged and and so forth. And
(41:28):
and the autism question that may be picking up more
on a you would you would expect that if picking
up more on on kind of skill deficits and and
cognitive capacities, whereas introversion may be a little bit more
(41:48):
about about sort of preferences and the habitual ways of behaving.
I like that. I like that model a lot. There's
much more mouths to these these different traits. Yeah, which
I guess, which is, you know, the the Thornia side
of of personality. I mean, you could just you could say, oh,
it's as simple as that. If you if you don't,
(42:11):
if you're not very bold and assertive and talkative and
behavioral active, then then you're introutive. But there could be
many reasons why somebody is not bold, assertive and talkative. Right,
So is it better to be more extroverted or interrouted? Yeah,
that's a that's that's probably the question that the popular
(42:36):
writers on introversion really really hate what. I imagine they
really dislike what the what A lot of research is
shown about extroversion. Well, yeah, a lot of researchers have
shown that extraversion is correlated with higher well being, right, Yeah, yeah,
that's that's exactly right. And and and yeah, there's a
(42:56):
lot of people who who you know, self identify as
an new rote and don't really like that idea. And
there's there's a great book chapter by John Zelenski at
Carlton or Carleton Carlton University in Canada which kind of
walks through all of the objections to this idea that
(43:22):
extra rets are happy, you know, perhaps happy or higher
on measures of well being. You sent me there, Yeah,
I will send it to you. It's it's really, it's
really I think it's a nice instructional chapter because it
kind of it kind of goes through each different objection
one by one. But I mean, I think I think
(43:45):
that the research is pretty clear it's ex orasion for
one of the strongest predictors of the range of well
being constructs. But I think the caveat maybe or or
the the thing that I guess the thing to bear
in mind is, I think there are a couple of
things to bear in mind which may make you come
(44:10):
short of saying that it's that it's therefore better to
be higher an extra version. One. One thing is that
the aspects of well being that extra version predict most
clearly are really those intense positive emotions the what what's
(44:32):
something called activated positive affect. There's feelings of liveliness and
excitement and enthusiasm that aroused positive affict and and if
you if you kind of narrow the focus to that,
then it's it's not immediately clear that that is uh,
(44:52):
you know, the be All and mend All. In fact,
there's there's some evidence that people lower an extra version
or more introverted people actually prefer lower levels of those
intense positive states anyway, right right, And Susan would make
that point. Yeah, yeah, I mean that that would be
that I think is probably Yeah, the main reason that
(45:19):
you would maybe why come a little bit short of saying, oh,
it's therefore better to be more extroverted, because it's I
guess because extra resion is not only correlated with the
levels of those positive emotions, but also the preferences for
those levels exactly exactly they actually be. I mean, on
(45:41):
the one idea of find interesting is that so we've
talked about how you can act more or less extraverted,
and one idea of find interesting is that the way
people habitually act is a that it can partly function
as a mood regulation strategy. So extroverts may behave in
(46:03):
a way that routinely brings them to these higher levels
of positive emotion that they prefer, while introverts may routinely
behave in a way that keeps them at those slightly
lower levels of these these particular positive emotions. Yeah, there's
two projects I want to work on with some students
(46:25):
over the course the next year. One is maybe cataloging
some of the more quiet positive emotions like contentments. Yeah,
and that and that is not well, this is this
paper that that Colin and I, Colin de Young and
I've worked on last year. Those emotions are not really
(46:48):
those positive emotions are not really predicted by extroversion at all.
That's really important finding, I think, Yeah, I mean, my
my sort of take on that issue. It's it's one
of those It really was one of those situations where
it was hard to know whether I was confused or
whether there was a confusion in the literature. And so
(47:09):
either the paper clarifies something for the literature or just
clarified my own confusion, and the confusion is. Yeah, that
people use the word positive emotions to refer to actually
quite a wide range of constructs, and those quieter positive emotions,
if you mentioned the only time, the only way in
(47:36):
which that seems to be related to higher extraversion is
as a result of extrarets tending to be a little
bit lower on some aspects of neurosism. So basically, once
you control for neuroticism, there's really no relation between extraversion
and those kind of quiet, content, satisfied, relaxed mood says,
(48:02):
do you mean like you're basical controlling for emotional stability. Yeah, yeah,
not the other end, like yeah, yeah, yeah right, because
you would you would think those emotions would be correlated
with emotional stability. Yeah yeah, yeah, well that makes that
makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I don't like this
question of which which is better, which personality trait is better,
(48:25):
because we're talking, we're talking about you know, that's ignoring blends,
that's ignoring the all. If there's no all also being equal,
you know, all's being equal in the real world, doesn't
really make sense. Yeah, I really, I don't know. I
kind of explain why I'm really. I mean, I have
the same reaction. I don't like talking about better or
worse ends of different personality traits, and that's that's for
(48:49):
that reason. One of the kind of finding that I
really enjoy when I when I see it come out
in a in a paper is where a trait that
you normally think of is well, that many people think
of as being like the bad end, turns out turns
out that's some advantage or or a so called good
trait turns out to predict something undesirable. And I just
(49:12):
like those reminders that there's there's really there are strengths
and weaknesses of of of high or low ends of
any characteristic. I don't think overall any with the exception
that I think it's you know, there there are very
few advantages to being high in eurobicism or lower and
emotional stability. With that exception, maybe I think that that
(49:35):
all traits are really positive, or both ends of all
traits have really really positive. I don't know. Tell some
of the greatest poets of all time that their high
neuroticism was a disadvantage to their poetry. Yeah, yeah, I think,
I think. I mean this is just totally anecdotal, but
(49:59):
you when thinking about historical characters and characters in film
and literature, I think you often see the uh you
see it. They often tend to you would characterize as
high in eu auticism. But I think you would also
characterize and as being high openness as well. Most in
(50:25):
culmination get blended together. I think that's absolutely true, and
specifically the openness aspect. Yeah, I agree. I agree. This
has been such a fascinating conversation. I want to be
respectable of all your time, but we haven't gotten to
the neurochemistry yet and all that. Yeah, so what is
(50:47):
the role of nature and nurture in determining introversion. I
think we can pretty much say that there's a mix
of both. But do you think to some extent introversion
next version can be it fooced all by how you're
treated by your peers when you're younger. I mean, I
guess there's there's some there's I've seen a few ideas
(51:12):
along those lines. For example, that there are often I
think extra reds tend to be slightly taller, and there's
a there's a sort of a maybe it's sort of
a wacky fringe idea that the differences in the height
of them impact on how you're treated growing up, maybe
(51:35):
by your peers, and and that that may have a
role in the the development of a more sort of
introverted I guess, a less more or less dominant personality.
So that I mean, there are some ideas that I've
seen along those lines, But I guess generally, I feel
(51:59):
like a lot of a lot of people seem to
take the lesson of all the behavior of genetics research
is that a lot of your your the environmental impact
is your your unique experiences, right, I haven't haven't really
(52:20):
gone to basically zivil. It's you know, how how your
your personality doesn't really depend much on those those shared
experiences that are happening within the family environment. They're they're
they're being more driven by these unique experiences if you
have outside the family environment. But I don't see a
(52:41):
lot of sort of following up on that to to
kind of start to understand what those unique experiences might be, right, right? Right?
Do we just know that unique experiences matter? Yeah? Yeah,
So I guess it. I guess the answer is it
seems plausible, But I don't of a lot of work
that's so shown that that's fair. So the best we
(53:05):
could say right now is its nature nurture. Yeah, okay,
I wish, I wish we could see more. Wantitunal studies
of personality development from dispositions to traits? Yeah? Well okay,
Well what is the role of genes, the brain, and neurochemicals?
(53:31):
So do you need a brain? Do you need a brain? Yeah?
I mean all of the all personality traits seem to
be at least moderately veritable. What does that mean? Uh?
It means that the the reason a large part of
(53:53):
the reason that people differ from another or more similar
to one another is as a result of differences in genes.
And what does that mean? That means that part of
the part of your the variation that you see in
(54:13):
personality in the population is based in differences in genetics,
in in in a biology. Well, I think that people
don't really have a good idea of what that means,
of what even differences in genes, it doesn't mean, you know,
what does that really mean in terms of the impact
on the trade. I saw a study recently that found
(54:35):
the higher the heritability is going to blow your mind,
you ready, the higher the heritability of an i Q
test item, the more culturally influenced that item was. The
higher the higher the heritability of that item, the more
culturally influenced that well, that that actually kind of could
make some weird, a weird kind of sense. Yes, And
(54:57):
so I don't know if this is right. This is
the time I've heard this, But I mean, the kind
of thought experiment I would think about was imagine, imagine
four different cultures that differ really from one another, but
each of them have these very they don't have a
(55:20):
lot of variation in the environment within each culture. That's interesting.
So if if you had a situation. There's a there's
an old saying that I think it's called Hanstein's paradox,
which is that if you had, if you had a
perfectly even handed environment where everybody was basically under the
(55:41):
same environmental conditions, a sort of you know, radical social
engineering experiment or something, then all of the variation in
personality would be genetic. And the reason being that there's
no environmental variation, and it can't it kind of explain
why people are different from one another, So all of
(56:03):
the differences will just be a genetic So yeah, yeah, yeah, god, yeah,
just so that that that finding, I mean, maybe what
it's saying is that the cultures there's a lot more
variation in the environment between cultures than within cultures. And
uh and and and therefore the the the aspects the components,
(56:32):
So was the components of intelligence or the items of
an intelligence, Well, if you look at the items, you
find that the group together is either crystallized or fluid intelligence.
You find the crystallized items actually have higher heritability than
the fluid. The crystallized are, in theory, the ones that
are more independent on learning and culture. Maybe it's just
(56:53):
you know, yeah, so this makes sense to you that
that'd be higher herritability. Yeah so, but I mean the
high heritability may another way of expressing that might might
be that there's there's not a lot of variation within
any population that's that's impacting upon that particular aspect of
the toligence, but there might be variation, a lot more
(57:15):
variation when you look at the cultural from one culture
to another. Yeah, no, I think that could make sense. Yeah,
maybe maybe it makes sense. We took this interesting. It's
sort of a seemingly paradoxical finding exactly which is which
is what I just we twined this whole tangent just
(57:35):
and I could easily not have brought that up is Yeah,
I just you know, I don't think it's as easy
like we say, like, well we know that has a
heritable coefficient to really know what that really means from
a mechanistic point of view. But but yeah, so we
do know that we can say that genes influence the
development of introversion. What what have any of those genes
been identified? Are? They are? They? Do? They operate on
(57:57):
the dop coin your theory they should be dopamine really
the gens right? Yeah, yeah, and so we a colleague
of mine, Young Backer at the University of Hamburg. Yeah,
we just we just did a review of you know,
try to do a really critical review of you know,
(58:18):
where is the how how strong is the evidence for
this the idea that extra version is underpinned by dopamine function,
with dopamine being the neurochemical that is involved in reward
processing and and motivation by reward. And the interesting thing
(58:38):
is that the genetic evidence and this this is fairly
true for a lot of areas of personality, but the
genetic evidence is just really patchy. So by which I mean,
even though behavior geneticists have told us, yeah, there's a
strong role for genes, identifying which gene are are involved
(59:02):
has has been a very uh not a very successful venture.
So so so that's where, yeah, it gets sort of mucky
in the sense that you're right on hand, there seems
to be good evidence that there there are these genetic influences,
but actually hitting them down has has not been so successful. Well,
(59:25):
let me ask you something. There's got to be there's
got to be a influence of genes related domain because
you find it the neurological level that you see striatum,
you see you know, you see some of these subcortical
dopamine structures, you see differences in them in structure, structure,
(59:46):
and functions. But between introverts and extroverts, is there any
way is there any universe in which you would see
those differences without there being genetic differences at all? You know, like,
what would that mean? I didn't I didn't think so
I think gene fluid structure. Yeah, yeah, So genes are
obviously coding for proteins that that build the body and
(01:00:10):
the brain, so they do have an influence on structure.
I mean, where the evidence seems to be strongest. But
the idea that dopamin is involved in the underpinning extraversion
is that the neurochemical studies so showing that drugs that
impact on the dopamain system influence behavior and experience differently
(01:00:38):
for extroverts and intro its. So the response to a
dominatic drug is very much dependent on how extroverted you are.
So I mean that seems to be where the evidence
space is really strongest. This this psychopharmacological research, and it's
suggesting that the systems that respond to these managing drugs
(01:01:01):
are are quite different and and it seems quite difficult
to imagine how that might that would not ultimately be
at least partly influenced by genetics. Okay, that's fair, that's fair.
So it is it is possible, It is possible. Yeah.
(01:01:24):
So yeah, and obviously experiences impact the structure of the
brain as well. Yeah yeah, yeah, but but I just
keep thinking about, you know, a major difference not just
being structure, but but you know what what triggers dopamine release?
You know, competitive rewards seem to trigger dopamine release and
(01:01:45):
extroverts more than it does in introverts. And I find
that really interesting because I don't think we have a
really good biological understanding of like, like what is like
why why is that? Like? Why? What is what is
what is about that nervous system that that that is
more sensitive, you know, that makes this the because of
(01:02:06):
the same quantities of dopamine and extrots next introverts. What
what what differs is what activates the release? Yeah? I
think it's I mean, it's not so much that there
are different things that activate the release, but there's there
seems to be a lower threshold, I suppose, good point. Yeah,
(01:02:27):
so that the the system as a reward processing system.
It's it's working very similarly for experts into it, but
it's just got a slightly more kind of hair trigger
for extrodots, or very much more hair trigger, depends on
where you Events that are motivational significance, any kind of
(01:02:50):
reward events just just really kind of capture the the
the attention of this system. If you like, you know,
a rewarding event for an extrovert in being processed by
the brains, if this is really important, You've really got
to focus on this, right, Yeah, But I mean in
(01:03:14):
terms of why that might be so, I mean, it's
it's yeah, the ultimate reason for that is really quite
a difficult one to answer. I mean, were you thinking
along the lines of, you know, you asked this question
about early experiences. Do you wonder if there could be
early experiences that shape that kind of tune the sensitivity
(01:03:37):
of that neurochemical system. Absolutely, it might be these experiences
earlier in life that really switch on one child's brain
to really be to be really strongly impacted upon by
these incentives and reward events. Yes, I suspect that it
(01:03:57):
has a lot to do with the so called sensitivity
gene that have been discovered in recent years that are
not that that these genes code for sensitivity to the
environment for better or worse, for better and worse, and
so early in life, some of these genes may uh
you know, like really traumatic life experiences may cause those
(01:04:19):
genes to be hyper sensitive and result in neuroticism as
a as a trait or introversion, where but the same
genes in a very welcoming, encouraging environment would would be
related to openness to experience and curiosity. And you do
you do see some research there on you know, depending
(01:04:41):
on you know, uh, your kind of background experience, you
either have intense curiosity or intense fear of the environment
of novelty. Yeah, novelty, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, But there's so
much that needs to be fleshed out, you know. Yeah.
(01:05:02):
I mean that's the interesting thing with this whole area
of the neurobiology and extra version, I think, and that
on the one hand, it's it's often kind of held
up as the sort of success story in personality neuroscience
that that that's where you know, we know most about
(01:05:24):
the role of dopamin and an extra version. But then
on the other hand, we know so little even about
that you know, it's it's it's success story is also
an illustration of how how still in its infancy, the
(01:05:45):
whole area of these questions nature and nurture, how genes
might influence personality, How are the experiences might influence personality
and shape brain structure in neurochemical response. I mean that
there's just there's just there's just sort of questions everywhere,
still with with with not not so many firm answers.
(01:06:09):
I mean even the whole even the whole theory. You know,
the so called dopamine hypothesis of extras. The actual finer
details of that hypothesis a very vague. It's you know,
you could be quite critical and say, okay, so basically
full the easy as the years later always saying, is
(01:06:30):
dopamine has something to do something about the dopamine differs
between extroverts and introverts. It's still not that precise. No, No,
it really isn't. So we don't know anything. What do
you think is the future? I'll ask I'll end with
this question. This interview has gone really long because it's
(01:06:52):
I find this stuff stuff still fascinating. But where do
you see the future, What tech methodologies? What you know
how can we move the field for I I'll answer
it my way. I'll answer what I think, and then
I love to hear what you think. I think it's
I think there needs to be a lot more research
on the effects of personality times environment interactions. I think
(01:07:14):
you'll find that that introverts will report higher well being
when you stop with living in an extroverted ideal world.
You give them like, you know, like ways to express
themselves and that's more conducive to how they on their
own terms. You may find that well being increases. So
that's that's a possibility, is just looking at those interactions.
(01:07:35):
But yeah, so what do you think? Yeah, I mean
I agree, I do, I do agree. I mean I
think there's this really and there seems that does seem
to be a sort of an increase in trying to
to focus more on interactions between personality and situations, and
(01:07:56):
I think that that will be a real, real growth area.
I don't know if I could put my finger on
just one thing, but I mean I think they're a
cluster of things. I mean, there's the there's I mean
that maybe the slightly less interesting one to talk about
is the methodological advances. I mean, I think people at
(01:08:17):
the moment, with all these non replication crises and underpowered
the studies are just based on enough on a sufficiently
large sample size. I think that's all going to change.
I mean, our standards for what is a good study,
it's going to change, and that will that will be
a good thing. I mean, I think the you know,
(01:08:38):
the next ten years relative to the last ten years
is going to is maybe going to bring a lot
more certainty because the the rigor with which we do
our research is just going to be held to a
much higher standard. And I think, I mean, maybe one
(01:08:59):
of the really sort of exciting areas to come will
will be in the area that that we've already gone across,
that we've already sort of skipped across, that we we
sort of you know, reach the point where we know
that that there's a the nature and nurture is involved
in personality. It's a product of genes in the environment,
(01:09:22):
and starting to pin down some of those specific causes
so that we haven't been able to pin down too
many specific genes yet, but maybe maybe that's going to improve,
and it would be really interesting to see people starting
to pin down, Yeah, these unique experiences people have, what
what kinds of unique experiences shape particular traits they would
(01:09:48):
be there would be there would be some examples that
I would think what I'd like to see? Wow, well
I would love to see the same stuff. Maybe we
can collaborate someday. Yeah, that'd be so cool. Man. Well,
thank you so much for this chat. It was elucidating.
I hope it was listening to my listeners really fun. Thanks.
(01:10:09):
Thanks very much for invoting me in a really interesting conversation.
Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as
informative and thought provoking as I did. If you'd like
to read the show notes for this episode or here
past episodes, you can go to the Psychology Podcast dot
com
Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain,
behavior and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest
who will stimulate your mind and give you a greater
understanding of yourself, others, and the world we live in.
Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Today we have
(00:35):
Luke Smiley on the podcast. Luke is a personality researcher
and senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne. He runs
the Personality Processes Lab. Luke, Hey, Scott, great to have
you on here. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, so
you teach a course and happiness? Is that right? I
(00:57):
teach across several courses, largely in personality and social psychology,
but in some of those subjects. Yeah, teach some lectures
into well being and happiness, and I've run a few
seminars on that. Yeah. And it's great that they have
Professor Smiley in the course. Yeah, it's a nice little coincidence,
(01:19):
A big attraction to the course. I find a research
really quite fascinating and debunking a lot of the myths
about personality variation, particularly in the introversion extroversion dimension. I'm
very interested in the core aspects differentiating introverts from extverts
because people talk about all these kinds of differences in
at comvits there. You know, these things in the popular
(01:41):
media really are the core essential aspects. I thought today
we could really get to the nitty gritty of this. Yeah, yeah,
it sounds good. I mean, that's yeah. I mean that's
something that interests me as well. The disconnect between the
popular conception of what extra version introversion is, which is
is it's really probably the personality trait that's become a
(02:05):
household name, and yet the way in which it's defined
in the popular sphere is well, it differs from one
person to another, but it also differs sharply with the
definition that's being used in psychological science. So I think
there's a lot of confusion around the it's right. I mean,
how do we objectively know who's right? I mean, you
(02:27):
guys could be wrong. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. I mean
I don't think anyone that really owns the you know,
can sort of claim that they own the term and
that their definition is correct. Yeah. Have you so? Have
you read Susan Kane's book Quiet? Yeah? I've read Susan
Kaines quiet yeap, what are your thoughts on that on
some of the conceptualizations of introversion. I mean, I think
(02:50):
that I think the books really it's its value, I suppose,
is that there are a lot of people who identify
as an introvert in the way that she defines introversion
and feel maybe marginalized or just not not sort of
(03:13):
part of not as well accepted by particularly Western society,
where extraversion and traits surrounding confidence and talkativeness and outgoingness
are really valued. So I think the book really speaks
for a lot of people who who are maybe you know,
(03:37):
tired of the what might be perceived to be the
most desirable characteristics to have, and she's basically saying, oh, well,
there are these other characteristics that people have that can
be really valuable too. So that's that's what I think
I really like about the book. Yeah, I mean powering
(04:00):
to a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean
the disagreement that I guess a lot of people in
personality would have is again around that that definition of
of introversion. And yeah, I mean there's that's not to
say the one you know, who's right and who's wrong there.
(04:22):
But it's more, I mean, you could think of it
more as a translation. So when I read Susan Kine's work,
I'm really interpreting it as a combination of of low
introversion as well as some other traits such as open
you mean, well, extroversion, sorry, low, yes, introversion, low extroversion.
(04:44):
So when she's talking about introversion, I am indeed interpreting
it as introversion, but with some other traits surrounding openness
and and also conscientiousness and neuroticism, yeah, nervousism too, so
basically all of personality. Yeah yeah, and there are some
(05:09):
occasionally I also see elements of agreeableness there with being
She often talks about introverts as being more sort of
sensitive to others and more thoughtful and aware of how
they're impacting on others, and that's sounding a little bit
like agreeableness as well. So I guess the main disagreement
(05:31):
would be that I think there are clearly many people
who fit her a definition of introversion, but I don't
think that there that trait she's talking about is a
sort of exists as a basic dimension of personality. That's
where the divergences, I guess between the popula of the
(05:52):
term and the terms it's used in psychological science. Let
me say something here. You know, it's possible that even
if all the traits and characteristics she puts under the
umbrella of introversion don't cohere scientifically as a single source
of variation, that doesn't necessarily follow that they don't all
belong under the label of introversion. That becomes a conceptual issue. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
(06:16):
And you know what I mean, I would say that
the I mean, my preference would actually be that psychologists
didn't use the term introversion. Yeah, I mean, it's just
sort of stuck. I think it's going to It would
take a while to it's such an ingrained term because
(06:36):
the dimension has been around for sixty seventy years in
personality psychology. But I think it's not. I mean, it
means inward focusing, doesn't it. But it's introversion has described
as defined by psychologists, is more about just being less active,
less bold, less talkative, less social, more quiet, and so
(07:00):
for there's nothing necessarily about inwardness. So I actually quite
like the term. I can't remember where he suggested it,
but mutual colleague Colin de Young has suggested a term detachment.
And you can see why people who identify as introverts
(07:22):
really take issue with the way we describe introverts because
they're probably saying, now, this sounds like people are really
kind of detached and lethargic. We're not solving that sounds
and you know, we say, but we're not talking about
you guys. Yes, right, it does get very tricky. I
(07:45):
I've had the great pleasure of collaborating with Susan Keenan
her research and her team there. This is the new
the thing. She just looks the quite quite revolution la,
the quite relish. We came up with a new test
of introversion, which you know, Collins like, okay with it.
(08:06):
You know, so it's got it's got some you know,
and you know an Adam Granite Penn really likes the model.
Let me tell you the two aspects that we came
up with. Let me see if I can guess. Oh
my gosh, I'd love to see it if you guess.
And just so you know, I saw the website. I
saw the website and I am I scrolled through the
items and they're definitely two facets there, and one of
(08:27):
them I would say is is classic intro lower sociability idea,
and the other is more something more of what I
would say is related to conscientiousness, persistence or something like that. Okay,
so that's you almost nailed it well. The second ask,
(08:48):
the second aspect is deliberation. Deliberation, yeah, versus action need
for deliberation versus you know, tendency towards action immediately without
thinking through the consequence. So there's this kind of risk
taking as self control aspect to it. Yeah, and that
kind of that that sort of resonates with with how
(09:09):
Susan talks about introversion of the book. But introverts are
these sort of quiet but determined people or people who
basically think things through before doing it. You don't just
blurt things out and fly up the handle. They they're
(09:30):
kind of considered quiet and considered people. That's right, and
that aspect is not very well captured on the Big Five,
just at the higher order level. Yeah, I'm trying to
think now about how the sort of lower level traits
of the aspect of facet level of the Big Five
would correlate and even at the aspect level of the
(09:51):
b fast model, like conscientiousness, you have orderliness, and orderliness
and ambition or something like that, Like that's seriousness industriousness. Right,
it still doesn't quite fit even in those two. Yeah,
you know, it's even lower than that. But yeah, I
mean I was just because one of the things, of course,
is that components of the Big five are are not
(10:14):
as independent as people often assume will describe them to
be exactly. So, I mean you do have this these
sort of margins where some aspects are facets of one
Big five train of highly correlated with another. Yeah. So
you know, you constantly see that that low extra version
(10:36):
is correlated with very strongly positively related to the withdrawal
aspect of neuroticism. And we're talking like we found you know,
point six zero correlations there in large samples. Yeah. You
can't ignore that, you can't deny that. Yeah yeah yeah.
And so in that first, let's talk about the first
aspect of our model, which you described as like sociability
(10:59):
to and I it does that is that aspect correlates
much much more highly with a Big Five extra version
than the deliberation one. However, I don't think you know,
we call it stimulation we think it goes it goes
above just sociability to this general sort of reward sensitivity,
and you know, and and and that really gets to the
(11:19):
the heart of a lot of the research you've been
doing on extra version. So that might be a good
segue into maybe you can explain a little bit how
you've tried to tackle the question of what is extraversion?
What is the core psychological mechanism underlining extra version. Yeah,
the reward sensitivity theory is one that I've I've definitely
(11:44):
become persuaded by the reward sensitivity theory of extraversion, and
I kind of got to that point what you in
a way that you might describe as a kind of
bottom operapproach that I was very interested in in theories
that had suggested that that variation in the functioning of
(12:07):
the brain's reward system would likely have consequences for personality.
That is, if they were kind of individual differences in
how motivated people were by rewards, and that that that
that should come out somewhere as a major trait or
that should be related to a major aspect of that personality.
And in the nineties and the early two thousands, there
(12:32):
was a lot of there still wasn't much consensus about
what that trait might look like. Some people were saying
in prosivity, and some people had said extraversion. And and
I was at that in the early two thousands. You know,
(12:55):
the question that motivated me, or that interested me, if
you like, is what is the what is the trait
that's really reflecting these differences in reward sensitivity? And I
think ten years on, my impression is that there's really
now a lot of consensus around reward sensitivity being one
of the key underlying mechanisms that accounts for differences in
(13:22):
extra version. Yes, you said there is a consensus, right,
I think so I feel that that you. I don't
sort of see any evidence of any sort of debate
or discussion around It's kind of become definitional now when
people describe what extraversion is, if they get anywhere into
(13:44):
the theory about it, they're usually saying reward sensitivity or
our approach, motivation and sort of related mechanisms usually get
at a mention. So I agree, Now, let's be very clear,
we're talking about competitive rewards. Yeah, you know, we're about
like you know, like money, sex, you know, uh, power, Yeah,
(14:11):
all these things that narcissists like so, I find it
interesting there's a very hard correlation between grandiose narcissism and extraversion,
probably some mechanisms that play there, which is not surprising,
and that, Yeah, not to go too much on a tangent,
but that I think one of the other, because we're
(14:32):
talking about conceptualizing extraversion introversion before and one of the
conceptual confusions or clarifications. I think that's something needed. People
interpret extra version as basically being kind of nice and friendly.
There's that blurring between extraversion and agreeableness. But I think
in an important sense, a lot of what's underlying extraversion
(14:55):
is social. Yeah, is just attention and and uh and
and well even selfishness and uh, a strong focus on
gains for oneself. It's such a good point. Such, so
good a point. Yeah, and then of course you get
(15:18):
these blends where you can get high agreeableness and high
extra version and then yeah, and then it has a
different flavor than very low extra version and very high agreeableness.
It kind of that kind of these people looked at
they not look different, but they act differently, They act differently,
they work different. Some have a bitterer forehead. You know,
(15:38):
it's this extra vision agreeableness distinction sometimes really vexes some
of my students, and I mean, I forget the question,
can you you know, can you even have a person
who's really extroverted but really low and agreeableness? And my
favorite joke, apologies, my favorite joke is yeah, of course
(16:01):
you can. They're ever in the business school. Yeah, they're
very urgentic, Yeah yeah, very agentic. Yeah. So you know,
it's very interesting how all these blends can you know?
Can can? Well, basically, we're just saying that people are complex.
(16:22):
We're saying that, and that's that's also I think, you know,
maybe it's an obvious point, but it's also why people
have even when they know a lot about models of personality,
they might have a little bit of difficulty describing themselves
because they're often they're trying to think of these traits
in isolation, whereas when you for each individual there they're
(16:46):
complex blends of these traits in most instances. Absolutely, you know,
I want to bequre this new test of introversion that
we came up with, it was built completely from a
self identification of introversion perspective, you know, it was we
wanted to see which items would correlate most strongly with
the item I identify as an introvert. All right, that's
(17:08):
a really interesting approach. Yeah, so it's a different kind
of approach. And the Big Five took and we specifically
for the purposes of creating a scale that that interests
cauldly identify with, and we found that those were the two.
So it's the scientific finding there that might be useful
a field is we found these two aspects really get
the core of what every day people think of when
(17:29):
they think of introversion. Yeah, okay, that's interesting because if
I were to if I were to have made a prediction,
I would have expected so you know, in Big five terms,
this measure that you have is is like a blend
of components of extraversion and components of conscientiousness. Right, what
(17:51):
I would have expected in Big five terms, there's a
blend of extraversion and openness. Because the popular conceptualization of
the introversion is often this kind of inward person who
enjoys their inner mental life, is very curious and not
(18:12):
just sort of quiet and and more reserved, but very
you know, it loves reading and loves it about ideas
and all of these Uh, these these characteristics you're linked
with openness. But keep keep in mind that the the
the way that the items if you actually look at
the needy, gritty items, there aren't any items like I
(18:34):
love to read, you know. Yeah, so if you just
if you think about it for a second, we found that,
you know, in the BFS mode and the big aspects,
the openest experience to me and has intellect and openness, right,
And we found that our scale is negatively correlated with
intellect but positively correlated with openness because the kinds of
items on the intellect scale or I'm a quick thinker,
(18:55):
I like quickly thinking. Well, well that's a complete odds
with with people say I like to deliberate before I think.
So I think that this scale kind of highlights the
important the distinction, the importance in between quick thinking and
deep thinking or reflective reflective thinking. Yeah, that makes sense,
so you will. So that's why we don't find our scale.
(19:16):
If you look at the higher order level of openness
to experience, you get nothing. But it's only really when
you break it into the two aspects then you find
like it is positive core with openness. Things like I
see beauty, you know, I'm very sensitive to the environment.
And we also find that our you know, first aspect
of stimulation is very highly related to the withdrawal aspect
(19:37):
of neuroticism and the highly sensitive person scale that has
been created by the irons. So there is this course,
there is this sensitivity aspect that is You're right, it
is part of self identification of introversion. But you really
kindly see that when you separate out the intellect kind
of items. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Yes, I'm so
(20:00):
glad you find that interesting. Yeah, but a lot of
this stuff, you know, it really does get definitional and conceptual.
There is no objective truth of what the real introversion
is like. Will the real introversion stand up? Yeah, yeah,
I mean, which is why that's that's why I think
in some ways I'm not saying everybody should stop using
(20:24):
the label, but it's it's become a troublesome term because
it's because it has so many different It does have
quite a few different conceptualizations, I mean, at least troublesome
in in in the context of the goals of personality research,
(20:48):
I suppose I hear intelligence researchers make the same argument
about intelligence. Yeah. Yeahs like Scott, shut up, shut up,
You're making it harder for us to measure g And
it's like, you know, well, I'm that were like disrupting
your science. But there are real people out there in
the world who this this these conceptualizations affect their lives,
(21:10):
you know what I mean. But I mean, I like,
I totally see it from the point of view the scientists,
because I am a scientist too. But yeah, I mean
these these these these these impact, these labels do mean
something to people. Yeah, so yeah, I you know, how
how do you spot an extrovert or know if you
are one? Well, yeah, I mean I'm gonna I'm gonna
(21:37):
obviously steak to the Big five definition again. But I
mean there's a whole area of research that I haven't
I haven't really I haven't done any research necessarily myself.
But that I've that have found really interesting is is
in personality judgments, which is really which is really about
(22:00):
how how accurately can someone perceive your personality from the outside.
Extra Version is always found to be the most easily
judged or actually, accuracy is not really the right way
to talk about it. You really talk about consensus. So
(22:22):
if I how close a match is there between how
you describe yourself on extraversion and how others describe you
on extra version. And even if that person has never
even met you, and they just see you in a
very you know, have been for maybe five minutes, they
(22:46):
will get reasonable levels of consensus. They will very quickly
be able to pick up on how extroverted you are.
And that's because most of the components of extraversion our
behavioral visible and so it's quite I mean, I actually
(23:08):
had a probably the episode that really convinced me that
it sounds like a funny thing to say, but their
personality was real. So I feel like, unknowingly for a while,
like when I was doing my PhD personality traits, these
were just sort of variables. These were hypothetical variables. I
never really thought of them as being sort of real
(23:29):
things about real people. And then I was doing a
study where I had extreme scores on extraversion high and
low coming into the lab and it was for an
EEG study, and it takes about sort of a half
hour to get everything ready for the EG study, to
put the electrode cap on and to do a range
(23:50):
of things, and I found I was blind to. I
didn't know how when they came into the lab, I
didn't know what their score was, what group they belonged
to when they were hire a low, But I knew
about two minutes later because the extroverts were so talkative
and so engaged and so kind of wired almost you
(24:14):
just knew immediately who was in the high extrovert group.
So I think it's actually very easy to spot an extrovert. Yeah, yeah,
at the extremes. And I think this brings an interesting
question is what is an ambrovert? What do you believe
in the idea of an ambrovert, and what do you
say most people really are ambroverts? Yeah, yeah, I would.
(24:37):
I mean, I don't think there's I mean, the whole
time we've been saying extrovert an introvert, they're just shorthands.
Of course, there are no categories, and you know, by
the same token, I wouldn't sort of say there's a
sort of a category in the middle of ambiverts. But
(24:58):
most people, the majority people will not be at the extremes.
By definition, They're going to be somewhere around the middle.
And maybe that's another reason why it's often hard to
identify that that's that's where it might be hard to
identify somebody who's as more or less excerated, because they
might not be more or less exuated. They might be
(25:19):
somewhere in the middle. And that's where the majority of
people get full. Okay. And so there's this, like, you know,
trying to figure out some of these defining characteristics something
a lot of introverts say, you know, it really is
about how you recharge your batteries, Like do you get
energized by people or to get energy or to get
(25:42):
not the opposite of energize's it's the opposite of the
word energized. What's the opposite of that, de energized? Sorry,
do you mean extras being energized? Yes, I just here
energized by people, by people, by by vigorous social interactions. Yeah,
I mean I think I would say that it's maybe
(26:05):
not inherently social. It happens that I this brings us
back to I think the idea of getting energized by
social interactions is ultimately consistent with the reward sensitivity idea.
So the reward sensitivity idea I've sort of described as
extroverts basically get more banged for the fuck they get
(26:25):
a lot more of that positive enjoyment out of rewarding
stimulated situations. And I just think one of the most
important rewarding situations for human beings are social situations. Human
contact is rewarding. Many of the rewards we obtained we
get via humans, or they're somehow embedded in social construct
(26:49):
some examples. Well, you mentioned power for example, So power
and status is rewarding and desirable, and it's inherently embedded
in social context. But also people are I don't I
don't want to sort of describe people as a means
to an end, but you rely on people to get
(27:11):
many of the things you want. It's very difficult to
get many of the things you want just on your own.
So whether it be you know, getting it to get
promoted at work you need there's there's somebody who needs
to to actually give you that promotion. So I think
people are a lot of a lot of rewards we
(27:32):
depend on people to get, and a lot of rewards
are embedded in social processes themselves. That's an excellent point,
And Okay, I'm really interested in that because I think
for a lot of people, extraversion is quintessentially social. That
I'm interested in. And this is something I think is
(27:53):
really hard to disentangle. Is is it is? Is it? So?
You have some people who who who their kind of
version of the reward sensitivity theory of extraversion is are
that the mechanism underlying extraversion is a mechanism for attracting
social attention. So that that's sort of that's that's saying
the core of extraversion, it's really driven by some essentially
(28:17):
social mechanism, Right, But I wonder if if, if if
it's broader than that, and it just as I said,
it just happens that that so much of what we're
motivated by is is somehow embedded within or connected to
social processes. Yeah, this is a this is an ongoing debate.
(28:39):
You know, there was that study where they try to
measure the social aspect and remove the reward value the
way the items ordered, and you know, Colin and I
looked at those items were like, wait a minute, these
are its actually all just extraversion items. So they're just like, yeah,
this is the one maybe about ten years ago. Yeah,
(29:00):
because there was this back and forth with other you know,
the other research saying I think the cue is this,
I think the cues this. You know, it's rewards instead,
you know, it's social attention. Yeah, it is hard to
really pinpoint you and and and you know when we
say the the core, what we're what we're saying, you know,
to translate into into science language, we're just four saying
(29:20):
what's the common variance? Yeah, that's what we're saying. That's
not really intuitive to the everyday person. What that What
that means? Common variance? You know? Yeah, I mean I
think there may be two ways of the two things
that were interested in on the science side, and there's
the common variant. So that's really what I guess that's
(29:45):
the defining characteristics. I suppose, well, what the what the
central you know, if extra version is really a cluster
of characteristics and traits, what is the the core of
those characteristics and traits? But I think another thing is
almost at a kind of different level. It's kind of
what's underlying or producing this, what accounts for these traits
(30:11):
clustering together so closely. And that's just going back to
the reward sensitivity idea again. I mean, that's one thing
that I find really compelling about the idea of extraversion
being underpinned by the motivation to pursue all kinds of rewards,
(30:31):
because I think many of the key traits and characteristics
that are kind of bound up in extra version can
be their coherence, the common denominator they have. It seems
plausible that that could be approach motivation of the desire
(30:52):
to see rewards. So everything from you know, sociability because
of all the what we just discussed with reward being
im bettered in social context or behavioral activity, to achievement,
to social dominance, talkativeness and positive affect yeah, leadership assertiveness. Yeah,
(31:18):
that's right. It's it's also hard to distinguish between they
like statements that are just like part of the human
condition versus differentiating real like variation, because like when you
say something like sometimes that could be really extroverted, but
sometimes I like to relax quietly home. Yeah, it's like
(31:38):
who is like gonna say, Oh, that's not me at all,
Like that's such a that's just called being like freaking human.
Yeah yeah right, yeah, yes, So how can you work?
Do you only really get it when you ward things?
Like I prefer on average two you know, we're talking
about we're talking about average, we're talking about absolutes. Yeah,
(31:59):
I mean, I think, I mean, I hope I'm on
the right track. I think I think there are sort
of two things that relate to what you're saying there,
and one is I think when people are responding to
one is how we measure how we typically measure personality
with a questionnaire, And if you focus on any one item, yeah,
(32:21):
you're right, it seems like, well, yeah, any anyone could
agree with this, or it might depend on the day
whether I agree with this or not. And and that
that really sort of I think that underlies a lot
of doubt about how well you can measure personality with
these questionnaire items. And I guess what I always encourage
(32:45):
people to think about is, I mean, yeah, that you
can you can take issue with any one item, but
over over sort of twenty of these, if you've consistently
agreed with all kinds of different items about the kind
of characteristic then then maybe that is starting to say
something meaningful about you. Yeah, just I was going to say.
(33:10):
The other the other point that maybe relates to what
you were saying is is the I really like the
approach of Will Fleeson, who was just going to say yeah,
who really formalizes so we've we've kind of tended to
(33:31):
conceptualize personality traits as these regularities in the way you
behave and regularities and behavior and experience. And he's kind
of formalized it by saying, yeah, you know, we're our
behavior and experience. So take characteristics relating to extraversion, dominance,
and talkativeness. That's actually varying for everyone all over the place,
(33:51):
across time, across situations. But if you look back over
though that that time period, you'll you'll you'll see that
people have a sort of an average level. And you're saying,
that's what we're talking about. If you if your average
level is relatively high, then then you are by definition
relatively extroverted, even if you spent many times during the
week being quite talkative or you know, whether you're being
(34:14):
talkative or not, whether you're being relaxed or really outgoing. Yeah,
I really like that approach. It really is. The end
of the day, your personality is is simply your habits
of behavior and average like that, that's all your personality is.
It's it's like you can change your personality literally if
you like change your habits, you know, Yeah, yeah, there's
(34:39):
a really I don't know if you've seen this. There's
a really amazing paper. It's sort of amazing in a
way that it's taken so long for a paper like
this to come out, But it's it's just following up
people who who who want to make certain changes to
their personality and and I mean, without going into all
the details of just it shows what people have suspected
(35:03):
for a while, the volitional change in personality is possible.
And yeah, yeah, and you know, in the case of
extra version, I mean that may be, as you say,
just sort of cultivating a bit your ways of behaving.
So can you make yourself more extroverted? Yeah, I mean
I think, I mean the kind of I think that's
(35:29):
a common goal, particularly when for people who have maybe
jobs or situations in which it can be more advantageous
to be a little more bold and dominant and talkative.
So like being a lecturer, I'm probably I think overall,
(35:51):
I'm probably slightly low on extra version, maybe middling to
middling to just below average, made you but it's it's
it's helpful. I mean, I can be a better lecturer
if I behave in a more extradded way. And I
(36:12):
think you cultivate. People can cultivate these ways of behaving
in particular situations. But I guess people may also have
for whatever reason, they may feel like it would be
better if they were higher or lower extroversion. Maybe they
feel they could just be more outgoing and and and energized,
(36:34):
and they can cultivate different ways of behaving. Can you
make yourself more introverted? I guess so. I mean, certainly
the sort of studies that I've been interested in. Again,
it was Will Fleeson who developed this paradigm, and I've
had a couple of studies in this area as well.
(36:55):
We're just a in a small lab context where they're
as an interactive exercise that a few people are working on.
You can just instruct people to behave in ways that
are more characteristic of being either extroverted or introverted, and
I mean people people will behave behave in those ways,
(37:17):
and you see effects of acting in a more extroverted
way that are reminiscent of actually being more extroverted. Okay,
which is quite interesting. I guess that that whole area
of research basically suggests that if extraversion is just typically
(37:38):
it is just the kind of you're an average level
of certain behaviors and experiences, and if you if you
actually engage or disengage in those behaviors, then on average,
you by definition, will be lower on lower higher an extroversion.
That's right, That's that's exactly right. I agree. And it
(38:00):
doesn't mean that if you're an introvert, you know, meaning
you score them extremely high in introversion on the Bell curve,
that doesn't mean that you never have extroverted behaviors. No, no,
And that's that's another I mean, that's kind of why
I like this approach of Will Fleeson's in talking about
your average levels, because you know, a typical response when
(38:25):
people learn about personality might be, but you know, I'm
I would say, I'm quite introverted. But there are plenty
of times where I'm you know, I'll be at a
at a party and I'll be being really gregarious and
love being in the center of attention at that particular point,
and We'll be really talking with all my friends, and
(38:46):
but I'm just not like that all the time. That's right,
and and that that definition allows for that. You go, yeah,
you know, being an introvert does not mean you have
an inability to be more extroverted. It just means you
have a tendency to be less extruded. Well, you know,
I find it interesting that introversion is is correlated with
(39:08):
deficits in social intelligence tests. So maybe there is something
going on there which the less you exercise it, the
less developed those skills are. Yeah. Possibly. I always find
that very interesting, even though of course I don't want
to stereotype. There's plenty of introverts with great social skills,
but you do find that correlation. Yeah, it's interesting, And
(39:31):
I haven't I haven't sort of seen a really clear
picture of what's going on there. The literature seems sort
of fragmented there. That there's there's a paper a long
time ago that that found some evidence for the idea
that it may not be social skills per se, that
that introverts lack, but that extras are a little bit
(39:56):
better at at at multitasking, and that a lot of
what's required in social interaction requires you to keep track
of a lot of different pieces of information. You've got
to be keeping track of what you're saying, what the
other person's saying, when it's your turn to talk, and
so forth, and so it may I mean, there's basically
(40:18):
some indication that there are a few I guess more
cognitive skills that may vary with extra version that actually
may explain some of those more social the parent differences
in social skills. That's very interesting, you know that the
(40:42):
it's very fragmented. I haven't seen much on that topic,
to be honest, There certainly needs to be more research
on it. I find it very interesting that there's such
a strikingly high correlation between the autism spectrum, cautient and introversion. Yeah,
it's very very high. Yeah, and that I identify a
(41:06):
really good hypothesis about that, except just two. I mean,
it may be the case that there are kind of
there are multiple ways in which you can be less
talkative and sociable and engaged and and so forth. And
(41:28):
and the autism question that may be picking up more
on a you would you would expect that if picking
up more on on kind of skill deficits and and
cognitive capacities, whereas introversion may be a little bit more
(41:48):
about about sort of preferences and the habitual ways of behaving.
I like that. I like that model a lot. There's
much more mouths to these these different traits. Yeah, which
I guess, which is, you know, the the Thornia side
of of personality. I mean, you could just you could say, oh,
it's as simple as that. If you if you don't,
(42:11):
if you're not very bold and assertive and talkative and
behavioral active, then then you're introutive. But there could be
many reasons why somebody is not bold, assertive and talkative. Right,
So is it better to be more extroverted or interrouted? Yeah,
that's a that's that's probably the question that the popular
(42:36):
writers on introversion really really hate what. I imagine they
really dislike what the what A lot of research is
shown about extroversion. Well, yeah, a lot of researchers have
shown that extraversion is correlated with higher well being, right, Yeah, yeah,
that's that's exactly right. And and and yeah, there's a
(42:56):
lot of people who who you know, self identify as
an new rote and don't really like that idea. And
there's there's a great book chapter by John Zelenski at
Carlton or Carleton Carlton University in Canada which kind of
walks through all of the objections to this idea that
(43:22):
extra rets are happy, you know, perhaps happy or higher
on measures of well being. You sent me there, Yeah,
I will send it to you. It's it's really, it's
really I think it's a nice instructional chapter because it
kind of it kind of goes through each different objection
one by one. But I mean, I think I think
(43:45):
that the research is pretty clear it's ex orasion for
one of the strongest predictors of the range of well
being constructs. But I think the caveat maybe or or
the the thing that I guess the thing to bear
in mind is, I think there are a couple of
things to bear in mind which may make you come
(44:10):
short of saying that it's that it's therefore better to
be higher an extra version. One. One thing is that
the aspects of well being that extra version predict most
clearly are really those intense positive emotions the what what's
(44:32):
something called activated positive affect. There's feelings of liveliness and
excitement and enthusiasm that aroused positive affict and and if
you if you kind of narrow the focus to that,
then it's it's not immediately clear that that is uh,
(44:52):
you know, the be All and mend All. In fact,
there's there's some evidence that people lower an extra version
or more introverted people actually prefer lower levels of those
intense positive states anyway, right right, And Susan would make
that point. Yeah, yeah, I mean that that would be
that I think is probably Yeah, the main reason that
(45:19):
you would maybe why come a little bit short of saying, oh,
it's therefore better to be more extroverted, because it's I
guess because extra resion is not only correlated with the
levels of those positive emotions, but also the preferences for
those levels exactly exactly they actually be. I mean, on
(45:41):
the one idea of find interesting is that so we've
talked about how you can act more or less extraverted,
and one idea of find interesting is that the way
people habitually act is a that it can partly function
as a mood regulation strategy. So extroverts may behave in
(46:03):
a way that routinely brings them to these higher levels
of positive emotion that they prefer, while introverts may routinely
behave in a way that keeps them at those slightly
lower levels of these these particular positive emotions. Yeah, there's
two projects I want to work on with some students
(46:25):
over the course the next year. One is maybe cataloging
some of the more quiet positive emotions like contentments. Yeah,
and that and that is not well, this is this
paper that that Colin and I, Colin de Young and
I've worked on last year. Those emotions are not really
(46:48):
those positive emotions are not really predicted by extroversion at all.
That's really important finding, I think, Yeah, I mean, my
my sort of take on that issue. It's it's one
of those It really was one of those situations where
it was hard to know whether I was confused or
whether there was a confusion in the literature. And so
(47:09):
either the paper clarifies something for the literature or just
clarified my own confusion, and the confusion is. Yeah, that
people use the word positive emotions to refer to actually
quite a wide range of constructs, and those quieter positive emotions,
if you mentioned the only time, the only way in
(47:36):
which that seems to be related to higher extraversion is
as a result of extrarets tending to be a little
bit lower on some aspects of neurosism. So basically, once
you control for neuroticism, there's really no relation between extraversion
and those kind of quiet, content, satisfied, relaxed mood says,
(48:02):
do you mean like you're basical controlling for emotional stability. Yeah, yeah,
not the other end, like yeah, yeah, yeah right, because
you would you would think those emotions would be correlated
with emotional stability. Yeah yeah, yeah, well that makes that
makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I don't like this
question of which which is better, which personality trait is better,
(48:25):
because we're talking, we're talking about you know, that's ignoring blends,
that's ignoring the all. If there's no all also being equal,
you know, all's being equal in the real world, doesn't
really make sense. Yeah, I really, I don't know. I
kind of explain why I'm really. I mean, I have
the same reaction. I don't like talking about better or
worse ends of different personality traits, and that's that's for
(48:49):
that reason. One of the kind of finding that I
really enjoy when I when I see it come out
in a in a paper is where a trait that
you normally think of is well, that many people think
of as being like the bad end, turns out turns
out that's some advantage or or a so called good
trait turns out to predict something undesirable. And I just
(49:12):
like those reminders that there's there's really there are strengths
and weaknesses of of of high or low ends of
any characteristic. I don't think overall any with the exception
that I think it's you know, there there are very
few advantages to being high in eurobicism or lower and
emotional stability. With that exception, maybe I think that that
(49:35):
all traits are really positive, or both ends of all
traits have really really positive. I don't know. Tell some
of the greatest poets of all time that their high
neuroticism was a disadvantage to their poetry. Yeah, yeah, I think,
I think. I mean this is just totally anecdotal, but
(49:59):
you when thinking about historical characters and characters in film
and literature, I think you often see the uh you
see it. They often tend to you would characterize as
high in eu auticism. But I think you would also
characterize and as being high openness as well. Most in
(50:25):
culmination get blended together. I think that's absolutely true, and
specifically the openness aspect. Yeah, I agree. I agree. This
has been such a fascinating conversation. I want to be
respectable of all your time, but we haven't gotten to
the neurochemistry yet and all that. Yeah, so what is
(50:47):
the role of nature and nurture in determining introversion. I
think we can pretty much say that there's a mix
of both. But do you think to some extent introversion
next version can be it fooced all by how you're
treated by your peers when you're younger. I mean, I
guess there's there's some there's I've seen a few ideas
(51:12):
along those lines. For example, that there are often I
think extra reds tend to be slightly taller, and there's
a there's a sort of a maybe it's sort of
a wacky fringe idea that the differences in the height
of them impact on how you're treated growing up, maybe
(51:35):
by your peers, and and that that may have a
role in the the development of a more sort of
introverted I guess, a less more or less dominant personality.
So that I mean, there are some ideas that I've
seen along those lines, But I guess generally, I feel
(51:59):
like a lot of a lot of people seem to
take the lesson of all the behavior of genetics research
is that a lot of your your the environmental impact
is your your unique experiences, right, I haven't haven't really
(52:20):
gone to basically zivil. It's you know, how how your
your personality doesn't really depend much on those those shared
experiences that are happening within the family environment. They're they're
they're being more driven by these unique experiences if you
have outside the family environment. But I don't see a
(52:41):
lot of sort of following up on that to to
kind of start to understand what those unique experiences might be, right, right? Right?
Do we just know that unique experiences matter? Yeah? Yeah,
So I guess it. I guess the answer is it
seems plausible, But I don't of a lot of work
that's so shown that that's fair. So the best we
(53:05):
could say right now is its nature nurture. Yeah, okay,
I wish, I wish we could see more. Wantitunal studies
of personality development from dispositions to traits? Yeah? Well okay,
Well what is the role of genes, the brain, and neurochemicals?
(53:31):
So do you need a brain? Do you need a brain? Yeah?
I mean all of the all personality traits seem to
be at least moderately veritable. What does that mean? Uh?
It means that the the reason a large part of
(53:53):
the reason that people differ from another or more similar
to one another is as a result of differences in genes.
And what does that mean? That means that part of
the part of your the variation that you see in
(54:13):
personality in the population is based in differences in genetics,
in in in a biology. Well, I think that people
don't really have a good idea of what that means,
of what even differences in genes, it doesn't mean, you know,
what does that really mean in terms of the impact
on the trade. I saw a study recently that found
(54:35):
the higher the heritability is going to blow your mind,
you ready, the higher the heritability of an i Q
test item, the more culturally influenced that item was. The
higher the higher the heritability of that item, the more
culturally influenced that well, that that actually kind of could
make some weird, a weird kind of sense. Yes, And
(54:57):
so I don't know if this is right. This is
the time I've heard this, But I mean, the kind
of thought experiment I would think about was imagine, imagine
four different cultures that differ really from one another, but
each of them have these very they don't have a
(55:20):
lot of variation in the environment within each culture. That's interesting.
So if if you had a situation. There's a there's
an old saying that I think it's called Hanstein's paradox,
which is that if you had, if you had a
perfectly even handed environment where everybody was basically under the
(55:41):
same environmental conditions, a sort of you know, radical social
engineering experiment or something, then all of the variation in
personality would be genetic. And the reason being that there's
no environmental variation, and it can't it kind of explain
why people are different from one another, So all of
(56:03):
the differences will just be a genetic So yeah, yeah, yeah, god, yeah,
just so that that that finding, I mean, maybe what
it's saying is that the cultures there's a lot more
variation in the environment between cultures than within cultures. And
uh and and and therefore the the the aspects the components,
(56:32):
So was the components of intelligence or the items of
an intelligence, Well, if you look at the items, you
find that the group together is either crystallized or fluid intelligence.
You find the crystallized items actually have higher heritability than
the fluid. The crystallized are, in theory, the ones that
are more independent on learning and culture. Maybe it's just
(56:53):
you know, yeah, so this makes sense to you that
that'd be higher herritability. Yeah so, but I mean the
high heritability may another way of expressing that might might
be that there's there's not a lot of variation within
any population that's that's impacting upon that particular aspect of
the toligence, but there might be variation, a lot more
(57:15):
variation when you look at the cultural from one culture
to another. Yeah, no, I think that could make sense. Yeah,
maybe maybe it makes sense. We took this interesting. It's
sort of a seemingly paradoxical finding exactly which is which
is what I just we twined this whole tangent just
(57:35):
and I could easily not have brought that up is Yeah,
I just you know, I don't think it's as easy
like we say, like, well we know that has a
heritable coefficient to really know what that really means from
a mechanistic point of view. But but yeah, so we
do know that we can say that genes influence the
development of introversion. What what have any of those genes
been identified? Are? They are? They? Do? They operate on
(57:57):
the dop coin your theory they should be dopamine really
the gens right? Yeah, yeah, and so we a colleague
of mine, Young Backer at the University of Hamburg. Yeah,
we just we just did a review of you know,
try to do a really critical review of you know,
(58:18):
where is the how how strong is the evidence for
this the idea that extra version is underpinned by dopamine function,
with dopamine being the neurochemical that is involved in reward
processing and and motivation by reward. And the interesting thing
(58:38):
is that the genetic evidence and this this is fairly
true for a lot of areas of personality, but the
genetic evidence is just really patchy. So by which I mean,
even though behavior geneticists have told us, yeah, there's a
strong role for genes, identifying which gene are are involved
(59:02):
has has been a very uh not a very successful venture.
So so so that's where, yeah, it gets sort of mucky
in the sense that you're right on hand, there seems
to be good evidence that there there are these genetic influences,
but actually hitting them down has has not been so successful. Well,
(59:25):
let me ask you something. There's got to be there's
got to be a influence of genes related domain because
you find it the neurological level that you see striatum,
you see you know, you see some of these subcortical
dopamine structures, you see differences in them in structure, structure,
(59:46):
and functions. But between introverts and extroverts, is there any
way is there any universe in which you would see
those differences without there being genetic differences at all? You know, like,
what would that mean? I didn't I didn't think so
I think gene fluid structure. Yeah, yeah, So genes are
obviously coding for proteins that that build the body and
(01:00:10):
the brain, so they do have an influence on structure.
I mean, where the evidence seems to be strongest. But
the idea that dopamin is involved in the underpinning extraversion
is that the neurochemical studies so showing that drugs that
impact on the dopamain system influence behavior and experience differently
(01:00:38):
for extroverts and intro its. So the response to a
dominatic drug is very much dependent on how extroverted you are.
So I mean that seems to be where the evidence
space is really strongest. This this psychopharmacological research, and it's
suggesting that the systems that respond to these managing drugs
(01:01:01):
are are quite different and and it seems quite difficult
to imagine how that might that would not ultimately be
at least partly influenced by genetics. Okay, that's fair, that's fair.
So it is it is possible, It is possible. Yeah.
(01:01:24):
So yeah, and obviously experiences impact the structure of the
brain as well. Yeah yeah, yeah, but but I just
keep thinking about, you know, a major difference not just
being structure, but but you know what what triggers dopamine release?
You know, competitive rewards seem to trigger dopamine release and
(01:01:45):
extroverts more than it does in introverts. And I find
that really interesting because I don't think we have a
really good biological understanding of like, like what is like
why why is that? Like? Why? What is what is
what is about that nervous system that that that is
more sensitive, you know, that makes this the because of
(01:02:06):
the same quantities of dopamine and extrots next introverts. What
what what differs is what activates the release? Yeah? I
think it's I mean, it's not so much that there
are different things that activate the release, but there's there
seems to be a lower threshold, I suppose, good point. Yeah,
(01:02:27):
so that the the system as a reward processing system.
It's it's working very similarly for experts into it, but
it's just got a slightly more kind of hair trigger
for extrodots, or very much more hair trigger, depends on
where you Events that are motivational significance, any kind of
(01:02:50):
reward events just just really kind of capture the the
the attention of this system. If you like, you know,
a rewarding event for an extrovert in being processed by
the brains, if this is really important, You've really got
to focus on this, right, Yeah, But I mean in
(01:03:14):
terms of why that might be so, I mean, it's
it's yeah, the ultimate reason for that is really quite
a difficult one to answer. I mean, were you thinking
along the lines of, you know, you asked this question
about early experiences. Do you wonder if there could be
early experiences that shape that kind of tune the sensitivity
(01:03:37):
of that neurochemical system. Absolutely, it might be these experiences
earlier in life that really switch on one child's brain
to really be to be really strongly impacted upon by
these incentives and reward events. Yes, I suspect that it
(01:03:57):
has a lot to do with the so called sensitivity
gene that have been discovered in recent years that are
not that that these genes code for sensitivity to the
environment for better or worse, for better and worse, and
so early in life, some of these genes may uh
you know, like really traumatic life experiences may cause those
(01:04:19):
genes to be hyper sensitive and result in neuroticism as
a as a trait or introversion, where but the same
genes in a very welcoming, encouraging environment would would be
related to openness to experience and curiosity. And you do
you do see some research there on you know, depending
(01:04:41):
on you know, uh, your kind of background experience, you
either have intense curiosity or intense fear of the environment
of novelty. Yeah, novelty, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, But there's so
much that needs to be fleshed out, you know. Yeah.
(01:05:02):
I mean that's the interesting thing with this whole area
of the neurobiology and extra version, I think, and that
on the one hand, it's it's often kind of held
up as the sort of success story in personality neuroscience
that that that's where you know, we know most about
(01:05:24):
the role of dopamin and an extra version. But then
on the other hand, we know so little even about
that you know, it's it's it's success story is also
an illustration of how how still in its infancy, the
(01:05:45):
whole area of these questions nature and nurture, how genes
might influence personality, How are the experiences might influence personality
and shape brain structure in neurochemical response. I mean that
there's just there's just there's just sort of questions everywhere,
still with with with not not so many firm answers.
(01:06:09):
I mean even the whole even the whole theory. You know,
the so called dopamine hypothesis of extras. The actual finer
details of that hypothesis a very vague. It's you know,
you could be quite critical and say, okay, so basically
full the easy as the years later always saying, is
(01:06:30):
dopamine has something to do something about the dopamine differs
between extroverts and introverts. It's still not that precise. No, No,
it really isn't. So we don't know anything. What do
you think is the future? I'll ask I'll end with
this question. This interview has gone really long because it's
(01:06:52):
I find this stuff stuff still fascinating. But where do
you see the future, What tech methodologies? What you know
how can we move the field for I I'll answer
it my way. I'll answer what I think, and then
I love to hear what you think. I think it's
I think there needs to be a lot more research
on the effects of personality times environment interactions. I think
(01:07:14):
you'll find that that introverts will report higher well being
when you stop with living in an extroverted ideal world.
You give them like, you know, like ways to express
themselves and that's more conducive to how they on their
own terms. You may find that well being increases. So
that's that's a possibility, is just looking at those interactions.
(01:07:35):
But yeah, so what do you think? Yeah, I mean
I agree, I do, I do agree. I mean I
think there's this really and there seems that does seem
to be a sort of an increase in trying to
to focus more on interactions between personality and situations, and
(01:07:56):
I think that that will be a real, real growth area.
I don't know if I could put my finger on
just one thing, but I mean I think they're a
cluster of things. I mean, there's the there's I mean
that maybe the slightly less interesting one to talk about
is the methodological advances. I mean, I think people at
(01:08:17):
the moment, with all these non replication crises and underpowered
the studies are just based on enough on a sufficiently
large sample size. I think that's all going to change.
I mean, our standards for what is a good study,
it's going to change, and that will that will be
a good thing. I mean, I think the you know,
(01:08:38):
the next ten years relative to the last ten years
is going to is maybe going to bring a lot
more certainty because the the rigor with which we do
our research is just going to be held to a
much higher standard. And I think, I mean, maybe one
(01:08:59):
of the really sort of exciting areas to come will
will be in the area that that we've already gone across,
that we've already sort of skipped across, that we we
sort of you know, reach the point where we know
that that there's a the nature and nurture is involved
in personality. It's a product of genes in the environment,
(01:09:22):
and starting to pin down some of those specific causes
so that we haven't been able to pin down too
many specific genes yet, but maybe maybe that's going to improve,
and it would be really interesting to see people starting
to pin down, Yeah, these unique experiences people have, what
what kinds of unique experiences shape particular traits they would
(01:09:48):
be there would be there would be some examples that
I would think what I'd like to see? Wow, well
I would love to see the same stuff. Maybe we
can collaborate someday. Yeah, that'd be so cool. Man. Well,
thank you so much for this chat. It was elucidating.
I hope it was listening to my listeners really fun. Thanks.
(01:10:09):
Thanks very much for invoting me in a really interesting conversation.
Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as
informative and thought provoking as I did. If you'd like
to read the show notes for this episode or here
past episodes, you can go to the Psychology Podcast dot
com
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