PDF Summary:Quiet: The Power of Introverts, by Susan Cain

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We typically think of an extrovert as a person of action, who takes risks and readily makes decisions. He or she is gregarious and flourishes as part of a team or as its leader. While we claim to value independence and individuality (qualities of introverts), the only independent type we seem to celebrate is the loner who comes up with technological innovations and gets rich. Anyone else with introvert tendencies is suspect.

Society often views introversion, which can encompass sensitivity and shyness, as an undesirable personality trait that should be suppressed or changed. Because extroversion has become the norm to which everyone must conform, introverts are left feeling devalued because of an innate quality.

Research shows we rate people more positively when they have qualities we associate with extroverts. For instance, talkative people are considered more intelligent, attractive, interesting, and likely to make better friends. People who talk faster are rated as more capable than those who talk slower. In groups, those who talk the most are seen as smarter than those who are quiet.

A Society Built for Extroverts

**In the U.S., we’ve built our society and...

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After college, Carnegie offered a public speaking class in New York City, which was an overnight success. Thereafter, in books and seminars, he touted public speaking and developing a winning personality as essential skills for succeeding in the competitive business world.

Advertising and Psychology Advice

Advertising and magazine advice columns emphasized self-improvement. Men were urged to develop “a masterful personality,” while women were to cultivate an appearance of charm and beauty.

Advertisements focused on the need to perform well in the glare of the spotlight. For instance, a shaving cream ad declared, “Critical eyes are sizing you up right now.” A Lux soap ad assured women that by using Lux on lingerie, sofa cushions, and so on, they would enjoy “a sure, deep inner conviction of being charming.”

A 1920 advice manual stressed the need for having “a ready command of manners” sufficient to convince others you are “a mighty likable fellow.” Magazines like the Saturday Evening Post carried columns on the art of manners and conversation.

Psychologists began to weigh in on the importance of projecting self-confidence. Carl Jung, who had defined the introvert...

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In fact, hyper-extroversion is central to many company cultures. As a manager at General Electric explained, you can’t have a casual conversation—everything you say and how you say it is a presentation. People try to look like extroverts, whether they are or not, which in terms of sociability can mean being sure to work out at the same health club as the CEO and drinking his favorite drink.

In essence, our culture continues to promote the same personal qualities as in the 1920s, except to a greater extreme. We have even stronger anti-anxiety drugs to help. For instance, in 2000, Paxil was marketed as a cure for social anxiety disorder. One ad showed a business executive, presumably with a boost from Paxil, concluding a deal. The caption was, “I can taste success.”

Downsides of Extroversion in Business

One problem with worshipping a decisive, forceful leadership style is that it can lead to less-than-optimal decisions, as a traditional class exercise at Harvard demonstrates.

In the exercise, called the Subarctic Survival Situation, students imagine being survivors of a plane crash in the arctic. They’re assigned to groups, which must rank fifteen salvaged items in...

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Groupthink in Schools

The demands of business for employees who can work in teams have reshaped teaching—schools are training children via cooperative and group learning methods to fit into the culture of corporate America.

As a fifth-grade public school teacher in Manhattan explained it, children are being taught that success and respect depend on verbal abilities rather than on originality and insight. “You have to be someone who speaks well and calls attention to yourself.”

Besides teamwork, children are also being taught leadership and managerial skills with an eye to the needs of the business culture. For instance, a third-grade teacher explained how she had put a quiet child who preferred to work independently in charge of the safety patrol so he could practice leadership.

Cooperative learning entails grouping children’s desks into pods to facilitate group activities. There are rules for group work—for instance, one fourth-grade teacher’s rule was that children couldn’t ask a teacher for help unless everyone in their group had the same question, presumably to encourage students to help each other find answers. Even math and creative writing, which used to...

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As highly reactive children grow, parents and teachers may notice a wary reaction to unfamiliar people or the first day of preschool and may assume a child is shy. But what they’re really reacting to is newness. High reactives are just more sensitive to their environment. One psychologist calls this “alert attention”—they notice not only alarming things, but also most things in general.

Emotion

High-reactive children also tend to more thoroughly process what they’ve observed and to apply more nuance to everyday experiences. For instance, they may spend a lot of time thinking about others’ actions, considering potential reasons why another child did what he did.

Kagan found that highly reactive kids seem to feel emotions more strongly as well—for instance, they feel more intense guilt if they break something than low-reactive children feel. They’ll also concentrate more intensely on something that interests them.

Nature Versus Nurture

Other studies of personality also support the premise that introversion and extroversion are biologically based. But **the temperament you were born doesn’t necessarily dictate what you do in every situation. Nurture and...

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As an introvert, author Susan Cain struggled with public speaking, yet it was something her work often required her to do. To make the experience less stressful, she took a class in public speaking and also taught herself a number of stress-reduction techniques, such as:

• Treating every speech as a creative project and enjoying the research and preparation, which carries over into the presentation itself.
• Speaking on subjects she’s passionate about, which enables her to focus on the topic more than on the audience. Also, since she’s interested in the topic, she doesn’t have to project enthusiasm she doesn’t feel.

(Shortform note: View Cain’s 2012 TED talk on “The Power of Introverts” here.)

Learning Your Comfort Zone

Even though you can stretch your temperament, you can often be more effective by working within your comfort zone as much as possible.

Your comfort level in any environment depends on the level of stimulation you receive. Stimulation is the amount of input you receive from the world around you. If you’re an extrovert you thrive on a lot of stimulation, while if you’re...

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For instance, in 1933, she spent three months traveling the country, listening to stories of the people devastated by the Great Depression, which she reported to FDR while urging action. Among other things, she:

• Proposed programs to help starving miners in Appalachia

• Urged the inclusion of women and African-Americans in government work programs

• Arranged for African-American singer Marian Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution canceled another performance in Washington, D.C., because of her race.

Later in her career, as a delegate to the United Nations, Eleanor helped secure passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Her sensitivity and empathy enabled her to help change the lives of millions of people.

Sensitivity and Conscience

Studies of highly sensitive toddlers found they had a stronger conscience than other children—they got more upset when they believed they had broken a borrowed and highly valued toy. Later in life, these children were less likely to cheat and break rules; they also had stronger moral traits such as empathy and had fewer behavior problems. The research...

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Similarly, company directors buying other companies can get so caught up in beating other bidders that they pay more than the target company is worth. Behavioral economists call this phenomenon “deal fever,” and its result the “winner’s curse” (the consequences of a bad deal). The AOL-Time Warner merger in 2000 is an example: Time Warner’s directors approved the deal despite signs that AOL’s stock was overvalued. Time Warner shareholders lost $200 billion.

Further, University of Wisconsin researchers found that when reward-sensitive extroverts run into roadblocks or warning signs while pursuing a goal, they press ahead even harder without considering the warning signs. In contrast, introverts stop, question themselves, and become more vigilant. Because they stop and reassess, introverts are better able to learn from setbacks or mistakes and to foresee future problems.

Risk-Taking

Along with making risky investment decisions, extroverts are prone to downplay or ignore danger in other areas. For instance, extroverts are more likely than introverts to:

• Be killed while driving
• Be hospitalized due to injury
• Smoke
• Have risky sex
• Be unfaithful
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• Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know. —Lao Tzu
• Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact—it is silence which isolates. —Thomas Mann

One reason for the different attitudes may be group identity. Asians see themselves as part of a larger entity, whether a family, community, or company. They often put group interests ahead of personal interests to promote group harmony. In contrast, Western culture celebrates the individual—everyone is free to express themselves and follow their destinies. While individuals are sociable, they don’t defer to a group—rather, they seek to stand out or compete.

Asians value traits that promote group harmony, such as sensitivity and humility; Western culture favors those that promote individuality, such as verbal ability and assertiveness.

In one study of brain activity, American and Japanese participants were shown pictures of men in dominant and submissive postures. The Americans’ brain pleasure centers reacted more strongly to the dominant images, while the Japanese reacted more to the humble/submissive images. However, while Westerners may view deference as...

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So how can many introverts act out of character so convincingly? Little argues that we have both fixed and “free” personality traits. According to his “free trait theory,” we’re born with certain traits like introversion, but we can act out of character when pursuing “core personal projects” or goals that matter deeply to us.

For instance, an introvert might join the PTA at his daughter’s school because his family is important to him. Similarly, Little could be a passionate teacher because sharing his excitement for his subject was a “core project” to him.

You won’t succeed in acting out of character to advance a project you don’t care about. However, introverts may have difficulty identifying their core personal projects because they’re used to ignoring their own preferences and feeling uncomfortable in many situations. For an introvert functioning in an extrovert-dominated world, it’s like spending time in a foreign country —it can be exciting, but you don’t feel like you fit in.

Here are three steps to help identify your core personal projects:

1. Consider the following: when asked as a child what you wanted to be one day, what was the impulse behind your...

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Miscommunicating

Being “differently social” leads to conflict when it means each person’s needs aren’t being met by the other. Typically, the introvert wants downtime and understanding at the same time as the extrovert wants his partner’s attention and company.

Extroverts need to understand how desperately introverts need time to recover from a hectic day, and introverts need to understand that their silence can come across as rejection of their partners.

Introverts and extroverts also have different ways of handling conflict or differences. Introverts are uncomfortable with emotions, so they become quiet and dispassionate when dealing with a conflict. Extroverts raise their voices and become emotional, especially as their partners seem to withdraw. To put it another way, introverts try to avoid conflict while extroverts are comfortable with a confrontational style of disagreement.

In the Emily-Greg example, the more she backs away, the angrier he gets. The way they disagree gets in the way of resolving the matter they disagree on—Greg’s Friday night dinner parties. Emily needs to learn that it’s OK to let Greg know she’s angry, so Greg doesn’t think she’s...

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Remember that he’s not afraid of people or being anti-social. He’s showing an introvert’s natural reaction to newness (caution) or overstimulation (withdrawing). Accept that it’s his style to be cautious and examine a situation before getting involved. Gradually expose him to new situations and people, while respecting his limits even when they seem over the top. Unlike overprotection or pushing too hard, this approach boosts his confidence. When a child takes risks, commend his efforts. Eventually, he’ll see the rewards of persevering through discomfort and will learn to moderate his tendency toward caution.

Never shame a child for being shy. Be a role model for how to meet new people by being calm and friendly when greeting strangers. Introduce her to new social situations gradually. Discuss them beforehand and walk through them if possible—for instance, by walking a child through a new school when it’s not busy.

Teach her strategies for handling uncomfortable moments—for instance, how to look confident when you don’t feel that way by smiling, standing up straight, and making eye contact.

Thriving at School

Remember that schools are typically designed for...