Introvert or Extrovert
Do you love people? Are you the major attraction in any gathering? Do you find yourself surrounded by more friends than you can count?
Or are you the shy, retiring type who spends most of your time with yourself, perhaps a handful of people you call friends?
Your answer will determine whether they label you as an extrovert or introvert.
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung was the first person to create these labels. He wasn’t trying to create classes in society.
He was seeking to understand how personality works. In fact, how do people draw energy and recharge themselves? Some do it through social interactions and others by themselves.
As often happens, depending on who is writing these labels, various qualities can be attributed to the two categories.
So if you are an introvert, you could be called the shy, brooding, insular, inward focused, awkward types.
Naturally, being friendly, magnetic, outgoing, the life of a party are far more attractive attributes especially when being evaluated through the prism of society.
The differences are not limited to labels or appearances.
Both categories apparently process information differently in the brain. An introvert, then, will use more of their right brain, their frontal lobes, areas that are used for problem solving, analyzing, planning, memory and language skills.
So how did you acquire the ability to be one or the other? Can you switch, in case you so desire? Which one should you be?
Researchers tell us that your personality is shaped by nature and nuture. There is some genetics involved and from then on, what you do with it.
The good news is that you can cultivate a personality type if you so desire. So an introvert, given the right circumstance could become an extrovert and vice versa.
In fact, many of us find as you get older that you had phases of being one or the other.
So ask yourself which personality type serves you better and then if you wish, cultivate it to make it your truth.
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