Jonathan Hill (2:04)

This interest in personality types began the way a lot of interests do. He was dating someone who was super into it.

Lidell (2:12)

I was in a relationship with someone who was an introvert and they would be reading this book and really like going, oh, ah. Oh my gosh. And so I'm like, what is this book? So I got the name of the book Introvert Advantage and I didn't realize when I got it that it would teach me so much about myself.

Jonathan Hill (2:35)

The relationship ended, but his commitment to the introverts in his life is still going strong.

Lidell (2:40)

I may just suggest instead of hanging out for five hours. We hang out for an hour and a half. Or I may text one of them under an introverted friend under the table and be like, are you good?

Jonathan Hill (2:54)

You mentioned that the way we talk about introverts is changing. What have you noticed? How has it changed?

Lidell (3:01)

I feel like every now and again online, a word just takes off. Recently it's been like, diabolical. Everything we don't like is diabolical. Right. And I was starting to feel like introversion was like that in that as a mass collective, we kind of learned a new word and it sounded cool and intriguing and interesting and, like, added, you know, mystique to us. So people were just clinging to it without really knowing the characteristics of an introvert. I was seeing people who I know, who I wouldn't consider to be an introvert, proclaiming that they were, and I'm like, you know, wow, like, you're out every weekend, like, swinging from chandeliers. Like, you're probably not an introvert, like, but I'm not so arrogant that, you know, I feel like I can tell anyone what their temperament is. I respect everyone's take on it, of course.

Jonathan Hill (3:58)

So if you could ask an expert, you know, any kinds of questions about this, what are some of the things you'd ask them?

Lidell (4:05)

Do we shift towards the introverted side of the spectrum as we age? That sounds like it would be natural, maybe, but I don't know. I definitely feel like the pandemic definitely amplified it to the point where I even hear people say crazy things like, I miss the pandemic and I'm like, you miss being locked in the house without the freedom to move around and do things like that? That sounds extreme.

Lidell (4:33)

I feel like society as a whole is growing more disconnected, and I kind of hate that. For us, I truly believe life is a team sport. It's important to be self aware in terms of, you know, your introversion, extroversion, and how you handle people so that they're eager to stick around and, and sustain those. Those relationships.

Jonathan Hill (4:57)

I'm John Glen Hill, and this week on Explain It To Me from Vox, we're gonna get Lidell some answers. What does it actually mean to be an introvert? Are we more introverted than we used to be? And is it possible to change?

Jonathan Hill (5:16)

Would you describe yourself as an introvert or an extrovert?

Shannon Sauer Zavala (5:20)

Neither.

Jonathan Hill (5:21)

Oh, can you do that? Is that legal? Yeah. This is Shannon Sauer Zavala. She's a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky and she researches personality.

Shannon Sauer Zavala (5:33)

It's a little bit Of a misconception, because we think that we can put ourselves into these, like, discrete categories. But most of the things that we use to describe people are on continua. So you can be more towards the introverted side or more towards the extroverted side, but this is a continuum with different poles. People that are more on the introverted side, they're going to need less stimulation, they're going to have less sort of energy, and they're going to derive less energy from social situations, Whereas people on the more extroverted side are going to be more excitable, have more positivity, and tend to derive a lot of energy from social situations.

Jonathan Hill (6:17)

One of our listeners called in because he suddenly noticed so many more people identifying as introverts on social media, and he wondered if it might have something to do with the pandemic.

Shannon Sauer Zavala (6:28)

The pandemic is kind of a huge life event, Right. That really changed a lot of our behavior. And, you know, I would consider myself, like, pretty staunchly in the middle of the continuum. Extroverted in some situations, introverted in others. And I remember going out to dinner when we were first allowed to go out to dinner and being like, man, I got weird.

Jonathan Hill (6:48)

Yeah.

Shannon Sauer Zavala (6:49)

So I think, like, any skill when we are out of practice, we get rusty. And so I think people might be kind of confusing discovery, comfort, and a little rustiness with, like, I'm introverted. But I do think that here in the last decade or so, there's been more recognition of introverts as having qualities that are really desirable.

Jonathan Hill (7:17)

You know what?

Shannon Sauer Zavala (7:18)

No one talks about how freaking good introverts are at networking.

Jonathan Hill (7:23)

It's a whole spiritual filtration system that refuses to let surface level conversations sit on the same couch as their souls. When it comes to creativity and to.

Olga Hazan (7:32)

Leadership, we need introverts doing what they do best.

Shannon Sauer Zavala (7:35)

They tend to be more thoughtful, more measured, better listeners. Right. And so the world is really, I think, set up to reinforce extroversion. You know, being the loudest person in the room shouting your ideas. And so I think there's been kind of this, like, renaissance for introverts. And now people are like, oh, it's okay to identify as an introvert. I'm a proud introvert. And I think that's what we're seeing.

Jonathan Hill (8:03)

Do we get more introverted as we age? Like, I don't know, I'm an extrovert. But I do notice more and more I'm like, I can stay in and read a book by myself today.

Olga Hazan (8:14)

Yeah.

Shannon Sauer Zavala (8:15)

So this is actually a really complicated Question to answer. So extroversion versus introversion rate. It can be divided up into what we think of as sub facets. So it's not just like one global quality, even though that's how we often talk about it. So one thing that does tend to change or increase on average as people age is what's called social dominance. And this is a facet of extroversion, that is the tendency to be assertive and confident. On the flip side, social vitality tends to decrease. And this is like enthusiasm and energy for social situations. Kind of like what you're describing. Like, I don't necessarily. I don't have the same FOMO I used to have. I'm happy to read my book. But what I really want to highlight, though is that these are on average and like, nobody is really the average person. This is like when we mathematically sum everybody's kind of change in extroversion.

Jonathan Hill (9:13)

You know, I think we have this urge to put ourselves like in these boxes, you know, like, I am an extrovert or I am an introvert. You research personality. Is that how you and your colleagues think about it?

Shannon Sauer Zavala (9:26)

So most things about people are not categories. We're not this or that. It's more of a matter of degree. I think the way we define personality, the way we measure personality, it's really different from how people are talking about their types of at a dinner party. It's really different from what you would think personality is if you took a common personality test on the Internet or, you know, through your HR office. I always say that, you know, academic personality, science needs like a PR person because we're not really good at spreading the word on what personality actually is.

Jonathan Hill (10:13)

Coming up, some personality PR.

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Root metrics rankings are not an endorsement of AT&T.

Jonathan Hill (11:32)

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Jonathan Hill (12:14)

It's jq this is Explain it to me. We're back with researcher Shannon Sauer Zavala. Basically her job is to unpack the question what is a personality?

Shannon Sauer Zavala (12:26)

So I always like to answer this by, by talking about what personality is not. First, people are super duper precious about their personality. It is their essence, their sense of humor, their taste, their, their values. And that's actually not how academic psychologists define personality. Oh, so people think, oh it's like the core of me. But really we define personality as your characteristic or habitual way of acting and thinking. And when you think about like that, it's like mental habits and you know, behavioral habits. And those are things that we change all the time.

Jonathan Hill (13:03)

I'm curious how you measure personality from that scientific standpoint.

Shannon Sauer Zavala (13:08)

Most of the commercial personality tests that people have heard of that they're taking in like HR offices, they're very category based, right? They put you into a type and you know, that's that what we use, what we think sort of describes personality in a much more nuanced way is the big five or the five factor model of personality. These are sort of five overarching traits. The first one is openness. And this is the degree to which you are interested in new ideas and assessment, aesthetics, philosophy, art versus folks that are more traditional and like this is how we always do it. Then you have conscientiousness, which is on a continuum with disinhibition. And essentially conscientiousness is like how achievement striving you are, how organized, how reliable. And disinhibition is more like you know, I could act before I think it through.

Shannon Sauer Zavala (14:06)

The next is extroversion versus introversion, right? And that's the tendency to be energetic and excitable. Then there's agreeableness versus antagonism. Agreeableness is how oriented you are towards other people, how empathic, how caring, how well you get along with others.

Shannon Sauer Zavala (14:26)

The last one is neuroticism, which is on a continuum with emotional stability. And neuroticism is just your tendency to experience, experience strong negative emotions. Do you tend to get more upset by, you know, stressors in the environment? Do you take longer to calm back down, that sort of thing?

Shannon Sauer Zavala (14:46)

I like to think about the big five. You know, if you could imagine like a, like an audio switchboard with all the little dials that you can kind of push up and down. So you might be high in neuroticism and you might be kind of moderate in extroversion and you might be moderate in agreeableness and you might be high in conscientiousness and you might be high in open openness. Describing myself, the classic high achiever personality.

Jonathan Hill (15:12)

Oh man. Yeah, I relate to that. Are there limits to how we can measure or define personality?

Shannon Sauer Zavala (15:21)

Well, one of the nice things about the big five is that we have tons of really, really good measures of this, right? So if you Google personality test, the first two pages of hits are going to be like 16 personalities Myers Briggs. But if you Google Big 5 personality test, there are versions of this test where you can get this information. And these are super well validated. They actually predict outcomes where you fall on these traits versus these personality type tests are about as good as predicting career success and relationship satisfaction as your zodiac sign.

Jonathan Hill (15:58)

Why do you think we're so interested in knowing our personality types? Why do we want to put ourselves in buckets so badly?

Shannon Sauer Zavala (16:05)

I mean, it's fun, right?

Jonathan Hill (16:08)

It is, right?

Shannon Sauer Zavala (16:09)

It's fun. I mean like my Myers Briggs type is. I don't actually know what the number is, but like colloquially it's the protagonist, which is like so fun, right? That's much more fun than being like, I'm high in neuroticism and I'm moderate and extroversion. But knowing where you are on those different traits provides you with a lot more nuanced information. And the work that I do in my lab, so I'm a have a research lab at the University of Kentucky. It's a treatment outcome research lab. So I develop interventions and you know, for the past 10 years have been developing interventions to nudge personality traits when you're like a type seven. Okay, well, what. Where do I start with change, Right. But if I'm really high on neuroticism and I want to slide that down a little bit. Okay, now I have a really clear goal or, you know, I'm kind of shy of the midpoint for the introversion extroversion continuum. And I really want to go for promotion where I have, you know, I. I have some leadership responsibilities and I need to be more up in front of the group. Like, how can I make those shifts to my personality?

Shannon Sauer Zavala (17:15)

And so the other, like, big mistake that people think is that personality set in stone. You're born with it. And you should just, like, take the test, put yourself in the box. And then you should choose partners and careers based on whatever type you are, when really, I think it should be the opposite. Right? That you should identify what's important to you, what you value, what important goals you have, and then figure out what are the traits that will help get you there and intentionally cultivate them.

Jonathan Hill (17:50)

Up next, an introvert tries to reinvent herself as an extrovert.

Jonathan Hill (18:09)

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Jonathan Hill (19:13)

Hey, it's jq. We're back with Explain it to Me. And it turns out our personality traits aren't really either or. It's more like a continuum. And where you fall on that continuum isn't set in stone. But what if you're unhappy with where you're at? Can you actually change your personality?

Olga Hazan (19:32)

I'm Olga Hazan and I'm a staff writer at the Atlantic and the author of Me But Better.

Jonathan Hill (19:36)

Olga spent an entire year attempting to do just that.

Olga Hazan (19:40)

So the year was 2022 and, you know, the pandemic was sort of easing up. People had started socializing again, you know, sometimes in masks, sometimes not, but I kind of had not. I was still pretty much social distancing pretty hardcore. And a lot of my social connections had kind of evaporated, loosened, since the pandemic had started. And I kind of just found myself a little bit lonely, honestly. And so I been interested in this topic of personality change just through some other research and writing I had been doing. And I took this personality test that was designed by a psychologist, and it told me that I was in the something like the 23rd percentile when it came to introversion versus extroversion. So I was an extreme introvert, and especially when it came to being friendly or cheerful. So I was very not friendly and not cheerful.

Jonathan Hill (20:38)

You mentioned, you know, that this was happening during the pandemic. Coming off of the pandemic, can you tell me a little bit more about how the pandemic and social distancing affected you and your introversion?

Olga Hazan (20:51)

So I think it really hardened my introversion. I did pretty well at social distancing, and I kind of didn't realize how severe the introversion was getting or how much I was sort of like, I basically never need to talk to people ever again. It was, like, February in D.C. and it was raining. It was like a freezing rain. And, like, there was no leaves on the trees. And I just, like, looked outside, and I wrote in my journal, I feel like nobody really knows me. I was just like, this is. This is bad. I feel like I'm in a gulag or something.

Jonathan Hill (21:31)

So that's when Olga decided to take matters into her own hands. She took all that research she read for her reporting and did her own experiment. She gave herself a series of exercises. She hosted a dinner party. She talked to strangers more. And she kicked it all off by doing something only the bravest among us do.

Olga Hazan (21:50)

I just wanted to rip the band aid off and do the most extreme thing possible.

Jonathan Hill (21:55)

She signed up for an improv class.

Olga Hazan (21:59)

I was terrified. That was one thing. I'm not a natural performer, and I'm also not silly. So that was a challenge for me. But the great thing about improv is that not only does it make you more comfortable interacting with people, but also in doing so, so in a way that's not scripted at all. So, like, you and I are both journalists. Like, before each interview, we write out our questions. You know, we go through the list, and then the conversation is done, and, like, goodbye. And I was really used to having those kinds of conversations, but I wasn't used to someone saying something to me that was unexpected or asking me a question that was probing or vulnerable and. Or just having to, like, pivot in the moment through something kind of chaotic.

Jonathan Hill (22:43)

I imagine if you are, like, extremely introverted, doing improv is like, oh, this is a nightmare scenario. Because even I will say I've done it before. And even as an extrovert, it can be a little bit like, oh, what are we getting ourselves into?

Olga Hazan (22:56)

Pretty much like, all the, like, introvert worst nightmares were played out every single time in improv.

Jonathan Hill (23:04)

So what were the final results of your experiment? Were you successful?

Olga Hazan (23:09)

So, on introversion in particular, my score went way up. I think it was, like, it went up to, like, high or something, or, like, medium high, maybe.

Shannon Sauer Zavala (23:17)

I don't know.

Olga Hazan (23:19)

And so the principle behind this personality change is that as you do these activities or whatever challenges, whatever you want to call them, you become more comfortable with it, just like with anything else. Training for a marathon, you know, any other skill you want to pick up. So you become more comfortable with talking to people and with socializing, and then you kind of start to see that as part of yourself. So a lot of the questions will be, like, sometimes, like, I enjoy talking to people, or, like, I have fun at parties. And I honestly had to answer, like, yes to a lot of those because I had been doing a lot of those things and I had been having fun.

Jonathan Hill (23:53)

Would you say that you're an extrovert now?

Olga Hazan (23:56)

I think I'm a lot more extroverted than I thought. I think I maybe just wasn't this hardened introvert, this 23% not friendly, not cheerful. I think I was sort of, like, taking that initial test based on how I feel when I'm about to leave the house and, like, Netflix and the couch are calling and not.

Jonathan Hill (24:19)

And there are days like, that they.

Olga Hazan (24:21)

Do exist, but not, like, how I feel when I'm actually there or, like, afterward where I'm like, oh, that was so funny what that person said. Or, like, that was so cool. Or that person's job is so neat. Like, you don't think about those positive things that come out of social interaction. You just think about how hard it is to, like, go and find parking or whatever.

Olga Hazan (24:40)

To me, it really showed how, like, you're not necessarily stuck with what you were given or the story that you're telling yourself about your personality traits, that by kind of loosening what your definition of your personality is, you can actually kind of explore more of the world and possibly find things that are more fulfilling. On the other side, even if it's not totally in line with your original version of your personality.

Jonathan Hill (25:06)

So we've talked a lot about going from introversion to extroversion, but what do you think extroverts can learn from introverts?

Olga Hazan (25:14)

There are strengths to being introverted and to being contemplative and having, like, quiet moments to yourself and being happy, just being by yourself and spending time alone because you are going to have, you know, times in your life when you are solo traveling or, you know, just doing something that requires, like, deep thought work. Carl Jung, who's like one of the psychologists that I write about in the book, once said that there's no such thing as a pure introvert or pure extrovert. Such a person would be in the insane asylum. And, you know, that's extreme, but that's like, sort of true. Is that, like, there's definitely elements to both sides of that trade that are worthwhile.

Jonathan Hill (26:05)

That's it for this week. Thanks again to lidel for calling in with your question. Speaking of which, we're working on an upcoming episode about AI abundance. It's the idea that AI can actually free us up to work less and and live more. We want to know, if you suddenly had a lot of time on your hands, what would you do with it? Call us at 1-800-618-8545 or email us at askvox vox.com.

Jonathan Hill (26:37)

If you like the show, you should consider becoming a VOX member. Members get a ton of exclusive perks, like a version of the this podcast with no ads, and most importantly, you help support our work. Sign up now and you'll get more than 30% off annual membership. My mom did it. And she's a very smart lady who knows a good deal when she sees one. Be like my mom. Go to vox.commembers to join. This episode was produced by Danielle Hewitt. It was edited by Jenny Lawton, fact checked by Melissa Hirsch and engineered by Patrick Boyd. Miranda Kennedy's our executive producer. I'm your host, Jonathan Hill. Talk to you soon. Bye.

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