Introverted People: 4 Characteristics That Define Them
The introverted personality is one of those that arouses the most interest both in the areas of differential and applied psychology as well as in popular culture. And many people identify with the category of “introverts” based on the assessment they make of the way they relate to their environment and others.
But…What exactly does it mean to be an introvert? beyond that notion that it has something to do with shyness? Let’s look at it, starting, first, with the most basic question of all.
Introversion is a concept originally coined by Carl Jung, known among other things for being one of the disciples of Sigmund Freud who ended up distancing themselves from their teacher. Jung created the categories of introversion and extraversion to refer to a duality of mutually exclusive psychological traits (although every introvert is somewhat extroverted and vice versa) and that were based on a main idea.
This idea was that introverts tend to focus their psychological activity on private mental processes and only indirectly related to the environment, while introverts tend to seek external stimuli in the present, constantly.
Over time, the psychodynamic paradigm from which both Jung and Freud started lost strength, but in the second half of the 20th century, researchers of differential psychology, starting from a psychometric approach, They kept the introversion-extraversion dialectic in force because they saw that it describes well the way in which a part of the human personality distinguishes us and explains the tendencies of our behavior
Specifically, both Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck, two of the main references in the field of differential psychology, have used this category in their personality models. And they are not the only ones.
Its relationship with shyness
Although it is very easy to confuse introversion with shyness, and in practice it is very easy for these two characteristics to occur at the same time in people, technically they are not the same, and it is not uncommon to find introverted people who are not shy. , although the reverse case is more strange.
The main difference between introverted people and shy people is that the former They don’t have to worry about giving a bad image, and they also do not have to have a certain respect for the situation of interacting with people they do not know. Their link with the “private” realm of their own mind is not the result of fear, but rather the way in which they process information in real time.
Characteristics of introverts
When describing the typical traits of introverted people, the most common are the following.
1. They avoid constantly being in changing and complex environments
Introverted people They feel significant psychological exhaustion if they have to constantly be involved in events that happen around them and that present a relatively high degree of uncertainty. For example, if they must carry out public-facing jobs full-time.
That is why they need to “replenish their strength” away from that kind of context.
2. They need time alone
Another characteristic of introverted people is that they actively seek to reserve time and a place to be alone. This not only has to do with the need to rest, but, due to their nature, a good part of the activities that they consider most motivating and stimulating are based on introversion and therefore They try to have environments that do not present distractions
This is something that especially affects couple relationships, and something that can cause problems if it clashes with the expectations of the other person, who may interpret this as a distancing or as a sign that the love bond is weak.
3. Tendency to interact with few people
This is another consequence of the way these people’s minds work. As they especially seek stable and They do not appreciate situations in which there is uncertainty much introverts prefer to interact with a rather small circle of friends, and not rely on many other face-to-face interactions with those outside that group.
As a result, they are not usually very talkative or assertive people, since they prefer to keep a low profile in their social relationships so as not to lengthen them too much and keep them simple, without complications.
4. They prefer the practical to the flashy
For introverts, social capital doesn’t have much value beyond those people with whom they have a strong emotional bond. That’s why, The idea of wanting attention doesn’t make much sense to them and this even tends to be reflected in their way of dressing, chosen not so much for their striking aesthetics as for practical use criteria, such as their comfort.
