I came across two very interesting and contrasting articles about introversion yesterday. One was entitled “How an Introvert Can Be Happier: Act Like an Extrovert”. It’s pretty obvious what that article was about. The other one was called, “This is who I am, deal with it”. This article related how the author’s efforts to behave like an extrovert led to her downward spiral into depression.
The vastly different perspectives of these two articles shocked me. Clearly, further investigation was necessary.
In “How an Introvert Can Be Happier”, William Fleeson, a psychology professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. makes the following brazen claim:
“If you’re introverted and act extroverted, you will be happier. It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s all about what you do.”
The fact that this statement came from a real live, lab coat-wearing, psychology researcher gave it more weight, but I still wasn’t convinced (neither were the other thousands of introverts who were infuriated by his claims).
Nevertheless, I carefully read the article in hopes of discovering how Professor Fleeson came to such a bold conclusion.
It turns out, Fleeson’s findings were based on a weeklong study in which researchers followed 85 people who recorded on Palm Pilots how extroverted they were acting and how happy they were feeling.
Eighty-five people? Were these individuals truly an accurate cross section of the introvert population? Is one week a long enough time frame in which to gather relevant data? And who the heck uses Palm Pilots nowadays anyway? I for one would not be making any sweeping statements based on such a small-scale study.
Furthermore, I think it’s important to ask, how is happiness defined? The definition tends to vary between people. Introverts and extroverts can have vastly different perspectives regarding happiness. Studies show that introverts favor a neutral emotional state over exhausting emotional highs and lows. We may seldom feel the ‘buzz’ that extroverts associate with being happy, but we don’t want to. Our happiness looks different than theirs and that’s okay.
The other important question that was left unanswered by the article was, what is “acting extroverted”? There is no such thing as an exclusively extrovert behavior or activity. Extroverts don’t have a claim on bowling any more than introverts have exclusive rights to reading and writing.
The gaping hole in Fleeson’s findings lies in the fact that he doesn’t seem to consider energy levels over time. Sure, we can all “act extroverted” for a little while. Maybe during thirty minutes of forced extroversion (plus the two minutes it takes to record our feelings in a Palm Pilot) we are fairly content, but what about one, two, or three hours later? After a while, we’ll probably want to shove those Palm Pilots where the sun don’t shine.
Wendy Squires talks a lot about energy levels in her article, “This is who I am, deal with it”.
“What I see now was happening was that I was not allowing myself time to recharge, to be alone, to say nothing and just be after socially active periods. Instead, I would believe such plateaus were a depression descending which, dammit, I refused to accept or needed to block, forcing me out the door and back to people and alcohol and the pressure to be up – the very triggers that shot me down in the first place.”
It sure doesn’t sound like being extroverted made Squires happier – quite the opposite.
“How an Introvert Can Be Happier” also fails to address the importance of motivation. In her book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain talks about how our “core personal projects” influence our behavior.
She proposes that introverts can and should behave out of character if it helps us achieve something that we highly value (a fulfilling relationship, career advancement, personal growth, etc.). Perhaps, acting extroverted will make us feel happy, but only because it results in the fulfillment of work we consider important.
As a recovering pseudo-extrovert, I can confidently say that behaving like an extrovert is not the path to happiness. Instead, true contentment springs from embracing your most authentic self and metaphorically flipping the bird at anyone who tells you to do otherwise.
So, here it is, Professor William Fleeson: a metaphorical middle finger straight from my keyboard to you.
Well said!!! Trying to act ‘normal’ (which in our culture means extroverted) was a major source of underlying tension and anxiety for me until fairlrly recently. About ten years ago I started having anxiety attacks which put me on the road to where I am now. I got some good counseling and some not so good. Life continued to get better but the icing on the cake was reading Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh followed by Susan Cain’s book QUIET. Now I’m content to be who God made me to be and I don’t feel the need to explain. It’s take it or leave it time. Authenticity feels really good.
I feel really sorry for any introvert who gets told they’ll be happy if they just act extroverted.. I am SO THANKFUL for the voices of those like you and Susan Cain who are challenging the extrovert status quo. Thanks
Glad you can relate, Margie! I’ve heard of Introverts in the Church and would really like to read it. 🙂
I agree- trying to force ourselves to be someone we’re not (and I think this is true for most anyone, not just introverts) couldn’t possibly make us happy. The very implication is that you’re pursuing what you think makes OTHER people happy. Before I knew much about what it means to be an introvert, I tried to be more like my witty and fun extroverted contemporaries too, and I guess I’m just a terrible actress. My attempts were always awkward and left me kicking myself for days afterward for making people think even less of me than I thought they already did. The harder I tried, the worse it was. So yeah, screw that.
So THAT’S how he reached that conclusion! I was wondering where the hell he got that from. I love the points you made in this post.
Also, I had to do the fake extrovert thing at a previous job, and while I liked other aspects of the job and am grateful for the fact that it gave me skills I needed for my current job, the only happy thing that came from the fake extroverting itself was that it motivated me to work really hard to get out of that job and into this one. My current job involves a lot of overtime whereas the fake extroverting job required almost none, but I’ll take the overtime any day if it means I no longer have to force myself to be something I’m not.
Thank you for saying/writing this! I completely agree. I was too infuriated by the title to read the full article. I think a week is much too short a time frame to measure happiness, if happiness can even be measured. And self reporting of “acting extraverted” (whatever that means) or self reporting of happiness in the moment seems highly suspect.
And thank you for this gem: “Our happiness looks different than theirs and that’s okay.”
You know my issues with labels, so I’m not as passionate about the introvert/extrovert topic here, but I certainly am about the research element, which reflects my never-ending frustration with academic studies. At least this one wasn’t done by depriving rats of sleep for a week to prove that lack of sleep makes you tired!
I do believe a core theme here though is the idea of “happiness” vs “contentment”, where one is focused on a faster response while the other one is about a sustainable feeling of inner peace. And I do believe “acting out” the other part can be a fun exercise, the problem is when your life becomes an act. That, I believe will always make you sad regardless of whatever you are acting as because deep inside you’ll know you are not being your authentic self. Nice post as always Michaela 🙂
Wonderful!
I had to smile at: “So, here it is, Professor William Fleeson: a metaphorical middle finger straight from my keyboard to you”
I like the way you make serious topics sound fun and entertaining. That is one of the reasons I read most of your posts (be it mostly retrospectively).
Science = people = can be biased = sometimes connected to hidden agendas = is often misinterpreted = often popularized without proper knowledge = only understood best by who know… aaah never mind, you get the point 😉
It reminds me of what is still sometimes said about gay people: if they ‘act hetero’ they will be more happy (they can be ‘cured’)…
Not to speak of women’s rights, immigrant minorities and people with disabilities.
Thank you so much for underlining and eloquently verbalizing what most of us already felt, but needed confirmed!
XO Marcel
Reading that last line, aside from the fact that that’s an extremely rude gesture, I metaphorically salute you. I saw here what the processor said about acting like an extrovert, and I was literally thinking, WRONG! WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!
I would have loved dearly right then to give this man a nice smack up side the head. To be completely honest, I still would. The total lack of any kind of empathy or forethought, (or even a better planned study, though I didn’t much like the study to begin with) is completely atrocious.
Great artical as usual, loved it!
– Rowan
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I agree. When I try and act like an extrovert, I feel it frustrating, not happy.