Feb 22 -
harvestheart: Janie Magruder The Arizona Republic Nov. 8, 2005 12:00 AM A contestant on a popular reality-TV series looks into the camera and disdainfully describes a tribe mate, whom she’d vote off tomorrow in a heart beat: “He’s introverted, anti-social - but there are medications that can counteract that, right?” Her attitude that there’s something wrong with introverted people is widely shared in society, where fast talk and snap decisions are valued over listening, deliberation and careful planning. Extroverts seem to rule the world or, at least, the U.S., which hasn’t elected an introverted president for three decades, since Jimmy Carter. “The signals we get from the world agree that extroversion is valued,” said Sanford Cohn, an associate professor in curriculum and instruction at Arizona State University. “A lot of the messages we get from society have to do with being social, and in order to be social you have to behave a certain way.” But that is impossible for introverted kids. Raising them isn’t easy, particularly if parents, family members, teachers, coaches and other adults don’t allow them to be who they are. Introverted children enjoy the internal world of thoughts, feelings and fantasies, and there’s a physiological reason for this. In using brain scans to study personality differences, researchers found introverts have more brain activity, in general, and specifically in their frontal lobes. When these areas are activated, introverts are energized by retrieving long-term memories, problem solving, introspection, complex thinking and planning, Their brain pathway also switches on the “rest and digest” side of the nervous system, so they can slow down to conserve their body energy to do all that thinking. Extroverts enjoy the external world of things, people and activities. They have more activity in the back of their brains, the areas involved in processing the sensory information we’re bombarded with daily. Because extroverts have less internally generated brain activity, they search for more external stimuli to energize them. “It’s the different pathways that are turned on that activate the behaviors and abilities we see in introverts and extroverts,” said Marti Olsen Laney, a neuroscience researcher and author in Portland, Ore., who’s credited with connecting introversion with its underlying biology. “It impacts all areas of their lives: how they process information, how they restore their energy, what they enjoy and how they communicate.” Generally, introverts are intelligent problem-solvers with good concentration. They frequently are gifted in math, science, music or art and enjoy working alone. They’re late bloomers, often marrying late in life, and while they have fewer close relationships, they’re strong ones. “What they tend to find through their lifetime is one or two very, very good friends, and they tend to be very happy with that,” Cohn said. “They’re not the kids going to parties or becoming cheerleaders or doing things that tend to be gregarious in nature. When they do become social, it’s after a lot of observation. They tend to trust information that comes from within.” Different behavior They need time alone more than do extroverted children, said Laney, whose book, The Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child: Helping Your Child Thrive in an Extroverted World, is due out in January. “Extroverts gain energy by being out and about,” she said. “Being with people takes energy from introverts, and they need to get away to restore that energy.” Laney said introverted kids also behave differently. “They don’t move their bodies as much, they keep their faces straight, they don’t show as much emotion, in general,” she said. “Out in public, they tend to be more contained in appearance, and their energy feels that way, too. They usually look at you when listening and tend to look away when they’re speaking. They’re often criticized for that, but it’s because they have very active minds and need to look away to put their thoughts and words together.” They’re not slow, inattentive or shy, all common misperceptions. Shyness is behavior that may diminish as children grow; introversion is a character trait that lasts. “There’s a level of comfort that introverts have that the shy person doesn’t have,” Cohn said. “Introverts are fine with the way they are until someone makes them not fine.” Added Laney, “Shy people are more worried about how people are seeing them. Introverted kids tend to have an amazingly solid ability to observe, and they are less vulnerable to what other people think about them.”
