A very different study, in which robots interacted with stroke patients during physical rehabilitation exercises, yielded strikingly similar results. Introverted patients responded better and interact...
A species in which everyone was General Patton would not succeed, any more than would a race in which everyone was Vincent van Gogh. I prefer to think that the planet needs athletes, philosophers, sex...
A software engineer named Tom kicks off, describing with great passion his relief at learning that there was a physiological basis for the trait of sensitivity. Here’s the research! This is how I am!...
It makes sense that introverts are uniquely good at leading intiative-takers. Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more...
What she meant by creative, she answered without missing a beat. You have to be outgoing, fun, and jazzed up to work here.
Today we make room for a remarkably narrow range of personality styles.
The orchid hypothesis by David Dobbs in a wonderful article in The Atlantic. This theory holds that many children are like dandelions, able to thrive in just about any environment. But others, includi...
Shy and introverted people might choose to spend their days in behind-the-scenes pursuits like inventing, or researching, or
People in politics draw energy from backslapping and shaking hands and all that, he has said. I draw energy from discussing ideas.
Our Charlie Brown moments are the price we have to pay to bang our drums happily through the decades.
Introverts prefer to work independently, and solitude can be a catalyst to innovation. As the influential psychologist Hans Eysenck once observed, introversion concentrates the mind on the tasks in ha...
In settled populations, people with this same gene form have poorer nutrition. The same traits that make a nomad fierce enough to hunt and to defend livestock against raiders may hinder more sedentary...
If we appreciated that not everyone aspires to be a leader in the conventional sense of the word—that some people wish to fit harmoniously into the group, and others to be independent of it.
Human extroverts have more sex partners than introverts do—a boon to any species wanting to reproduce itself—but they commit more adultery and divorce more frequently, which is not a good thing for th...
How frustrated he is by his colleagues’ failure to distinguish between good presentation skills and true leadership ability.
How did we go from Character to Personality without realizing that we had sacrificed something meaningful along the way?
Extroverts are sociable because their brains are good at handling competing demands on their attention—which is just what dinner-party conversation involves. In contrast, introverts often feel repelle...
Child guidance experts of the 1920s set about helping children to develop winning personalities. Until then, these professionals had worried mainly about sexually precocious girls and delinquent boys,...
By creating as many restorative niches as possible in your daily life. Restorative niche is Professor Little’s term for the place you go when you want to return to your true self.
A 2010 University of Michigan study shows that college students today are 40 percent less empathetic than they were thirty years ago, with much of the drop having occurred since 2000. (The study’s aut...