So the next time you see a person with a composed face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be dep...
Shakespeare’s oft-quoted advice, To thine own self be true, runs deep in our philosophical DNA. Many of us are uncomfortable with the idea of taking on a false persona for any length of time. And if w...
Restraint, Gandhi believed, was one of his greatest assets. And it was born of his shyness: I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. A thoughtless word hardly ever escaped my tong...
Restorative niche' is Professor Little's term for the place you go when you want to return to your true self. It can be a physical place, like the path beside the Richelieu River, or a temporal one, l...
Pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire.
Our personalities also shape our social styles. Extroverts are the people who will add life to your dinner party and laugh generously at your jokes. They tend to be assertive, dominant, and in great n...
Our lives are shaped as profoundly by personality as by gender or race. And the single most important aspect of personality—the north and south of temperament, as one scientist puts it—is where we fal...
One of the best things you can do for an introverted child is to work with him on his reaction to novelty. Remember that introverts react not only to new people, but also to new places and events. So...
One new honest-to-goodness relationship is worth ten fistfuls of business cards.
Maybe they’re not even introverts—only 70 percent of sensitive people are, according to Aron, while the other 30 percent are extroverts (although this group tends to report craving more downtime and s...
Love is essential; gregariousness is optional. Cherish your nearest and dearest. Work with colleagues you like and respect. Scan new acquaintances for those who might fall into the former categories o...
Kuhnen and Brian Knutson have found that men who are shown erotic pictures just before they gamble take more risks than those shown neutral images like desks and chairs. This is because anticipating r...
It turned out that the introverts who were especially good at acting like extroverts tended to score high for a trait that psychologists call self-monitoring. Self-monitors are highly skilled at modif...
It can be hard for extroverts to understand how badly introverts need to recharge at the end of a busy day.
In fact, some scientists are starting to explore the idea that reward-sensitivity is not only an interesting feature of extroversion; it is what makes an extrovert an extrovert. Extroverts, in other w...
In Maya’s group, the executive branch, everyone is talking at once. Maya hangs back. Samantha, tall and plump in a purple T-shirt, takes charge. She pulls a sandwich bag from her knapsack and announce...
If you’re a teacher, enjoy your gregarious and participatory students. But don’t forget to cultivate the shy, the gentle, the autonomous, the ones with single-minded enthusiasms for chemistry sets or...
I am a horse for a single harness, not cut out for tandem or teamwork … for well I know that in order to attain any definite goal, it is imperative that one person do the thinking and the commanding....
Here's a rule of thumb for networking events: one new honest-to-goodness relationship is worth ten fistfuls of business cards. Rush home afterward and kick back on your sofa. Carve out restorative nic...
He believes, as most of us do, that venting anger lets off steam. The catharsis hypothesis—that aggression builds up inside us until it’s healthily released—dates back to the Greeks, was revived by Fr...