The cooperative approach has politically progressive roots—the theory is that students take ownership of their education when they learn from one another—but according to elementary school teachers I...
The authors whose books get published - once accepted as a reclusive breed - are now vetted by publicists to make sure they're talk-show ready.
That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough.
Still, there’s a limit to how much we can control our self-presentation. This is partly because of a phenomenon called behavioral leakage, in which our true selves seep out via unconscious body langua...
Stay true to your own nature. If you like to do things in a slow and steady way, don't let others make you feel as if you have to race. If you enjoy depth, don't force yourself to seek breadth.
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...
Schwartz's research suggests something important: we can stretch our personalities, but only up to a point. Our inborn temperaments influence us, regardless of the lives we lead. A sizeable part of wh...
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...
Proverbs from the East:The wind howls, but the mountain remains still.Even though I make no special attempt to observe the discipline of silence, living alone automatically makes me refrain from the s...
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...
Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure.
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.
No! Kagan exclaims. Every behavior has more than one cause. Don’t ever forget that! For every child who’s slow to warm up, yes, there will be statistically more high-reactives, but you can be slow to...
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...
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...
Introverts feel just right with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like m...
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...
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...