Quiet

by Susan Cain

  5. function well without sleep: William D. S. Killgore et al., “The Trait of Introversion-Extraversion Predicts Vulnerability to Sleep Deprivation,” Journal of Sleep Research 16, no. 4 (2007): 354–63. See also Daniel Taylor and Robert M. McFatter, “Cognitive Performance After Sleep Deprivation: Does Personality Make a Difference?” Personality and Individual Differences 34, no. 7 (2003): 1179–93; and Andrew Smith and Andrea Maben, “Effects of Sleep Deprivation, Lunch, and Personality on Performance, Mood, and Cardiovascular Function,” Physiology and Behavior 54, no. 5 (1993): 967–72.

  6. learn from our mistakes: See chapter 7.

  7. place big bets in the stock market: See chapter 7.

  8. be a good leader: See chapter 2.

  9. and ask “what if”: See chapters 3 and 7.

  10. exhaustively researched subjects: As of May 2, 2010, in the PSYCINFO database, there were 9,194 entries on “extraversion,” 6,111 on “introversion,” and 12,494 on the overlapping subject of “neuroticism.” There were fewer entries for the other “Big 5” personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. Similarly, as of June 14, 2010, a Google scholar search found about 64,700 articles on “extraversion,” 30,600 on “extroversion,” 55,900 on “introversion,” and 53,300 on “neuroticism.” The psychologist William Graziano, in an e-mail dated July 31, 2010, refers to introversion/extroversion as “the 300 lb. gorilla of personality, meaning that it is big and cannot be ignored easily.”

  11. in the Bible: See “A Note on Terminology.”

  12. some evolutionary psychologists: See chapter 6.

  13. one third to one half of Americans are introverts: Rowan Bayne, in The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: A Critical Review and Practical Guide (London: Chapman and Hall, 1995), 47, finds the incidence of introversion at 36 percent, which is in turn determined from Isabel Myers’s own study from 1985. A more recent study, published by the Center for Applications of Psychological Type Research Services in 1996, sampled 914,219 people and found that 49.3 percent were extroverts and 50.7 percent were introverts. See “Estimated Frequencies of the Types in the United States Population,” a brochure published by the Center for Application of Psychological Type (CAPT) in 1996 and 2003. That the percentage of introverts found by these studies rose from 36 percent to 50.7 percent doesn’t necessarily mean that there are now more introverts in the United States, according to CAPT. It may be “simply a reflection of the populations sampled and included.” In fact, a wholly separate survey, this one using the Eysenck Personality Inventory and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire rather than the Myers-Briggs test, indicates that extraversion scores have increased over time (from 1966 to 1993) for both men and women: see Jean M. Twenge, “Birth Cohort Changes in Extraversion: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis, 1966–1993,” Personality and Individual Differences 30 (2001): 735–48.

  14. United States is among the most extroverted of nations: This has been noted in two studies: (1) Juri Allik and Robert R. McCrae, “Toward a Geography of Personality Traits: Patterns of Profiles Across 36 Cultures,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 35 (2004): 13–28; and (2) Robert R. McCrae and Antonio Terracciano, “Personality Profiles of Cultures: Aggregate Personality Traits,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89:3 (2005): 407–25.

  15. Talkative people, for example: William B. Swann Jr. and Peter J. Rentfrow, “Blirtatiousness: Cognitive, Behavioral, and Physiological Consequences of Rapid Responding,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81, no. 6 (2001): 1160–75.

  16. Velocity of speech counts: Howard Giles and Richard L. Street Jr., “Communicator Characteristics and Behavior,” in M. L. Knapp and G. R. Miller, eds., Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), 103–61. (But note some good news for introverts: slow speech can be perceived as honest and benevolent, according to other studies.)

  17. the voluble are considered smarter: Delroy L. Paulhus and Kathy L. Morgan, “Perceptions of Intelligence in Leaderless Groups: The Dynamic Effects of Shyness and Acquaintance,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 72, no. 3 (1997): 581–91.

  18. one informal study: Laurie Helgoe, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2008), 3–4.

  19. the theory of gravity: Gale E. Christianson, Isaac Newton (Oxford University Press, Lives and Legacies Series, 2005).

  20. the theory of relativity: Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 4, 12, 18, 2, 31, etc.

  21. W. B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming”: Michael Fitzgerald, The Genesis of Artistic Creativity: Asperger’s Syndrome and the Arts (London: Jessica Kingsley, 2005), 69. See also Ira Progoff, Jung’s Psychology and Its Social Meaning (London: Routledge, 1999), 111–12.

  22. Chopin’s nocturnes: Tad Szulc, Chopin in Paris: The Life and Times of the Romantic Composer (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 69.

  23. Proust’s In Search of Lost Time: Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life (New York: Vintage International), 1997.

  24. Peter Pan: Lisa Chaney, Hide-and-Seek with Angels: A Life of J. M. Barrie (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), 2.

  25. Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm: Fitzgerald, The Genesis of Artistic Creativity, 89.

  26. Charlie Brown: David Michaelis, Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography (New York: Harper, 2007).

  27. Schindler’s List, E.T., and Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Joseph McBride, Steven Spielberg: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 57, 68.

  28. Google: Ken Auletta, Googled: The End of the World as We Know It (New York: Penguin, 2009), 32

  29. Harry Potter: Interview of J. K. Rowling by Shelagh Rogers and Lauren McCormick, Canadian Broadcasting Corp., October 26, 2000.

  30. “Neither E=mc2 nor Paradise Lost”: Winifred Gallagher, I.D.: How Heredity and Experience Make You Who You Are (New York: Random House, 1996), 26.

  31. vast majority of teachers believe: Charles Meisgeier et al., “Implications and Applications of Psychological Type to Educational Reform and Renewal,” Proceedings of the First Biennial International Conference on Education of the Center for Applications of Psychological Type (Gainesville, FL: Center for Applications of Psychological Type, 1994), 263–71.

  32. Carl Jung had published a bombshell: Carl G. Jung, Psychological Types (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971; originally published in German as Psychologische Typen [Zurich: Rascher Verlag, 1921]), see esp. 330–37.

  33. the majority of universities and Fortune 100 companies: E-mail to the author, dated July 9, 2010, from Leah L. Walling, director, Marketing Communications and Product Marketing, CPP, Inc.

  34. introverts and extroverts differ in the level of outside stimulation … Many have a horror of small talk: See Part Two: “Your Biology, Your Self?”

  35. introvert is not a synonym for hermit: Introversion is also very different from Asperger’s syndrome, the autism spectrum disorder that involves difficulties with social interactions such as reading facial expressions and body language. Introversion and Asperger’s both can involve feeling overwhelmed in social settings. But unlike people with Asperger’s, introverts often have strong social skills. Compared with the one third to one half of Americans who are introverts, only one in five thousand people has Asperger’s. See National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Asperger Syndrome Fact Sheet, http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/asperger/detail_asperger.htm.

  36. the distinctly introverted E. M. Forster: Sunil Kumar, A Companion to E. M. Forster, vol. 1 (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2007).

  37. “human love at its height”: E. M. Forster, Howards End (London: Edward Arnold, 1910).

  38. Shyness is the fear of social disapproval: Elaine N. Aron et al., “Adult Shyness: The Interaction of Temperamental Sensitivity and an Adverse Childhood Environment,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31 (2005): 181–97.

  39. they sometimes overla
p: Many articles address this question. See, for example, Stephen R. Briggs, “Shyness: Introversion or Neuroticism?” Journal of Research in Personality 22, no. 3 (1988): 290–307.

  40. “Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum”: William McGuire and R. F. C. Hall, C. G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 304.

  41. Finland is a famously introverted nation: Aino Sallinen-Kuparinen et al., Willingness to Communicate, Communication Apprehension, Introversion, and Self-Reported Communication Competence: Finnish and American Comparisons. Communication Research Reports, 8 (1991): 57.

  42. Many introverts are also “highly sensitive”: See chapter 6.

  CHAPTER 1: THE RISE OF THE “MIGHTY LIKEABLE FELLOW”

  1. The date: 1902 … held him back as a young man: Giles Kemp and Ed

  2. ward Claflin, Dale Carnegie: The Man Who Influenced Millions (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989). The 1902 date is an estimate based on the rough contours of Carnegie’s biography.

  3. “In the days when pianos and bathrooms were luxuries”: Dale Carnegie, The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking (New York: Pocket Books, 1962; revised by Dorothy Carnegie from Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business, by Dale Carnegie).

  4. a Culture of Character to a Culture of Personality: Warren Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003), 271–85. See also Ian A. M. Nicholson, “Gordon Allport, Character, and the ‘Culture of Personality,’ 1897–1937,” History of Psychology 1, no. 1 (1998): 52–68.

  5. The word personality didn’t exist: Susman, Culture as History, 277: The modern idea of personality emerged in the early twentieth century and came into its own only in the post–World War I period. By 1930, according to the early personality psychologist Gordon W. Allport, interest in personality had reached “astonishing proportions.” See also Sol Cohen, “The Mental Hygiene Movement, the Development of Personality and the School: The Medicalization of American Education,” History of Education Quarterly 32, no. 2 (1983), 123–49.

  6. In 1790, only 3 percent … a third of the country were urbanites: Alan Berger, The City: Urban Communities and Their Problems (Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown Co., 1978). See also Warren Simpson Thompson et al., Population Trends in the United States (New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1969).

  7. “We cannot all live in cities”: David E. Shi, The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1985), 154.

  8. “The reasons why one man gained a promotion”: Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 209.

  9. The Pilgrim’s Progress: John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). See also Elizabeth Haiken, Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 99.

  10. a modest man who did not … “offend by superiority”: Amy Henderson, “Media and the Rise of Celebrity Culture,” Organization of American Historians Magazine of History 6 (Spring 1992).

  11. A popular 1899 manual: Orison Swett Marden, Character: The Grandest Thing in the World (1899; reprint, Kessinger Publishing, 2003), 13.

  12. But by 1920, popular self-help guides … “That is the beginning of a

  13. reputation for personality”: Susman, Culture as History, 271–85.

  14. Success magazine and The Saturday Evening Post: Carl Elliott, Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 61.

  15. a mysterious quality called “fascination”: Susman, 279.

  16. “People who pass us on the street”: Hazel Rawson Cades, “A Twelve-to-Twenty Talk,” Women’s Home Companion, September 1925: 71 (cited by Haiken, p. 91).

  17. Americans became obsessed with movie stars: In 1907 there were five thousand movie theaters in the United States; by 1914 there were 180,000 theaters and counting. The first films appeared in 1894, and though the identities of screen actors were originally kept secret by the film studios (in keeping with the ethos of a more private era), by 1910 the notion of a “movie star” was born. Between 1910 and 1915 the influential filmmaker D. W. Griffith made movies in which he juxtaposed close-ups of the stars with crowd scenes. His message was clear: here was the successful personality, standing out in all its glory against the undifferentiated nobodies of the world. Americans absorbed these messages enthusiastically. The vast majority of biographical profiles published in The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s at the dawn of the twentieth century were about politicians, businessmen, and professionals. But by the 1920s and 1930s, most profiles were written about entertainers like Gloria Swanson and Charlie Chaplin. (See Susman and Henderson; see also Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994], 81; and Daniel Czitrom, Media and the American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982, p. 42].)

  18. “EATON’S HIGHLAND LINEN”: Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 11.

  19. “ALL AROUND YOU PEOPLE ARE JUDGING YOU SILENTLY”: Jennifer Scanlon, Inarticulate Longings: The Ladies’ Home Journal, Gender, and the Promises of Consumer Culture (Routledge, 1995), 209.

  20. “CRITICAL EYES ARE SIZING YOU UP RIGHT NOW”: Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 213.

  21. “EVER TRIED SELLING YOURSELF TO YOU?”: Marchand, 209.

  22. “LET YOUR FACE REFLECT CONFIDENCE, NOT WORRY!”: Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 213.

  23. “longed to be successful, gay, triumphant”: This ad ran in Cosmopolitan, August 1921: 24.

  24. “How can I make myself more popular?”: Rita Barnard, The Great Depression and the Culture of Abundance: Kenneth Fearing, Nathanael West, and Mass Culture in the 1930s (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 188. See also Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 210.

  25.–both genders displayed some reserve … sometimes called “frigid”: Patricia 26 A. McDaniel, Shrinking Violets and Caspar Milquetoasts: Shyness, Power, and Intimacy in the United States, 1950–1995 (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 33–43.

  26. In the 1920s an influential psychologist … “Our current civilization … seems to place a premium upon the aggressive person”: Nicholson, “Gordon Allport, Character, and the Culture of Personality, 1897–1937,” 52–68. See also Gordon Allport, “A Test for Ascendance-Submission,” Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychology 23 (1928): 118–36. Allport, often referred to as a founding figure of personality psychology, published “Personality Traits: Their Classification and Measurement” in 1921, the same year Jung published Psychological Types. He began teaching his course “Personality: Its Psychological and Social Aspects” at Harvard University in 1924; it was probably the first course in personality ever taught in the United States.

  27. Jung himself … “all the current prejudices against this type”: C. G. Jung, Psychological Types (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990; reprint of 1921 edition), 403–5.

  28.–The IC, as it became known … “the backbone along with it”: Haiken, 27 Venus Envy, 111–14.

  29. Despite the hopeful tone of this piece … “A healthy personality for every child”: McDaniel, Shrinking Violets, 43–44.

  30. Well-meaning parents … agreed: Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society: “Shyness,” http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Re-So/Shyness.html.

  31. Some discouraged their children … learning to socialize: David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, reprinted by arrangement with Yale University Press, 1953), esp. 79–85 and 91. See also “The People: Freedom—New Style,” Time, September 27, 1954.

  32. Introverted children … “suburban abnormalities”: William H. Whyte, The Organization Man (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1956; reprint, Philad
elphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 382, 384.

  33. Harvard’s provost Paul Buck: Jerome Karabel, The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 185, 223.

  34. “ ‘We see little use for the “brilliant” introvert’ ”: Whyte, The Organization Man, 105.

  35. This college dean … “it helps if they make a good impression”: Whyte, The Organization Man, 212.

  36. “We’re selling, just selling, IBM”: Hank Whittemore, “IBM in Westchester—The Low Profile of the True Believers.” New York, May 22, 1972. The singing ended in the 1950s, according to this article. For the full words to “Selling IBM,” see http://www.digibarn.com/collections/songs/ibm-songs.

  37. The rest of the organization men … read the Equanil ad: Louis Menand, “Head Case: Can Psychiatry Be a Science?” The New Yorker, March 1, 2010.

  38. The 1960s tranquilizer Serentil: Elliott, Better Than Well, xv.

  39. Extroversion is in our DNA: Kenneth R. Olson, “Why Do Geographic Differences Exist in the Worldwide Distribution of Extraversion and Openness to Experience? The History of Human Emigration as an Explanation,” Individual Differences Research 5, no. 4 (2007): 275–88. See also Chuansheng Chen, “Population Migration and the Variation of Dopamine D4 Receptor (DRD4) Allele Frequencies Around the Globe,” Evolution and Human Behavior 20 (1999): 309–24.

  40. the Romans, for whom the worst possible punishment: Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper Perennial, 1990), 165.

  41. Even the Christianity of early American religious revivals: Long before that silver-tongued Chautauqua speaker turned Dale Carnegie’s world upside down, religious revivals were taking place under huge tents all over the country. Chautauqua itself was inspired by these “Great Awakenings,” the first in the 1730s and 1740s, and the second in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The Christianity on offer in the Awakenings was new and theatrical; its leaders were sales-oriented, focused on packing followers under their great tents. Ministers’ reputations depended on how exuberant they were in speech and gesture.