Introvert, Extravert, and the Danger of Simple Boxes

Explore the true meanings of introversion and extraversion with Dr. Linda Berens and host Olivier Caudron on Beyond Personality Types. This episode challenges common stereotypes and reveals why labeling people as “introverts” or “extraverts” can be limiting and even harmful. Discover holistic, systems-based approaches to understanding personality, learn about Jung’s original concepts, and get practical tips for practitioners and enthusiasts looking to move beyond simple trait boxes. Perfect for anyone interested in personality theory, self-discovery, or helping others understand themselves more deeply.

💬 Keywords

Introversion, Extraversion, Personality types, Carl Jung, Myers-Briggs, MBTI, Typology, Cognitive processes, Stereotypes, Trait theory, Pattern view, Holistic understanding, Systems thinking, Personality assessment, Intuiting, Sensing, Thinking, Feeling, Interaction styles, Energy focus, Forced choice methodology, Trait pathway, Type indicator, Ambivert, Whole type pattern, Personal development, Psychological type, Self-discovery, Personal growth, Adjectives vs nouns, Stereotyping harm

Linda Berens [00:00:00]:
Types are fascinating patterns that are best discovered holistically.

Olivier Caudron [00:00:08]:
Welcome to Beyond Personality Types, the original InterStrength podcast. Every week we provide you with the better ways to use and talk about personality theories. I am your host, Olivier Caudron, a self discovery facilitator. With me is Dr. Linda Berens, internationally renowned for her innovative typology approach. Come with us beyond the indicator results to rethink what you know about personality types. Have you ever wondered if calling someone an introvert really captures the depth of their personality? Or if it might actually be limiting them? Hello and thank you for tuning in. Today on Beyond Personality Types, we're diving into the true meanings behind introversion and extroversion, challenging some of the stereotypes of oversimplifications that abound in our world of type theory.

Olivier Caudron [00:01:24]:
Whether you're a practitioner or an enthusiast, this episode will broaden your understanding of these fundamental concepts, giving you a more holistic, nuanced way to talk about type. Let's see how adapting our understanding of introversion and extraversion can help us go beyond personality types. If you are gregorious, they say that you are an extrovert. They call you an introvert. If you are alone in a corner, is it the correct meaning of those two words? Linda, among the two of us, you are the one who will explain the concept of extra and introversion the best. I'll give you the stage.

Linda Berens [00:02:15]:
Oh, wow. Thank you. Okay, now where to start? Let me start with history. When I was doing my dissertation on personality type, I had to do a lot of reading about the history of personality type. Many things written in the 1920s. At the same time that Carl Jung was writing about personality type, I found a reference about how Jung first came across idea of extraversion and introversion in some literature from the previous century, actually the late 19th century. He took that, and at first he saw that distinction and he talked about extroversion and introversion, or extroverts and introverts as types. Then he decided that wasn't enough.

Linda Berens [00:02:59]:
And this is me just interpreting what Jung thought. And he talked about, well, there are mental functions. He described ways of perceiving and ways of judging, different ways of taking in information and different ways of making decisions. He called it sensation and intuition and thinking and feeling. And those, of course, were translated from German. Then he realized that that wasn't enough to talk about the differences. So he discerned that there were really eight personality types. There weren't just four, those with a preference for sensation and a preference for intuition, but there was Extroverted Sensing and introverted Sensing.

Linda Berens [00:03:41]:
And so he describes eight types in the Personality Types book that he wrote. The term of extroversion and introversion as a noun became then an adjective in the type world. Since it was an adjective, it was a modifier of a noun. It was not something in and of itself. It didn't stand by itself. Now, I haven't read all of the Jung literature, so there's some experts out there who might have a little more to say about how much he talked about extroversion and introversion. And in his writing, he said something to the effect that extroversion is a focus outside the self, and introversion is where the focus goes inward. That got picked up from him by a lot of other people.

Linda Berens [00:04:28]:
When I started studying and read Psychological Types cover to cover for my dissertation, I got a much richer understanding of what that meant because I was pretty rebellious against the idea of extroverts and introverts. I get the sense of extroversion. It's when you're focusing outside the self, and introversion where the focus is inside. When Isabel Myers came along and wanted to develop a personality indicator, an instrument to help people find a good role, she took it and made it into a dichotomy in order to create her instrument. Remember, this was not any time of artificial intelligence or fancy ways to electronically score things holistically with seeing all kinds of interrelationships. She had paper, pencil. And because Jung talked about these as being opposites, she chose to use a methodology called forced choice. You ask questions about extroversion and introversion, and there were things like, would you rather go to a party or would you rather go to the theater? That question's not on there anymore, partly because it was problematic.

Linda Berens [00:05:41]:
Theater? Do you mean the movies where you just sit? But the whole idea is to try to get at this being more outgoing versus being more solitary. And so she had some items that would indicate that when her instrument became very popular, that sort of reinforced the idea of extroversion and introversion being something in and of itself. Those of us who think in terms of living systems as wholes rather than parts don't see it that way. We see extroversion and introversion as something that tells you where you're doing a particular mental process. My preference happens to be for intuiting. But it's not just intuiting. It's about extroverted intuiting. That's the way I focus on gathering information in the external world and what I tend to do first.

Linda Berens [00:06:30]:
Whereas you Have a preference for introverted intuiting. You go inward to pay attention to insights that come from somewhere. We're both dealing in the insights domain, but it's sort of where do they come from and where's the focus? I do not emphasize extraversion and introversion because it's really nothing in and of itself.

Olivier Caudron [00:06:50]:
What do you mean by nothing?

Linda Berens [00:06:52]:
It's not as useful in that way as it is in a way of looking at whole type and the whole type pattern. Of course, the question is, why is that important? And that's important because of the stereotypes that have come out. I'm not shy. My preference is for introversion, but I'm not shy. I don't like to do social chitchat, and I'm not comfortable except in some situations, initiating interactions with others. That's just one aspect of my personality, and it isn't the most important aspect. If I had a sales job or I had to go out and meet people and introduce myself and I had this preference, that might take more energy and it would be useful to know that and to learn other ways to do that, but it's not the whole of me. When people talk about you're an extrovert or you're an introvert, they've made it a noun which says it's a thing.

Linda Berens [00:07:52]:
When you treat extraversion, introversion as an adjective instead of a noun, it gives us way more information and is less limiting. There's one more thing, and that is we've got two streams of psychological thinking in terms of looking at individual differences. One is the trait pathway. What are the traits? And a lot of tests are talking about traits which are individual distinctions. The big five is one of those, for example, that talks about these various traits. They only give a positive feed on one side of a polarity that they're checking on. The trait is just a single characteristic. The other view is a pattern view.

Linda Berens [00:08:42]:
Holistic view. Instruments, for example, are really hard to construct to get people to look at things holistically. Western culture, especially the United States, is in love with breaking things into parts, analyzing them, figuring out what to do with them, and then put them back together. That's the norm. The whole zeitgeist of Western culture, Eastern cultures tend to look at things more holistically. There are many limitations that we place on people by using this parts model. That can be very detrimental and limiting. Yeah, looking at parts can give us some information, but that information is always limited because it's not how it appears in the context of the whole.

Linda Berens [00:09:30]:
And then of course, there are systems within systems within systems. So focusing on extroversion, introversion by itself, and saying people, you're an extrovert or you're an introvert puts people in boxes and it does harm. I was at an association for Psychological Type conference years ago in Florida. I was walking with a couple of people having a lively conversation, and this guy says to me, so what kind of extrovert are you? I laugh. I only look extroverted when I'm talking about theories, models, and my work. I don't look extroverted in social situations unless we get into a conversation and someone else has initiated it and we get into brainstorming and spinning off on ideas and things like that. Is it something. Well, it's a quality that we can talk about.

Linda Berens [00:10:23]:
Is it something that will be the main thing in a personality type? I don't believe so.

Olivier Caudron [00:10:29]:
It seems that that vision of introverting and extroverting is mainly about being more sociable and being more reserved. How many people do you think think the same way as you do?

Linda Berens [00:10:46]:
I know that this more holistic, systematic approach has become more well known in the last several years. When David Keirsey introduced Temperament, he also was introducing systems theory to those people he trained. I was also trained in family therapy. If you were trained to be a family therapist, you look at things holistically. It's always the whole system that affects the labeled patient. The labeled patient isn't doing something just because of them. That perspective isn't unique to people who look at personality type. They're looking at things holistically.

Linda Berens [00:11:25]:
More and more I see on my Internet feed people talking about systems thinking. The systems view is pretty widespread. It's very easy to see it in the field of architecture. If you design a wall here, it's have an impact somewhere else. There are all kinds of things looking at things more holistically. They may not use those terms in the typology world. People trained in using the Myers Briggs and who do a lot of work know that it isn't just extroversion and introversion. They know that it is introverted sensing and extroverted sensing, for example.

Linda Berens [00:12:05]:
And they're focusing on those eight functions, which is really where Jung wound up. Ultimately, it's a useful construct.

Olivier Caudron [00:12:12]:
What do you mean by construct?

Linda Berens [00:12:13]:
I mean, if you just take it simple definition, okay? Extroversion is a focus outward and introversion is focused inward. If I were coaching somebody and they were having trouble making friends, that's a very simple way I could look at that. And I might help that person see, just because I couldn't explain the whole of personality type in a single session, I might start exploring. Tell me about things that you do where you really are feeling happy and comfortable. The thing I noticed about those is that you're doing those things by yourself. And I could explore that difference about would you rather do things by yourself or would you rather do them with others that might help the person if they can name something.

Olivier Caudron [00:12:56]:
Okay.

Linda Berens [00:12:57]:
I would probably say it sounds like you have a preference for introversion. Did you know that that's normal? That's really okay. I could help that person reframe the message they're giving themselves about being defective.

Olivier Caudron [00:13:09]:
I don't see you say that.

Linda Berens [00:13:11]:
No, I don't. There just might be a time when that's helpful. There was a book, I can't remember the name of it, but it was about having a preference for introversion. And that actually helped a whole lot of people who have preferences for introversion because now they feel okay, especially in the United States, where you're expected to be more outgoing, more gregarious, more social in your interactions. I want to say that those people that read the book about introversion and felt whole again rather than defective. That doesn't necessarily do harm. I think that's what I'm saying.

Olivier Caudron [00:13:47]:
Got it.

Linda Berens [00:13:48]:
I always say introverted what? Or extroverted what? If you want to look at how people are thinking about things, then let's look at where their focus goes and what happens when they do that.

Olivier Caudron [00:13:59]:
You are talking about extroverting and introverting not as a behavior, but as a way of thinking, a way of managing thoughts in the sense that it's in the psyche, in the mind. You can explain it with some behaviors. And that's why I was asking you, how many people do you think are thinking like you?

Linda Berens [00:14:21]:
There are a fair number of people, actually, who don't see it as being an extrovert or an introvert. It depends on which lens you're looking at. When you look at it from the Jungian perspective, if you're using sensing, that can be outward and extroverted. So it's really about behaviors that go with extraverted sensing as opposed to behaviors that go with extraversion, extroverted intuiting, or intuition, as people call it, when that means that the energy is outward. In having something happen or a conversation, you're spinning off ideas. Kind of the quintessential definition of brainstorming. But it really is about seeing patterns in connection and weaving them together. That's what extroverted intuiting involves, seeing connections that don't seem concretely obvious.

Linda Berens [00:15:12]:
Extraverted sensing is out taking in, paying attention to, observing incredible amounts of detail in the external world. Maybe not even consciously cataloging them, just responding. They're both outward energies. And that's what Jung meant. Your energy's going outward. And each of those four processes he talked about, and unfortunately, he did talk about them as types, those all can be extroverted and introverted. For example, thinking behaviors that go with extroverted thinking are putting structure on the external world. It could be creating a mental process for doing that.

Linda Berens [00:15:59]:
It doesn't always have to be. I've moved my cup over an inch. It's just when there's information, you order it, sequence it, separate it into its parts. Introverted thinking, when it goes inward, it's about analyzing things and putting them into some kind of mental order, seeing what order was there in the first place, analyzing something. And that's true for all of the functions that Jung talked about. Thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting. One of the big insights that my daughter and I have is she has an introverted intuiting preference, and I have a preference for extroverted intuiting. We work together, so we're talking about where we're going to take the business.

Linda Berens [00:16:42]:
She says, I have this idea. Vision has come to her from somewhere. And she starts talking about it, and I spin off, and I spin off, and she says, mom, I lost the vision. We've just learned that intuiting in and of itself, or intuition, is not always the same. We always have modifiers, adjectives for the nouns, adverbs for the verbs. It's a much more refined way of looking at personality. We are complex human beings. Don't we deserve to have a typology to help us understand aspects about ourselves that reflects that complexity? Anytime we simplify it, we have to recognize that we're reducing some of the complexity.

Linda Berens [00:17:27]:
It may be helpful if we simplify it, but in my view, it will never be helpful if we use a noun. If we say, you're an extrovert, you're an introvert. Because if you put the two of us in a room together, you're quite likely to look more introverted while you're taking in information. And I'm gathering my information as I go along. So I'm going to look more extroverted. In a place where we're talking theories, we both have preferences for introverting. My energy is a little laid back and open, whereas your Energy is a little more contained, and that's a variation of introversion. The definitions of extraversion and introversion, which often include open and closed, aren't accurate.

Linda Berens [00:18:12]:
When I look at all the 16 personality type patterns, there's just a different energy. This goes back to interaction styles, both in behind the scenes and get things going. It's more laid back and relaxed. And yet one has a preference that four types that have a behind the scenes style tend to be that the type code would say we're introverted and those with a things going style are extroverted. They're just differences. What happens with that is if you don't understand the individual differences, you make assumptions. And if you use the assumptions like skin color, you're wrong 90% of the time. You can do harm.

Linda Berens [00:18:59]:
So in a way, it's not very helpful for people to say, well, I'm shy, I can't do that, Especially if I happen to need to do that to support my family or to get out of a tough situation. So that's the do no harm was. That's part of being a type practitioner, in my view, that you really are signing up to do no harm. And people don't realize that by the.

Olivier Caudron [00:19:26]:
Language that gets used according to your knowledge and your experience. How could be the world without those two words, extroversion and introversion?

Linda Berens [00:19:37]:
That's a really hard question. If I didn't understand these processes, thinking and feeling, if I didn't have extraverting, thinking, introverted, thinking as adjectives to define them, then that would be limiting my definitions and would do some harm.

Olivier Caudron [00:19:54]:
There is a lens named intentional drivers based on cognitive processes. And in the intentional drivers, each pattern regroups both extroverted and introverted variation. Introverting is not possible without extroverting. Like the yin and the yang, they are not completely black or white in each part. You have a little bit of white in the black part and a little bit of black in the white part. It's not black or white. Which leads us to the ambiver question.

Linda Berens [00:20:29]:
Oh, that one.

Olivier Caudron [00:20:30]:
That one. That's the third one. What do you think, Linda?

Linda Berens [00:20:35]:
Because I don't think you're either extroverted or introverted. That also means to me that you're not ambiverted either. Extroversion and introversion are adjectives, not nouns. When I look up the definition of ambivert, I see that it's got a simple definition, one whose personality type is intermediate between extrovert and introvert. The whole point that's missing is that's not a typology in and of itself. Extraversion and introversion are not a typology. Therefore, with our language, ambivert doesn't have to exist. If you learn about cognitive dynamics, if you learn about these processes that we have preferences for, it's very clear that sometimes I look extroverted and sometimes I look introverted.

Linda Berens [00:21:24]:
Sometimes I feel extroverted, sometimes I feel introverted. That's really about where's my energy going. I can look back over the years in my life and notice when I've had periods of time when I've more been solitary, thinking about stuff and not wanting to interact with people. But that's not the definition of extroversion. It's not about wanting to interact with people. It's about focusing outside yourself or inside yourself. That's all it does. It doesn't tell us anything.

Linda Berens [00:21:56]:
The more we use it in another way, the more likely we'll be limiting people, which does harm. Ambivert is an attempt to explain how our energies can vary and we shouldn't ignore those variations.

Olivier Caudron [00:22:11]:
I read several times that the human being tends to become more introvert with age. What do you think about it?

Linda Berens [00:22:20]:
I'd have to see more research. And how do you know that they're accurately identified in the first place? Since I am of a certain age, I wouldn't say I'm more extroverted, but I'm more comfortable dealing with the external world, making the first move in a conversation. I've gotten some skills along the way. Perhaps it might be a useful construct to talk about extroversion and introversion. It can do harm because it's limiting. I don't think the people I know who are older who tend to have preferences for extroversion gotten more introverted. What does happen is depression.

Olivier Caudron [00:23:01]:
Okay.

Linda Berens [00:23:02]:
How do you know with any research, you have to look at the population. If you went to a retirement home, maybe a lot of people don't want to be there. Then they get depressed because they are there. And when people get depressed, they tend to be less outgoing.

Olivier Caudron [00:23:16]:
Yeah.

Linda Berens [00:23:17]:
I would say that whatever it was you started out looking like. Probably later in life you will look less like that than you did when you were little, if you grew and developed. Some people don't develop other sides of themselves. They wind up in a profession that 100% matches how they naturally think about things. They never get pushed to develop other aspects. It's too complex to say.

Olivier Caudron [00:23:45]:
As we rupture up this episode, here are the top Go beyond labels. Avoid boxing people in as introverts or extroverts. These are not complete identities, but ways to describe where a person's mental energy is focused. Use precise language. Ask Introverting what? Extraverting what? Focus on how each cognitive process is used, not just broad behaviors like outgoing or shy. Think holistically. Look for whole Thai patterns, not just traits in isolation. Understand the full person and recognize the complexity behind their preference.

Olivier Caudron [00:24:40]:
Avoid harm. Stereotyping based on extraversion or introversion can limit people and even do harm. Your role is to support and empower, not restrict or label. Context and flexibility matter. People can show both introverted and extroverted behavior depending on the context and stage of life. Growth and development may change how these tendencies show up over time. Rethink ambivert Instead of using ambivert, recognize that everyone expresses both inward and outward focus at different times. Ambivertion isn't a separate type.

Olivier Caudron [00:25:30]:
It's a sign of the natural dynamic balance. It's a sign of the natural dynamic balance within each person. Apply these lessons in your practice to help people feel understood beyond simple categories, embracing the rich complexity that makes every personality unique. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed this discussion, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave a rating and review to help others find the show. Remember to subscribe if you don't want to miss next week's episode. You can also follow follow us on Facebook and Instagram at beyondpersonality Types. Thanks again for tuning in.

Olivier Caudron [00:26:28]:
We are Olivier Caudron and Linda Berens. Stay curious and eager to learn until we meet again in our next episode.