Eleven years ago I first took the Keirsey version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test. My type is INTP: Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinker, Perceiver. However, the tendency toward each of these items is not very great. On scales that range from -50 to +50, I am +6 for I, N, and T, and +2 for J. I was told by the test proctor that, for example, +6 on the F-T scale means something like +50-44, meaning I have strong feelings to go with my strong intellect, rather than a weak intellect and no feelings: yes, I happen to be a deep thinker who cries at weddings and sappy movies.
Just this morning, I ran through one of the free MBTI tests one can find, and on a slightly different scale, found the following (I remain INTP on balance):
- Introverted 56% vs 44% Extroverted
- iNtuitive 58% vs 42 % Sensing
- Thinking 54% vs 46% Feeling
- Perceiving 50% vs 50% Judging (Tie broken in favor of P)
In the same class as I eleven years ago, there were more than twenty people. When these test results were presented to us, we'd all given permission that the whole room could know our results, so we were seated, successively, according to our scores on each axis. One woman I worked with at the time was consistently seated near the end of each arrangement. She was, for example, a 50 on the T scale. This doesn't mean she cannot have feelings, just that she never uses feelings as a basis for decision or action. In sum, for her, there is little or no inner conflict. She is comfortable with who she is.
I, on the other hand, am full of conflict. I don't just "see both sides of an argument", I see several sides that neither antagonist has thought of. I've learned to keep quiet about that most of the time. Two people in a "don't confuse me with facts" mood don't respond well to further confusion. Anyway, being rather introverted, I don't run toward a fight, I dodge out.
Laurie Helgoe (PhD) was raised in a family of ten, a noisy family as she remembers, and she was the one who most often dodged out. With strength born of maturity, she has written a marvelous book, Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life is Your Hidden Strength. A great value of the book for me is that it shows how much of the structure of society and civilization is due to the quiet work of introverts. The author also has determined that introversion is the majority tendency.
It is "common knowledge" that introverts are a distinct minority, ranging around 25% of us all. Common knowledge has it wrong. In 1998 when the Keirsey Personality Sorter had been taken by 200,000 people, 41% who'd taken it were introverts. The instructor of our class noted that introverts are less likely to self-test, because they live in their own heads already, and are more familiar with what is in there. Thus, the number was probably closer to half. Yet the book we were using stated that the "I" types in Myers-Briggs represent 25%. This turns out to be based on a guess made decades earlier. Dr. Helgoe has better figures. A representative national study done in 2001 pegs the proportion of introverts at 57% (she quotes the study but does not cite it; I wish she had cited it).
Much of the book comprises a self-help manual for the wounded introverts, who abound. America is an overtly extroverted society, for which partying and self-revelatory small talk are primary values. The key "networking" function is the cocktail party, a chamber of horrors for most introverts: what thinking person gains anything of value from standing around nibbling inedible hors-d'oeuvres and gradually getting drunk while talking of meaningless things to people one is unlikely ever to see again? An introvert prefers a more meaningful conversation with no more than two others, sitting in a corner with a side table to hold the drink she plans to ignore anyway.
Have we internalized society's values, to the point that we devalue our own? The author comforts us with her own experience: once she gained her own voice, though she listens much and says little, her boss once said, "When Laurie speaks, people listen." I identify; I have had that said about me also.
Where introverts fall flat is in repartee, except for a few (with prodigious memories) who have pre-thought out thousands of social situations and "have a million of 'em" when it comes to snappy comebacks. The few of these I know are less popular than one would think, because they don't know when to stop. I am reminded also of Steve Wozniak, in his first appearance on "Dancing With the Stars" a couple weeks ago: after his fumbling dance, he didn't just listen to the judges' comments, he had a quip in reply to each. He had more to say than all other contestants combined, and came away looking quite the fool. I am pretty sure the Woz thought he was leaving quite a different impression (Maybe he is crazy like a fox, though. While he got the lowest score from the judges, his public popularity kept him in the running).
Dr. Helgoe sees American society like the Yin-Yang symbol, in which light and dark follow each other, and each embodies a drop of the other at its heart. She sees in this the growth of us as individuals. We gain abilities "borrowed" from our opposite number. I see this in myself. Shy to the point of needing psychiatric help in my pre-teen years, I have become, as an adult, a sought-after public speaker. I've learned how to work a crowd, without feeling crowded. I know how to gain restoration in solitude; as one chapter of the book has it, "Alone is not a 4-letter word." But I still avoid situations in which I'd need to answer quickly. I simply have to think things through. I've become an incredibly hard sell to any promoter with the "limited-time offer". I know an honest deal will be here tomorrow, and if it won't, it ain't.
The best advice for the inner-directed among us, that true "quiet majority" (not quite silent), is this: don't allow anyone to blame you for your virtues. Dare to think things through, and deny the push for an immediate answer; dare to live by your own standards, and ignore those who fear your lack of conformity; dare to be a person who allows himself/herself to see farther, and eschew the hasty dreamers who can't take time to look ahead. Live richly, for your inner life is rich. It is OK to be your own best friend.
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