Article Summary Revenge of the Introvert

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The Revenge of the Introvert

Elisha Cooper

Main Points

The words Introverts and Extraverts to the average person may sound like the names of an army or faction straight from the latest Sci-fi movie. However, every single human being can be categorized as one or the other. An extravert is a person who tends to be more outgoing, bubbly, and enjoys crowds, whereas an introvert would be a person who would rather be more reserved and enjoys solitude or life in the background.

The author, Dr. Laurie Helgoe; who is an American psychologist and an assistant clinical professor at the West Virginia University of Medicine; is a self-proclaimed introvert. She specializes in personality development, so it goes to say that her latest book titled “Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength” main goal was to empower those who have the introvert personality trait. Helgoe goes on to say “There are as many introverts as extraverts, but you’d never you it by looking around. Introverts would rather be entertained by what’s going on in their heads than by seeking happiness. Their big challenge is not to feel like outsiders in their own culture.”(pg. 54) Even though there is not an exact percentage of introverts in the world, Helgoe believes that the number of extraverts are overestimated due to their loudness and ability to “hog the spotlight”. When an introverts is in a large crowd they are sometimes mistaken as being shy, but they are the ones who like to sit back and soak up the conversations that are going around. However, they don’t like to be around crowd for long periods of time due to the fact that they prefer solitary activities such as reading, writing and fishing, but they don’t necessarily fear the social interactions with people that a shy person would do.

In a series of studies where researchers mapped the electrical brain activity in introverts and extroverts, the introverts had higher levels of electrical activity,...