Ok it is a long, rambling and pointless post. The tl;dr version is pretty much what Jubal said in his latest post (the one above the one above this.) I got ninjad, I in fact meant Jubal's post which is just before the post I made previous to this one. ie the one above the one above the one above this. I think.
Alright so the only refferences I'm using here are a wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraversion_and_introversion Wolf's link and my own experience of possibly being an introvert. And again, I know nothing of psychology (although I did spell it right that time) and am not good at writing essayish stuff as my train of thought is very often derailed and my vocabulary is a wee bit armadillo, so I apologise.
The wiki article states that Extraversion is "the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self" and Introversion is "the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one's own mental life".
Since this is my main source I'm going to assume that this is in fact currently the widely accepted definition of extraversion and introversion. And it makes no sense to me at all. Humans are highly social animals, we are all massively affected by other humans and that is pretty much unavoidable. Either as a result of this or the root of this is that we care about what other people think of us. Even those who say they don't care what society thinks will still try bend society's views towards them and their opinions. I think its safe to say that the vast majority of us seek to have society view us favourably, either by moulding ourselves to fit societal views or vice versa. I don't think I know a single person who is not wholly or predominantly concerned with how they are viewed by others, and I know plenty of people (myself included) that are considered to be introverts. So if I'm correct then either those people I know are not in fact introverts, or the definition of intro/extraversion is incorrect.
The wiki article list and wolf's list of myths shows other behaviour associated with intro/extraversion. I'll start with myth#9, it says that introverts "shut down" when they there is too much talking and noise. This suggests to me that introverts find it harder to keep track of multiple conversations at once and that they would rather focus on a small range of variables at any one time. It also wouldn't be surprising if this applied to introverts outside of conversation, that is that they prefer to focus on getting one task done at a time rather than multi tasking, or like to proceed with solving a problem by breaking it down into individual steps.
This leads directly into how I might explain myth #4, that introverts tend to have fewer friends, but that those friends are usually very close to them and are highly valued. This could well be because introverts tend to focus on one person/friend at a time, so are able to devote more of themselves to each friend but consequently are unable to devote themselves to a large group of friends. Effectively, if friends are a resource or usable currency in terms of our drive to pass on our genes then introverts are putting all their eggs in a couple of baskets whereas extroverts are leaving their eggs all over the place. Messy bastards.
If this preference for a few well developed lines of thought rather than more lines which are less well developed (can't think of a decent way to phrase that) does indeed permeate the introvert's way of being then it could also explain myth #1, in that introverts are likely to interested in fewer topics but be more interested in those particular topics.
Another difference in behaviour raised by the wiki article is that intro/extraversion "also influences how people arrange their work areas. In general, extroverts decorate their offices more, keep their doors open, keep extra chairs nearby, and are more likely to put dishes of candy on their desks. These are attempts to invite co-workers and encourage interaction. Introverts, in contrast, decorate less and tend to arrange their workspace to discourage social interaction." This could be explained again by my theory as it might imply that introverts try to keep their working life separate from their social life, as if they find it easier to focus on work and friendships separately.
From the Wiki article:
"One study found that introverts have more blood flow in the frontal lobes of their brain and the anterior or frontal thalamus, which are areas dealing with internal processing, such as planning and problem solving. Extroverts have more blood flow in the anterior cingulate gyrus, temporal lobes, and posterior thalamus, which are involved in sensory and emotional experience.[21] This study and other research indicates that introversion-extraversion is related to individual differences in brain function."
Clearly intro/extraverts do significantly differ in brain function, which presumably is why introverts might pursue one train of thought at a time rather than several at once.
So what is my point? I'm not too sure, but I think it might be that we tend to think of introversion as if is the cause of these associated behavioural differentiations, when of course it is the difference in brain function that produces both introversion and associated behavioural differences, and so perhaps it would make more sense to label someone according to their brain function rather than any particular behavioural pattern caused by the brain function. But of course this would be rather too difficult to measure for most people, and if a psychiatrist were evaluating a patient it would be much easier for them to simply use the usual introvert/extravert criteria to determine their likely brain function and corresponding behavioural patterns. But if you are not a psychiatrist then you shouldn't need to try to evaluate these things, so perhaps my point is that you shouldn't worry about whether or not you're an introvert or extravert and should act as you see fit rather than as how you think you should be acting as an introvert or extravert. Actually I probably don't have any point, I think I was just interested in why introversion is associated with other behavioural patterns.
Yeah, that's why I try not to bother with any form of psychology or philosophy, it usually goes the way of this post. I come to the conclusion that everything is pointless and I should give up on thinking about it all.
Also I'm afraid I had more things to say but I forgot most of them as I was writing that post.
