It's interesting how things come full circle. A few years ago, I wrote a post in which I mentioned the book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts by the author Susan Cain. It was a really interesting book, but I didn't actually "read" it. I listened to it during one of the drives back from taking our youngest daughter to college. I wrote another post about the Cain's book and the lemon juice test, which apparently can tell with great accuracy whether you are an introvert or extrovert. I mentioned the book one last time in a post about my own personal childhood experience growing up as an introvert. I am feeling a little nostalgic, and perhaps I should re-"read" the book, as I will be making the drive to bring our daughter home from college for the last time.
Anyway, I was thinking about this book a lot this week, so it was rather by coincidence that I came across the whole subject of introversion vs extroversion once again in a tweet by the author, Adam Grant. He mentioned a recent article on the Internet, along with a number of recently published studies that explored the question, "Have introverts really fared better in lockdown?" It's really an interesting question to pose. Theoretically, given that introverts feed off their own internal energy (as opposed to extroverts, who feed off others), one could certainly argue that the social distancing and isolation associated with the public health response to COVID-19 would be great for introverts. On the contrary, and perhaps counterintuitively, extroverts appear to have fared better than introverts during the lockdown.
For example, recent studies (see for example the studies here, here, and here) have shown that introversion was predictive of a greater degree of loneliness, anxiety, and depression during the lockdown. In contrast, extraversion was associated with lower levels of anxiety and depression. Another study followed 484 US college students through the recent 2021 spring term. As the pandemic continued on, introverts experienced greater levels of stress compared to extraverts. Extraverts experienced a relative decline in mood, while the mood of introverts slightly improved. Of interest, however, extraverts overall still reported a more positive mood than their fellow introverts.
Don't get too carried away just yet. All of these studies make an important point - the relationship between different personalities and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to be far more complex than just extraversion versus intraversion. At least two of the studies explore other personality factors comprising the so-called "Big Five" personality traits (the Five-Factor Model of Personality) - extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. For example, "openness to experience" and "agreeableness" also were shown to influence how individuals reacted to the pandemic lockdown. All of these different personality types interact, so focusing on the single extraversion-introversion spectrum is likely to be too simplistic.
Regardless, these are all intriguing findings that lead to more interesting questions. We are already starting to see the impact of the pandemic on mental health in the United States - the pandemic has only compounded the growing mental health crisis that existed even before COVID-19. However, whether someone is an introvert or extravert is perhaps less important than the coping strategies that we use to deal with the stress. If exercise in a group was your thing before COVID-19, you probably used exercise to help you deal with the additional stress of the pandemic. Conversely, if you found peace through meditation, yoga, or simply reading a book, chances are that these were the same coping strategies that were helpful to you in the last year.
As Jessica Stillman writes in Inc. magazine, "Don't make the mistake of thinking your underlying level of introversion or extroversion is a curse or a gift when facing a challenge. What matters is what you do, not which boxes you tick on a psychological inventory. And while introverts might need to muster more effort to organize a hangout or hike, if we do, we can weather crises as well as any extrovert."
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