Quiet (2/2): tempering temperamental differences

Towards the end of the previous post of this pair, drawing from Susan Cain’s fascinating book, Quiet, we touched on something that can impact on close relationships between extraverts and introverts. This was the idea of a Free Trait Contract, where, for example, the extravert who wants to have a big dinner party every Saturday compromises with his introverted spouse and goes for every other week instead and allows her to have quiet conversations on the sidelines rather than have to stand centre stage as he does. She has given ground as well by agreeing to the fortnightly parties.

As an introvert married to an extravert I’m well used to this kind of give and take which is perhaps the most obvious way in which these two temperaments have to accommodate to each other if the relationship is going to survive. Susan Cain explains (page 227):

This was a painfully common dynamic in the introvert-extrovert couples I interviewed: the introverts desperately craving downtime and understanding from their partners, the extroverts longing for company, and resentful that others seemed to benefit from their partners’ “best” selves.

The last part relates to how introverts with a commitment to a demanding ‘core project’ of some kind (see previous post), exert themselves during the day for that purpose but come home frazzled and tired wanting only to collapse into silence to recharge their batteries (ibid.):

It can be hard for extroverts to understand how badly introverts need to recharge at the end of a busy day.

This lack of understanding is, of course, a two-way street (page 228):

It’s also hard for introverts to understand just how hurtful their silence can be.

You would think that the solution is obvious. Why don’t they just talk to each other? Unfortunately it’s not quite as straightforward as that, given that the two temperaments have two different communication styles (page 229):

Just as men and women often have different ways of resolving conflict, so do introverts and extroverts; studies suggest that the former tend to be conflict-avoiders, while the latter are “confrontive copers,” at ease with an up-front, even argumentative style of disagreement.

That’s tricky. She draws out the distinction very clearly with an example (page 232):

When Emily lowers her voice and flattens her affect during fights with Greg, she thinks she’s being respectful by taking the trouble not to let her negative emotions show. But Greg thinks she’s checking out or, worse, that she doesn’t give a damn. Similarly, when Greg lets his anger fly, he assumes that Emily feels, as he does, that this is a healthy and honest expression of their deeply committed relationship. But to Emily, it’s as if Greg has suddenly turned on her.

So, how do we deal with that? Again, I know from personal experience that this mismatch of styles is very upsetting to both parties when what starts out as a discussion ends up as an argument. One possibility, she suggests, is to learn from the Swami and the snake (page 232):

In her book Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, Carol Tavris recounts a story about a Bengali cobra that liked to bite passing villagers. One day a swami—a man who has achieved self-mastery—convinces the snake that biting is wrong. The cobra vows to stop immediately, and does. Before long, the village boys grow unafraid of the snake and start to abuse him. Battered and bloodied, the snake complains to the swami that this is what came of keeping his promise. “I told you not to bite,” said the swami, “but I did not tell you not to hiss.”

“Many people, like the swami’s cobra, confuse the hiss with the bite,” writes Tavris.

Basically, then Greg as the extravert and the introverted Emily (ibid.):

. . . . [b]oth have much to learn from the swami’s story: Greg to stop biting, Emily that it’s OK for him—and for her—to hiss.

This undoubtedly works, but both sides have to vigilant otherwise the introvert hiss becomes inaudible and the extravert hiss becomes ear-piercing.

I hope these posts have given a flavour of how useful and intriguing Susan Cain’s exploration of introversion is. Given that the success or failure of a society, a marriage or a family depends to a large extent upon the effectiveness of its communication, there is much of value to be learned from this book. Our communities have to find a place for both temperaments. Her references to the studies of the 2008 recession give a powerful example of exactly why.

Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) are characteristic of an introvert’s more cautious approach to life and its decisions. She explains its relevance (pages 163-164):

Disdain for FUD—and for the type of person who tends to experience it—is what helped cause the crash, says Boykin Curry, a managing director of the investment firm Eagle Capital . . . .

“Each time someone at the table pressed for more leverage and more risk, the next few years proved them ‘right.’ These people were emboldened, they were promoted and they gained control of ever more capital. Meanwhile, anyone in power who hesitated, who argued for caution, was proved ‘wrong’. The cautious types were increasingly intimidated, passed over for promotion. They lost their hold on capital. This happened every day in almost every financial institution, over and over, until we ended up with a very specific kind of person running things.”. . .

“People with certain personality types got control of capital and institutions and power,” Curry told me. “And people who are congenitally more cautious and introverted and statistical in their thinking became discredited and pushed aside.”

Stand by then for the quiet revolution!

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Quiet (1/2): transcending our traits

Susan Cain

For a long time, during my rewarding years as a psychologist working with and fascinated by people, something which ran alongside an active engagement with the Bahá’í community, I puzzled over how all that could be reconciled with a highly introverted temperament.

Susan Cain’s inspiring book, Quiet, gives a fascinating insight into the dynamics of introversion and dispels many of the myths attached to that label. Her book covers a huge amount of ground and it would be impossible to do justice to its complexity in a couple of blog posts. So, I’ve chosen just two aspects to look at in more detail: Free Trait Theory and Introvert/Extravert partnerships.

The first of those is one of the most important in her book, at least for anyone who wants to combine introversion with social effectiveness. It helps resolve the puzzle that perplexed me for so long. She discusses the extent to which we are prisoners of our temperament. This thread runs through the whole book but there is a particularly telling section towards the end. It concerns this concept of Free Trait Theory. What she means by that will become clear as we go on.

Clearly if introversion condemned introverts to pass their days as hermits many of us, not least all Bahá’í introverts, would have a huge problem with that. Many of us want to be making an impact of some positive kind on the social world within which we live and, as Cain explains, there is no reason at all why we shouldn’t be able to do exactly that and very effectively as well. This is where Free Trait Theory comes in (pages 209-210):

According to Free Trait Theory, we are born and culturally endowed with certain personality traits — introversion, for example — but we can and do act out of character in the service of “core personal projects.”

In other words, introverts are capable of acting like extroverts for the sake of work they consider important, people they love, or anything they value highly.

There is a sense in which this could fairly be seen to involve some degree of forcing oneself against the grain. This doesn’t mean that a socially active introvert is some kind of hypocrite.

Felix Aylmer as Polonius

She quotes Polonius from Hamlet: ‘To thy own self be true.’ The full quote, which she doesn’t include, continues: ‘And it must follow, as the night the day,/Thou canst not then be false to any man.’ As a former English teacher I am always uncomfortable when a writer of any kind quotes one of Shakespeare’s characters and assumes that the words exactly represent what Shakespeare the man believed. Whether these words of advice about integrity, given by the officious and duplicitous busybody, Polonius, to his son Laertes, are to be taken at face value in the context of the play is a question we’d better park for now. Sue Cain is using them as a clear and well-known reference point. She continues (page 210):

. . . we are only pretending to be extroverts, and yes, such inauthenticity can be morally ambiguous (not to mention exhausting), but if it’s in the service of love or a professional calling, then we’re doing just as Shakespeare advised.

She uses a friend of hers, Alex, as an example. He states (page 211):

“I could literally go years without having any friends except for my wife and kids,” he says. “Look at you and me. You’re one of my best friends, and how many times do we actually talk—when you call me! I don’t like socialising.”

Somehow, though, he also found a way to become (page 210) ‘the socially adept head of a financial services company.’

Cain looks as some of the factors that might make this possible (page 212):

How was it that some of [the] pseudo-extroverts [in a study] came so close to the scores of true extroverts? It turned out that the introverts who were especially good at acting like extroverts tended to score high for a trait that psychologists call “self-monitoring.”

She goes on to state that ‘self-monitors are highly skilled at modifying their behaviour to the demands of a situation.’ There are those who feel that this is somehow deceptive (page 214). This may be more than a touch unfair as the motivation for reading and responding smoothly to the social cues may not be to look good or to gain a personal advantage, but to avoid a faux pas and to be more effective at achieving objectives that are not self-serving but socially useful and helpful to others.

Which brings me back to perhaps the most important driver that enables introverts to transcend their natural reserve and sustain that transcendence over long periods of time. This is having a project of intense importance and value that we want to pursue. She calls it a ‘core personal project.’ It therefore becomes important to find a way of identifying what such a project might be if it’s not already obvious. She explains (pages 217-218):

I have found that there are three key steps to identifying your own core personal projects. . . . . First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child. How did you answer the question of what you wanted to be when you grew up? The specific answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not. . . . . Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to. . . . . Finally, pay attention to what you envy.

This last one might seem a bit puzzling. What she means is watch out for those people whom you envy for engaging in an activity you long to do yourself.

However, it is important to bear in mind that this kind of trait transcendence is not achieved without strain. Steps have to be taken to make sure our batteries are re-charged (page 219):

. . . . . the best way to act out of character is to stay as true to yourself as you possibly can—starting by creating as many “restorative niches” as possible in your daily life.

And we also need to ensure that we deal with any close personal relationships with extraverts in the same spirit. The creator of Free Trait Theory, Professor Brian Little (page 220)

. . . . . calls, with great passion, for each of us to enter into “a Free Trait Agreement.” . . . . It’s a Free Trait Agreement when a wife who wants to go out every Saturday night and a husband who wants to relax by the fire work out a schedule: half the time we’ll go out, and half the time we’ll stay home.

The costs of failing to make those necessary arrangements can be high (page 222):

Double pneumonia and an overscheduled life can happen to anyone, of course, but for Little, it was the result of acting out of character for too long and without enough restorative niches. . . . . When your conscientiousness impels you to take on more than you can handle, you begin to lose interest, even in tasks that normally engage you.

And this brings us neatly to the point where we need to deal with introvert/extravert relationships – the topic for the next post.

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A Clash of Temperaments

 

Whatever the underlying cause, there’s a host of evidence that introverts are more sensitive than extroverts to various kinds of stimulation, from coffee to a loud bang to the dull roar of a networking event . . . .

(Susan Cain - Quiet - page 124)

I have just returned from an exacting test of temperament. Mumbai and introversion are not a good mix.

For me, I think the city would come close to number one in the top ten of worst destinations for an introvert like me to visit especially when it is getting so hot (36 degrees C). There is an unsettling frenzy about the place. To say its traffic roars would be an outrageous understatement. Three wheeler motorised rickshaws, pushbikes, taxis, motorbikes, cars and the occasional hand-drawn cart jostle with hands constantly on horns for ever so slight advantages through nerve-shreddingly narrow gaps on bumpy and broken roads that run alongside ramshackle huts and makeshift markets that spill into their edges. This ‘can’t wait’ mentality spawns and reinforces much of the endemic and extreme corruption as well the permanent cacophonous collective death wish of the streets, I think.

For various reasons we were stuck in Mumbai the whole time, something that hadn’t happened in any of my previous trips to India. I love the mountain district near Pune for example. We have often gone to Panchgani in the past where there is silence, greenery and open spaces for refreshing walks and time to simply ‘be’ with people and with nature. I don’t think I quite realised how discordant I would find fifteen days in the heart of Mumbai’s mania.

A thread that was woven into this pattern highlighted for me how far I have still to go on my spiritual path. I had taken with me, along with Susan Cain’s brilliant Quiet, Earl Redman’s moving and inspiring book ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Their Midst. At a similar age to me exactly one hundred years ago, once He was given his freedom to travel, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá undertook a gruelling three and a half year journey from what is present day Israel through Egypt to England then to North America and back again, including Scotland in his itinerary.

He travelled over vast distances the length and breadth of the United States, often on the hard seats of third class carriages rather than in a sleeper. He spoke tirelessly to innumerable gatherings of widely divergent people and patiently received an incessant stream of visitors in his rooms. The extreme contrast between the Eastern environment from which He came and the Western one through which he tirelessly  travelled could not possibly have been greater. His feats of uncomplaining endurance contrasted starkly with my own lack of stamina.

There were moments in the book though where the starkness of this contrast was softened with another way of responding (page 244 for example):

On [the] last night of [this long train] journey, none of the servants brought up the possibility of the sleeper compartment, but  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá suddenly told them to reserve six berths because ‘We slept in our seats last night and that is enough, Let us not suffer any more hardship.’

This was fortunate as I might have otherwise slipped into a state of despair over my own deplorable condition. Also, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explained there were other forces at work in His case far more powerfully than in mine (page 19):

Before the meeting, the Master had a high fever and was in bed. Juliet Thompson tried to get Him to stay and rest but He laughed, ‘I work by the confirmations of the Holy Spirit. I do not work by hygienic laws. If I did, I would get nothing done.’

To recognise that difference is not a reason not to strive to do more but needs to mitigate our inevitable disappointment when we fail to emulate the perfect Example of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. There were moments when I wondered how long it would take for the frenzied impatience I was experiencing around me in Mumbai to be replaced by the peaceful compassion I was reading about and which can be found beautifully exemplified in India itself in the stillness of yoga, the quiet rapture of Buddhist meditation and the timeless rhythms of the ragas. I suppose, in the end, that depends upon us and how much effort we are prepared to make.

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Susan Cain: The power of introverts – her TED talk

Bahá’u’lláh says there is a sign (from God) in every phenomenon: the sign of the intellect is contemplation and the sign of contemplation is silence, because it is impossible for a man to do two things at one time—he cannot both speak and meditate.

It is an axiomatic fact that while you meditate you are speaking with your own spirit. In that state of mind you put certain questions to your spirit and the spirit answers: the light breaks forth and the reality is revealed.

(‘Abdu’l-Bahá – Paris Talks - page 175)

In March this year Susan Cain was recorded giving a TED talk on the theme of her book Quiet. She is well aware of the irony of pacing a platform in front of so many people and talking about introversion. I reckon she pulls the feat off amazingly well. What do you reckon? Particularly moving are the memories of her grandfather she shares towards the end of her talk and also her teasing out the implications of silence for spirituality and creativity.

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Good news for Introverts

Almost two years ago I was moved to post a piece on introversion (see the link at the end of this post) concerned as I was and still am by the special challenges and difficulties modern society poses for introverts.

I was keen not to sound as if I was wingeing too much. I made a plea to put the discomfort of these challenges in context:

Compared to someone digging down to the gravel bed for sapphires in Madagascar, under the blazing sun on a steep slope, passing umpteen shovelfuls of sand uphill in a regular rhythm for eight hours a day for less than a pound, such troubles are not worth a mention. That kind of outrage is a wound worthy of complaining about. Every reader of this post could provide at least another ten examples of hardship and exploitation worldwide in five minutes. So, why does this tiny little scratch, an introvert’s trivial discomfort with the pressure to live a more gregarious life, count for anything in the greater scheme of things?

I saw parallels with Iain McGilchrist’s eloquent case for shifting the balance in our society from left-brain simplistic clarity to right-brain holistic subtlety.

According to Myers-Briggs introverts are out-numbered three to one. The norm is extraversion. If balance is a good thing to achieve in a society, perhaps it is not just about redressing obviously destructive imbalances such as an over-idealisation of articulate reason above  stuttering intuition, but it is also about not over-valuing easy energetic affability at the expense of a reflective quietness that is easily wearied with too much company. Both may be capable of great kindness (or great cruelty) but in very different ways and our acquired preference for an extraverted style should not blind us to the value of each style’s kind of kindness.

It’s something of a relief to hear that someone has taken up the cudgels for us introverts on a massive platform which her careful research fully deserves. I can hardly wait until Susan Cain’s book comes out over here, hopefully in a Kindle version. Till then I’d like to share a tantalising interview on YouTube. It’s something to be going on with at least. And it’s not just for the introverts among us to learn from. Extraverts watch out. The introvert liberation movement is mobilising invisibly for their rights.

Susan Cain on TechCrunch:

Related articles

• Quiet, Please: Unleashing the ‘Power of Introverts’
• The Power of Introverts by author Susan Cain
• Introversion and the Science of Sociability
• The Master and His Emissary (Iain McGilchrist review)

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