Author to introverts: Respect your temperament

Introvert author Susan Cain tells people to respect their true temperaments. (MyNorthwest.com)

The author of a new book touting the power of introverts says the quiet ones may be setting the stage for a revolution.

“I do believe that a quiet revolution is starting and that it has been percolating in this country for at least 10 years,” self-identified introvert author Susan Cain, tells 97.3 KIRO FM’s Ross and Burbank Show. “I think for too long we have seen that there’s only one kind of ideal self. It’s a bold self. It’s a gregarious self.”

Introverts, according to Cain, the author of “QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” are people that prefer environments with less social stimulation.

“I am an introvert, meaning that I feel at my best and I feel at my most energized when I’m in less stimulating environments […] I’d usually rather snuggle on the sofa with my husband than go out to a big thumping party,” says Cain, “Whereas extroverts really crave more stimulation to feel at their best and to feel alive.”

Listen to author Susan Cain on Ross and Burbank

Popular culture seems to favor extroverted, gregarious personalities. Cain says she finds this bias originating at the turn of the twentieth century.

“We suddenly shifted from being an agricultural society to a becoming more of a big business based society. So suddenly people were leaving these small towns where they had been living all their lives with people they knew, and they were going out to the cities and they suddenly had to prove themselves in places like at job interviews and on sales calls,” says Cain. “It was at this time that cultural historians say we moved from what had once been a culture of character and into a culture of personality.”

Cain says she thinks there’s going to be a change in how our culture views the “ideal self,” adding the shift can already be observed in the growth of several introvert-oriented activities.

“I think we have seen it in the zeal for things like yoga and meditation and the craving for simplicity.”

She says a great statement for the movement is that the Commander in Chief appears to be an introvert. “Just on the plane on my way to Seattle I was reading Jodi Kantor’s new book “The Obamas,” and it’s almost a case study in introversion.”

“He [President Barack Obama] is not shy. Shyness and introversion are two really different things that often get confused. Shyness is about the fear of social judgment and introversion is just about the preference to have less stimulation and go off by yourself some of the time,” says Cain. “So Obama doesn’t seem to be shy at all, but he has many characteristic introvert traits.”

Cain says regardless of whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, both sides have to overcome their dominant tendency at one time or another, and she says that’s healthy.

“We all need to do this to some extent, but what I am saying is we shouldn’t be doing it all the time. We shouldn’t be doing it most of the time. We should be trying to respect our true temperaments and try to come back to being centered as much as we can.”

Learn more about Susan Cain at her website.

By JAMIE GRISWOLD, MyNorthwest.com Editor