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I Have Been Told...

R

ReflecTcelfeR

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That Introversion and Extraversion are more genetic in nature, I mean to say that some are more predisposed to be one or the other. Firstly, is that true? Secondly, if that is true what do you perceive it would be like to force yourself to be the opposite? I ask because I am not only doubting my Introverted attitude, but I wondered what the psychological reprecussions of this action, if there were any, were. Would it be more correct to say that if you forced yourself to be the opposite, as I stated earlier, that you are more balanced between the two? I wouldn't say equal, but striving for equality. Thanks, all. If you need me to re-word I will gladly do so :).
 

Chaotic Harmony

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I don't know about genetics, but both of my parents tend to lean more towards introversion, and while I have my moments... I'm more introverted these days than extroverted. It's weird, I get extroverted when I'm depressed. I just can't stand to be in the house, I don't think before I do... Since I've been a lot happier lately, I'm settling back to enjoying just being at home cooking, reading, relaxing.... And I definitely stop to think before I do something. Thank God, otherwise I would have tried to buy something I don't really have the money for...

I've noticed when I'm trying to force myself to be different I tend to get more stressed out. I can be extroverted if I'm around people who are extroverted... But for the most part I'd rather just hang back and blend in with the crowd.
 
R

ReflecTcelfeR

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Very interesting! I have to go now, but I will get back to this very soon. Thank you!
 

catalyst

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In my case, genetics come into play as both parents were introverted.....however, my introverted mother remarried (another introvert) and had two more children who are both extroverts.....go figure. My extroverted hubby and I have three introverted children.

Now when I say that I am an introvert I really mean INTROVERT, as in I scored 100% introverted. There is no balancing this cart. The more 'outward' activities I have, the more disembodied I feel, the further from myself, and eventually I run for the hills to recharge. I can enjoy informal gathers, but despise formal social gatherings. Bleck. Now, I still enjoy small gatherings, close friends, and love intelligent conversation. I just seem to recquiere a lot of 'down' time. Pushing myself only seems to make that more extreme, not more balanced.
 

Onceajoan

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That Introversion and Extraversion are more genetic in nature, I mean to say that some are more predisposed to be one or the other. Firstly, is that true?

I think it's true. It's also generally accepted among the psychological academic community (I believe). It's easy to identify children as early as two year olds as extroverts or introverts. Their predisposition doesn't seem to change much over time. But introversion (I) and extroversion (I) (as Myers-Briggs suggests) are part of a continuum - some people fall in the middle of E and I. Others are at the extremes - either strong extrovert of strong introvert.

Secondly, if that is true what do you perceive it would be like to force yourself to be the opposite?
I think that a person can force themselves to behave as the opposite. However if they're a strong extrovert or introvert it would be difficult. I forced myself to become extroverted when I went to college because as I always say, "extroverts seem to get further in life." I think it's been helpful. Although sometimes people misread and say "No!!! You're not an introvert". But I am really an introvert. I'm just a good actress. Most of the time I just want to be left alone.

I ask because I am not only doubting my Introverted attitude, but I wondered what the psychological reprecussions of this action, if there were any, were.
Dunno.

Would it be more correct to say that if you forced yourself to be the opposite, as I stated earlier, that you are more balanced between the two? I wouldn't say equal, but striving for equality. Thanks, all. If you need me to re-word I will gladly do so :).

I have forced myself to be extroverted but I still am what I am (i.e. an introvert at heart). You could say I'm more balanced now, I guess, because I can successfully "act" in both ways. But I also think extroversion and introversion are states of mind. That is, the extrovert really has an internal drive to be among people, to socialize to the point of becoming depressed if forced to stay inside too long. I don't feel the "drive" of the extrovert - I don't feel the need to party or make a lot of friends. I don't really think I can force myself to "feel' that way - only I can act that way.
 

skylights

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interesting. i think there's definitely a non-environmental component to it. my family is pretty balanced preference-wise, though. my mom is E and dad I; brother I. mom's parents are two Is and she has an I brother. the I brother has 3 I kids. dad's parents are I and E and he has an E sister, an E brother, and another I brother. the E brother has 3 E kids. i imagine you'd have to trace farther back to find correlation patterns, though.

i'm a weak extravert, so i don't think it would be very hard to act like an introvert. i'm not obviously extraverted, and i spent most of my childhood acting like an introvert. it wasn't until college that i really opened up.

at the same time, i get stir-crazy if i don't interact with anyone for more than 6 hours or so. it also would be really hard to hold back on saying what i think is really important to say sometimes, especially when i'm upset! i also really do like large groups of people. i don't really care about parties but i do feel unhappy and disconnected when i only socialize with a small group - i'm a big city girl, for sure. i do have only a small amount of close friends, but i need wide-range people interaction so i feel plugged in with the world.

i think that to a small extent making myself act a little more introverted would help balance me and would probably be quite healthy, but if i tried too much, i would just become too unhappy to function normally. there are also some situations in which full-on extraversion is useful.
 

Thalassa

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I think it might have something to do with the way that I am. I was probably born an introvert and forced into extroversion. I remember it seemed very important to my grandfather's wife that I was more widely "socialized." I also know that in order to succeed in life by working customer service jobs or a very schmoozy, selling-your-self type of sales job like being an exotic dancer pseudo-extroversion must be called upon.

I mean, even if I was born a performer that doesn't make me an extrovert. A person can love to perform on stage or make themselves very outspoken in writing and not be an extrovert.

I don't know, but I do know I usually actually test INFP (mostly), INFJ (secondly), and ENFP actually least of the three.

I know for a fact that I never at any point "forced" introversion, so...
 

Mr. Sherlock Holmes

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I think we should build some statistics. How about a poll? It can have 6 option.

-Introvert, parents are introverts
-Introvert, parents are extroverts
-Extrovert, parents are extroverts
-Extrovert, parents are introverts
-Introvert, 1 parent introverted and 1 extroverted
-Extrovert, 1 parent introverted and 1 extroverted

Although there may be a small correlation from nurture (as in nature vs nurture), so I don't know how trustable the results could be. I suspect nurture might take some role as especially when you are an infant your personality has probably not fully developed yet and might take to influence (or can anyone confirm that this is incorrect?). Anyway, it should give us a fairly good idea.

Personally, my mother, father and sister are all introverts, I think, but I have trouble typing my brother, so I'm not sure on him.
 

Thalassa

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Well you'd also have to take recessive genes into account.
 

Mr. Sherlock Holmes

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Well you'd also have to take recessive genes into account.

I only did genetics for one term in year 10, so please inform me. How do the recessive genes affect it and is it measurable and comparable to the situation? As far as I was aware there are no known genes that determine someone's introversion or extroversion, and that was sort of the purpose of the study.
 

CzeCze

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I don't know about hereditary but I think people are pre-disposed to it. I was an extrovert by common definitions since I was a toddler, even before then. I do belief people are hard wired for pre-dispositions to introversion and extroversion. Life experience has probably made me more 'introverted' if anything.
 

Thalassa

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I only did genetics for one term in year 10, so please inform me. How do the recessive genes affect it and is it measurable and comparable to the situation? As far as I was aware there are no known genes that determine someone's introversion or extroversion, and that was sort of the purpose of the study.

If there's no genetic connection then you want mother and father's types for socialization purposes?

But yeah if you're taking genes into account, saying people are physically born one way or the other, then yes we have to take recessive genes into account, it wouldn't be as simple as mother and father.
 

Patches

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Sherlock, I feel like the problem with that poll is that as someone mentioned, Introversion-Extroversion is more of a spectrum than a black and white. For example, In my situation I have two extroverted parents that raised two introverted children. However, when you look at it from a 'spectrum' perspective - My mother is on the 'lesser' side of the extroversion spectrum, while my biological father is VERY extroverted. I feel like you have to account for that difference. Labeling them both as extroverts when they exhibit very different levels of extroversion doesn't work.

Visual example: This is what my family would look like if ranked on a scale system. Which is why just labeling "I" and "E" would hardly be descriptive.
IntroExtro.jpg
 

Mr. Sherlock Holmes

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Yes, you're probably right there. It would be difficult to just have black and white extroversion. It'd probably have to be done to some degree of gradation if it was done.


But I think I realise what you're saying now, marmalade.sunrise. We would have to know the genetics of our parents and add that into the equation rather than just saying whether they are introverted or extroverted? Yeah, that's a good point. I was simply thinking of the correlation of introversion and extroversion in comparison to parents in general, but that's probably going to vary based on all your genes and wouldn't reveal terribly accurate results on genetic predisposition. But genetics is so complicated and we can hardly expect people to list up their chromosone pairs along with that of their family or anything. That sort of thing would be an incredibly complex and difficult to achieve experiment, wouldn't it? Pfft... why am I even trying to propose an experiment to test any genetic aspect of personality. It's impossible! I'm gonna go study or something. I have a math exam in 2 days that I'm going to fail if I don't do something.
 

NewEra

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This article should help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraversion_and_introversion#Biological_factors

Biological factors

The relative importance of nature versus environment in determining the level of extraversion is controversial and the focus of many studies. Twin studies find a genetic component of 39% to 58%. In terms of the environmental component, the shared family environment appears to be far less important than individual environmental factors that are not shared between siblings.[13]

Eysenck proposed that extraversion was caused by variability in cortical arousal. He hypothesized that introverts are characterized by higher levels of activity than extraverts and so are chronically more cortically aroused than extraverts. The fact that extraverts require more external stimulation than introverts has been interpreted as evidence for this hypothesis. Other evidence of the "stimulation" hypothesis is that introverts salivate more than extraverts in response to a drop of lemon juice.[14]

Extraversion has been linked to higher sensitivity of the mesolimbic dopamine system to potentially rewarding stimuli.[15] This in part explains the high levels of positive affect found in extraverts, since they will more intensely feel the excitement of a potential reward. One consequence of this is that extraverts can more easily learn the contingencies for positive reinforcement, since the reward itself is experienced as greater.

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. Extraverts have more blood flow in the anterior cingulate gyrus, temporal lobes, and posterior thalamus, which are involved in sensory and emotional experience.[16] This study and other research indicates that introversion-extraversion is related to individual differences in brain function.


Also, in my experience, my parents are different (one extroverted, the other introverted) so it doesn't really help. As an introvert, when being exposed to extroverted situations too much (just being around various people too much), I get tired as hell.
 
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