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What percentage of the population is introverted?

highlander

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It just occurred to me. I read it somewhere and always thought there were twice as many Es as there were Is. It didn't align with my experiences though. I thought they must be somewhere else. :laugh:
 

Kasper

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It just occurred to me. I read it somewhere and always thought there were twice as many Es as there were Is. It didn't align with my experiences though. I thought they must be somewhere else. :laugh:

Yeah, same with the personal experience, I've generally been surrounded by a relatively even amount of E/I people, with a slight leaning towards I actually.

The old stats were from a 1964 American study conducted by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates, they had the percentages as:

Extraversion 75%, Introversion 25%
Sensing 75%, iNtuition 25%
Thinking 50%, Feeling 50%
Judging 50%, Perceiving 50%

As stated before, I don't believe those figures, they don't align with my experience.
 

highlander

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Yeah, same with the personal experience, I've generally been surrounded by a relatively even amount of E/I people, with a slight leaning towards I actually.

The old stats were from a 1964 American study conducted by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates, they had the percentages as:

Extraversion 75%, Introversion 25%
Sensing 75%, iNtuition 25%
Thinking 50%, Feeling 50%
Judging 50%, Perceiving 50%

As stated before, I don't believe those figures, they don't align with my experience.

Right - those are the ones I saw. Actually learned something today. :)
 

Weber

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Most "introverts" are just broken extroverts who have developed coping mechanisms and self-rationalize their behaviour.
 

Patches

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Most "introverts" are just broken extroverts who have developed coping mechanisms and self-rationalize their behaviour.

:rolleyes:

I'd bother with a retort, but you'd just convince yourself I was rationalizing.

Why is it that extroversion is considered the norm? It seems to me that most people are under the impression that there is more value in being with people than being alone.
 

guesswho

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Here's what I think.

There may be a lot of slightly introverted people.
But the number of the very introverted people compared to the number of the very extraverted people is way smaller.

There are way more talkative dramatic agitated very extraverted people..than the talk less think more type.
--

Also extraverted principles are pushed down the introverts throath...so well ... some introverts may act like extraverts, but they the are slightly introverted.
 

Weber

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Why is it that extroversion is considered the norm?

Perhaps it's because most people can't go a day without smalltalking about inane things, and every mainstream show out there tells you to "go out and meet new people" as the quick fix to every problem in the world. The country in which I live might be at the extreme end of things, but I'd say that true introverts make up no more than 10% of the population.
 

Edgar

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Humans are social creatures, so it makes sense for the majority of people to be extraverted.

If I had to guess I'd say its a 2:1 ratio.
 

Llewellyn

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There are way more talkative dramatic agitated very extraverted people..than the talk less think more type.
At least they are more conspicuous.

Humans are social creatures, so it makes sense for the majority of people to be extraverted.
Sounds like some sort of circular (and faulty, excuse me) reasoning...
 

Zarathustra

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Humans are social creatures, so it makes sense for the majority of people to be extraverted.

If I had to guess I'd say its a 2:1 ratio.

The numbers for the "normal" population came from MBTI results for 9,320 11th and 12th graders.

Type Ratio Gifted % Norm %
Ixxx 1.41 49.69 35.14
Exxx 0.77 50.23 64.86

I believe they suspect that extraversion could be overreported, if anything, due to high schoolers wanting to be more extroverted.

I have seen elsewhere that the split is about 40% introverted and 60% extroverted. That is where I'd put my best estimate, if I had to.

Also, this data does exist by country, and the U.S. is over-represented with extroverts. Most Western countries are. The Asian countries tend to have more introverts.
 

Edgar

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Sounds like some sort of circular (and faulty, excuse me) reasoning...

Human natural behavior leans more toward those of pack animals (like dogs). Since ancient history humans would hunt in packs and our most distinguishing characteristic from other animals is the ability of complex communication - which is conducive to group functioning.
 
G

Ginkgo

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If extraverts are always out and about, absorbing and relaying external information, then it would be easy to see why they would be mistaken for being more enumerated than introverts. It's more likely that they simply have more attention drawn to them, drawing the attention away from the ~50% population of introverts.
 

Chloe

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If its 50:50 why then is Extraversion so much more accepted? Who would make so big pressure on 50% of population?
Despite Es being louder I think what is expected would look a lot different if the ratio is 50:50.
I'd guess 40:60 at best.

My country is more extraverted than US I think, Mediterrenean countries are known to be obnoxiously loud, like Italy, Greece, Lebanon and Croatia... Only Croatia is very very T country, we dont like each other very much but still talk to each other all the time, The Balkans. US seems way more F. Also, we are waaay less N than US, whole Europe is! I think here it's 30:70 I to E.
 

Kasper

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If its 50:50 why then is Extraversion so much more accepted? Who would make so big pressure on 50% of population?

I don't believe Extroversion is "so much more accepted", I think sociability is seen as a positive trait and shyness is seen as something to overcome, those things are not the same thing as Extroversion and Introversion though.

Many of the Introverts I know are quite sociable, more so than me even, they are also Sensors, the only stats I've ever seen on S/N is 70/30 or there about. If people are seeing ISxx's as Extroverts because of behavioural traits then I can understand why they would think there are so many more Extroverts.
 

Chloe

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I don't believe Extroversion is "so much more accepted", I think sociability is seen as a positive trait and shyness is seen as something to overcome, those things are not the same thing as Extroversion and Introversion though.

Many of the Introverts I know are quite sociable, more so than me even, they are also Sensors, the only stats I've ever seen on S/N is 70/30 or there about. If people are seeing ISxx's as Extroverts because of behavioural traits then I can understand why they would think there are so many more Extroverts.

yeah, that's all true. My sister is ISTJ (But I retyped her as ESTJ because she's never alone, but in MBTI terms she's ISTJ i think) and she's more social than I am, but when we were kids I was way more social than she is.

but also % vary a lot depending where you live, I guess Scandinavia is most Introverted place in Europe.
 

Kasper

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but also % vary a lot depending where you live, I guess Scandinavia is most Introverted place in Europe.

I've never been to Scandinavia but I expect you're still talking about behavioural things, just based on culture, like America (I presume) encourages socialisation etc, other cultures may be more encouraging of being more withdrawn or unassuming. I wouldn't expect the average amount of types would differ dramatically. Would be interesting to see some studies though.
 

ragashree

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Big, big difference between the possession of introversion/extraversion skills, and functional extraversion as conceptualised in Jung-based typology. Most tests (and arguably MBti to a far greater extent than it should) assess Extraversion/Introversion purely as behavioural traits (and therefore skill usage) - which since they are acculturated social norms, are not going to tell you anything beyond the obvious about the prevalence of these traits in any society you look at.

Unless it's absolutely clear which type of introversion/extraversion is being referred to, which type the tests are measuring, and whether they're set up to do so effectively, it's hard to see anything interesting coming out of this...
 
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