• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

An INFJ Reviews the Book: 'The Introvert Advantage'

highlander

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 23, 2009
Messages
26,562
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I liked that book.
 

Z Buck McFate

Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
6,048
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
It’s been several years since I’ve read Introvert’s Advantage, but a few of the points of criticism seem a bit off. I’m catching a whiff of Pi. The writer is doing something which reminds me of something I do myself, and I only realize that tunnel-vision was affecting my perspective in retrospect. Something will seem ‘clearly’ more or less true because of some precept I’ve already got in my head, and I’ll only be able to see how short-sighted it is later on (i.e. shortsighted in that I won’t recognize how the external reality was something slightly different than what was going on in my head, that the precept didn’t exactly match the external reality as well as I was thinking it did at the time). Overall, it seems to me like the reviewer is primed (as a neurobiologist) to listen to certain ‘scientific’ information- as if a very specific criteria for ‘scientific’ has been constructed in this person’s head, and they're automatically dismissing information that doesn’t easily fit into the template they’ve constructed. Like I said, it’s been years since I’ve read the book, but I seem to remember it being more helpful in the way of explaining ‘introverted’ than this reviewer is making it out to be.
 

Blackwater

New member
Joined
May 29, 2007
Messages
454
MBTI Type
ERTP
I think thats an interesting criticism :)

But what is 'Pi' ?
 

Z Buck McFate

Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
6,048
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Perception being directed maybe too far inward, focusing on the preconstructed template far more than external reality (or rather, mistaking fragments of the preconstructed template for fragments of external reality).

Of course, it’s possible that I’m the one who’s doing it, and the reviewer isn’t doing it at all. :laugh: It just seems to me, though, that when someone exaggerates a point (the way this reviewer, imo, is exaggerating the lack of worth in this book’s description of ‘introvert’) to the extent they appear somewhat short-sighted, it’s more because of some issue within the person more than it is because of some issue with whatever/whoever they are criticizing. I just know that personally, in reading it, I got the impression that person is trying to resolve their own issues between that divide between proper ‘science’ and psychology- and their own issues interfered a bit with their review, with the ability to take in what’s really there and evaluate it’s worth effectively (some baby fragments got thrown out with the bathwater). It’s almost embarrassingly clear in IxxJs when this is happening (which I suspect is Pi-dom related).

[edit:] Even if it weren't mentioned that the reviewer is INFJ, I'd still think there was some of this going on (I wouldn't even presume the reviewer was any specific type, I'd just think this was going on). It embarrasses me a little to see it going on in other people because it really embarrasses me when I notice I'll have been doing it myself.
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
I thought it was a decent book personally for its intended purposes.
 

Blackwater

New member
Joined
May 29, 2007
Messages
454
MBTI Type
ERTP
oh I agree with you, Z Buck McFate, the reviewer is very much in her own head most of the time. she's a great scientist but sometimes too inside her own head when dealing with people.
 

Lily Bart

Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2009
Messages
136
MBTI Type
INFP
I think what the reviewer is doing is commonly referred to as "having another axe to grind". I don't think she was being fair either to the author or the reader. The scientific studies referred in the book are very illuminating and this is the best part of the book, although I think Lainey said it was part of a graduate thesis of some sort -- which shows, because the rest of the book is pretty disappointing. It doesn't indicate any advantage in being introverted, but instead points out all the disadvantages and supplies handy tips on how to meet people, date, get jobs, go to parties, raise kids, etc. The tips were all fairly elementary and aimed toward getting introverts to act more like extroverts than focusing on introverts' strengths. Something like MBTI would have been very helpful at this point, discussing different types' naturally extroverted function -- that works better for me than trying to pretend I'm an extrovert (seriously, I've tried it, and it's disastrous).
 

Esoteric Wench

Professional Trickster
Joined
Dec 20, 2009
Messages
945
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
7w8
I’m catching a whiff of Pi. The writer is doing something which reminds me of something I do myself, and I only realize that tunnel-vision was affecting my perspective in retrospect. Something will seem ‘clearly’ more or less true because of some precept I’ve already got in my head, and I’ll only be able to see how short-sighted it is later on (i.e. shortsighted in that I won’t recognize how the external reality was something slightly different than what was going on in my head, that the precept didn’t exactly match the external reality as well as I was thinking it did at the time). Overall, it seems to me like the reviewer is primed... to listen to certain... information- as if a very specific criteria... has been constructed in this person’s head, and they're automatically dismissing information that doesn’t easily fit into the template they’ve constructed.

Z Buck McFate, I love what you wrote here. I was thinking the exact same thing. And, I've noticed this among people with Pi. I think it's sometimes hard for someone with Pi to disentangle themselves from their donnée, or underlying assumptions.

Please don't take this as a criticism of Pi. All I mean is that what you wrote helps me better understanding what Pi is like. Since I have Ji, it's sometimes really hard for me to get my head around Pi.

For anyone else trying to understand Pi, maybe this will help: Another way, I understand Pi is to think of how I have the same problems as Pi in reverse. In other words, it's hard for me to decide upon a precept from all the options I see before me. And, I have a tendency to postpone choosing a precept because it might cause me to limit my options prematurely. Only in retrospect do I see that by not choosing any precept (because it never seemed to match the external reality perfectly) do I make the choice of no choice at all... and this leads to an entirely different set of problems. (<- How very Fi of me to process what Z Buck said through the lens of my own experience. Ha ha!)

So back to what Z Buck McFate said: I think the reviewer definitely had an agenda. She didn't hold open her judgment long enough to get a complete picture and thus she went forward with a not entirely accurate set of facts.

BTW, I've read this book and thought it was pretty helpful in understanding the special gifts that come with being introverted. As an extravert, it can be so hard to understand introversion sometimes. But this really helped me understand how to better tailor my approach to Introverts while living in a society that overvalues extroversion. :hug:
 

Xenon

(blankpages)
Joined
Oct 5, 2009
Messages
832
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5
...I think Lainey said it was part of a graduate thesis of some sort -- which shows, because the rest of the book is pretty disappointing. It doesn't indicate any advantage in being introverted, but instead points out all the disadvantages and supplies handy tips on how to meet people, date, get jobs, go to parties, raise kids, etc. The tips were all fairly elementary and aimed toward getting introverts to act more like extroverts than focusing on introverts' strengths.

Yeah, the bolded was my main problem with the book. I wanted to like it, but there wasn't anything in it about "how to thrive" or use your personal advantages. Instead, it was page after page of "there, there...you'll never be an extrovert, so take extra-special care of yourself by doing x, y and z and don't expect too much". (Where did she say it was a graduate thesis, by the way? I thought I remembered her saying she got the idea after working as a therapist for years.)

There were a few useful parts, like part on adapting parenting style to children's temperaments, or communicating with co-workers with different personality types. I'm mixed on the neuroscience part of it. It was written to be understandable to the general public, so of course she wouldn't write some thorough literature review about all sides of the topic. Her main point was that there are real physiological differences underlying extroversion and introversion, and the "randomly selected scientific research" she provided worked plenty well for that. I thought some parts didn't make sense, especially her explanation about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and their role in the different stress reactions of "innies" and "outies" (ugh, cutesy language). IIRC, she claimed introverts' parasympathetic nervous systems were more active, and this was why introverts tend to "freeze up" under stress rather than act out. But the parasympathetic nervous system promotes relaxation, not freezing up. If we had more active parasympathetic nervous systems, we wouldn't be prone to being overwhelmed and anxious all the time, which is what she seems to assume throughout the book.
 
Top