Extraverted People Talk More Abstractly, Introverts Are More Concrete

As an introvert, it's really annoying when I'm talking to someone else and tell them something, only to be told I'm wrong, with no arguments or data whatsoever.

If I wasn't certain, I wouldn't be talking about it in the first place.

Hypothesis:

Introverts are more afraid of social consequences when they say something that somebody else might criticize (loudly) as wrong, hence

- they speak less

- they are more precise when speaking

- they are more tired after social situations

- they are less interesting to small talk with because they leave little room to engage (which could be done by expressing, e.g., preferences, ideas, hypotheses, jokes, ...)

Another hypothesis:

Extroverts made the experience in their life that at a certain point more confidence begets less criticism begets more confidence.

Anyone has thoughts on this?

This has it all wrong.

Introspective people are abstract, extrospective people are concrete.

Introversion/extroversion has nothing to do with abstraction. In fact, all the best known abstract geniuses throughout history are all introspective introverts. (Yeah, I'll pitch that your extrospective extrovert society would never have crawled out of the bronze age without INTJs!)

Talking abstractly is usually better in social situations. Your audience can get the main point really easily, and if they want more details then there are lots of questions they can ask.

Diving into concrete details is bad because. - Explaining details takes time and can lead to monologues. You want to be sure that people want the details before you do this - Understanding the details can take a lot of effort so it’s tiring for the other person, and you risk making them feel stupid if they don’t understand.

I think that this experiment is showing that extroverts have better social skills.

I’ve always thought that it’s a difference between intuitives (abstract, and possibilties) vs sensors (concrete, and what is/was)

Introvert/extrovert is a false dichotomy.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/what-is-an-introverted-extr...

Like horoscope signs, though, we all know ours and confirmation bias kicks in so the predicted behaviors start to seem more true. Just knowing the traits we're "supposed to have" can cause us to change our behavior to act that way.

I also think abstract/concrete is often more varied in real life. Personally, I use abstractions often, think ambiguity adds layers of meaning, and hate it when people start stacking hypotheticals on one another because then entire conversations happen about nonsense. So which camp does that put me in?

A boss was an extrovert, not really a favorable example of one. My impression is that he started talking and hoped that it would all make sense in the end. A peer of his was quite introverted, and seemed to start talking only when he knew what the end of the paragraph would be. It was amusing to see them in meetings, and it clearly wore on the introvert.

I think what is meant is that many extroverts don't fully understand what they're talking about.

Their communication often consists of catchphrases which sound good and clever, superficially. But by prioritizing form over substance, they don't allow themselves to develop a nuanced, in-depth understanding of anything. They tend to fall back on socially accepted axioms as opposed to thinking from first principles.

Catchphrases and first-principles thinking don't mix. Catchphrases are more geared for triggering emotional responses. I find that, on average, extroverts don't have the same level of rational, critical thinking as introverts do because everything they say and hear passes through some kind of emotional layer.

For example, with many extroverts, what I've found is that if they tend to get defensive when you're trying to share ideas and they often don't seem to understand nuanced arguments. I believe this is because, to the extrovert, the primary purpose of communication is to exchange emotions, not information.

Also, when an introvert debates an extrovert, they're not playing the same game. The introvert tends to be laser-focused on crafting the most logical arguments possible. On the other hand, the extrovert is laser-focused on crafting the most palatable argument which they believe most people will agree with. The extrovert is laser-focused on triggering desired emotional responses.

Introverts tend to craft arguments as if trying to convince god himself. Extroverts know that this isn't how you win debates; they know who their audience is and what their emotional trigger points are. They know what narratives they need to invoke to activate blind-spots and neutralize opposing arguments.

IMO, the reason people are extroverted is mostly because they enjoy the emotional validation which social interactions provide (both inbound and outbound). Unfortunately, this tends to cloud their judgment.

That said, the zero percent interest rate economy has given extroverts a massive advantage since it has made it possible to profit from emotional thinking... People made a lot of money from companies like Facebook, Twitter, Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Bored Apes NFTs, real estate in trendy inner-city suburbs... Most people got into these assets with an investment thesis of "My friends agree this is cool!"

In a proper, functioning economy that kind of investment thesis typically wouldn't pan out... Certainly not to such extent as we have witnessed.

It seems quite a stretch to extrapolate how one describes a picture of an ambigious social situation to how abstract/concrete you talk in general.

Can't wait to see how this is replicated.

Seems like the title should talk about vaguely vs abstractly though...

My rather obvious question: is this not merely a difference in how the two camps interpret the instructions given to them?

I’ve always struggled with the extrovert/introvert dichotomy. The DSM-5 is pretty unsatisfying on this and it goes downhill from there in terms of scholarship.

I think it’s more useful to parameterize situations than people: one can never step in the same river twice.

These days “extrovert” seems to be asymptotically approaching “amoral charismatic” in common usage. We have nomenclature for amoral people who lead cults of personality.

I appreciate the desire to re-brand this type of extravagantly self-serving storyteller, given that we put basically no one else in any position of influence, but on HN I think we can still call them assholes.

Sample size of 40 people, all from the same company and same workplace. Whilst results are interesting, I'm not a big fan of that press release making it "new research has found" when it could do with a few dozen study reproductions at larger and more diverse scales followed by a meta-analysis. 40 people is a tiny amount to eke any statistical significance from.

I’m probably about 80-85% introvert. Whenever someone speaks makes a sweeping generalization I ask for examples. So I guess the article is sort of correct.

Dichotomies are generally false.

And what of those who talk of abstractions concretely?

You know, the mathematicians.

This all looks like a nice way of saying "extroverts say less considered, less precise, dumber things than introverts".

> describing things that were not directly visible in the pictures

I.e. making up shit about the picture, like an image-to-text AI.

(2012).

I understood that Myers-Briggs and other pseudo-scientific categorizations that value direction over degree and therefore produce polarization rather than distribution ("You are 51% extrovert in most situations? Come over here with all the other extroverts") are rather discredited these days.

> Participants who scored higher in extraversion tended to describe the photos in terms that were rated by an independent coder as more abstract. For example, they used more "state verbs" (e.g. Jack loves Sue) and adjectives, and they admitted to engaging in more interpretation – describing things that were not directly visible in the pictures.

How do we distinguish accurate intuitive thinking, from hallucinating or BS-ing?

Is one way to evaluate the truth of the assertion? For example, if the subject says "Jack loves Sue"... are those their names (or is the subject using an idiom, or making a cultural reference), and (unless metaphor) does the male in the photo actually love the female in the photo?

The researchers might not know, a priori, that the man in the photo loves the woman in the photo, but if they could get an authoritative answer to that, then they might find that the subject is picking up on cues they didn't, or they might find that the subject is just talking out of their buttocks.

Would be interesting to know how accurate social intuition correlates with introversion and extraversion.

Think of the clickbait value -- gasp -- of a research finding that there's a sizable class of introverts who understand more of what's going on in social situations, than many extraverts just cruising on unwarranted/indifferent confidence.

These single task correlative behavior studies are interesting but useless. So much behavior is wholly contextual and inferring "personality type"/identity labels from them is deceptive and limiting.

Self-identifying as an introvert or an extrovert is a limiting belief. Free yourself from this pseudo-science garbage.

Or: "extraverts talk more shit"

Is “extraverts” the English spelling?

(2012)