Introverts Love Life in Neutral
On Planet Extrovert, happiness is pictured as jumping up and down in excitement. Introverts might rather match the contentment of a radiant meditator.
I’ve written about the tricky concept of happiness and its application to introverts several times for Introvert UpThink. It’s tricky because people around the world, lay people and scientists, possessing different personalities and different life philosophies, vary greatly in how they experience and define the ultimate well-being. One Introvert UpThink post, for instance, took umbrage at European travel guru Rick Steves asserting that extroverts have much more fun than introverts. Did the accuracy of that claim depend on a questionable definition of fun?
I’m revisiting past musings after encountering research reports that set out a fascinating scientific context for the contrasting well-being of introverts and extroverts. Here are four sets of findings that, taken together, explain why the question of who is happier, extroverts or introverts, really does turn on how one defines happiness or well-being.
1. Introverts prefer low-arousal states. Researchers have found that for extroverts, the picture of happiness as someone being exuberantly excited or bursting with delight is highly motivating, whereas for introverts, the ideal emotional state tends to be calm, peaceful and relaxed.
2. Solitude is one key tool introverts use to regulate their level of arousal. Whereas extroverts seek out energetic social interaction as a way to reach their ideal emotional “up,” introverts create opportunities for solitude in order to return to the more serene state we prefer. For introverts, stillness is regenerative.
3. Introverts often pursue meaning rather than high-arousal states. According to Jungian commentator Elaine Schallock, introverts choose their values and life direction using an “inside out” approach. We create or find a compass within ourselves, placing a high importance on reaching satisfaction according to our self-definition. This matters much more to us than transitory emotional excitement.
4. Much scientific research on happiness uses extroverts’ definition of happiness. Psychologists have tended to ignore the appeal of tranquil contentment as a motivator and instead measure contentment by a person’s degree of high-arousal elation or joy. Perhaps they take it as self-evident that anyone would prefer to experience highly pleasurable states. On the contrary, however, many introverts do not pursue extroverts’ happy highs, preferring a neutral mood that is more conducive to reflection and to our involvement in meaningful pursuits.
All of this goes back to a key distinction I explained in my 2023 post on Finland coming out on top as the world’s happiest country six years in a row. On the one hand, there’s the “hedonic” concept of happiness, in which the happiest person has the highest proportion of supremely pleasurable or delighted experiences. This fits with what motivates extroverts, and this is what most psychologists measure as happiness.
On the other hand is the calmer, more neutral experience of contentment, meaningfulness and satisfaction praised by Aristotle and the Stoics in ancient Greece as the aim of life. They called it eudaimonia, which is often translated as “well-being.” When introverts gravitate more to this concept as their ideal, they come out as less happy by the hedonic measure of happiness – an unfair conclusion because it’s driven by a one-sided definition of happiness more than by objective, independent data.
What’s new here is the research that exposes an academic bias in favor of the type of happiness that favors extroverts. If you define happiness in terms of excited, hyperactive moments, this will make it seem introverts don’t want to be happy. That’s wrong. Introverts are not less happy than extroverts. We have a different, comfortable and quieter route to achieving happiness.
Seeking YOUR introvert insights
In a new series of posts, I would like to feature your insights and experiences related to being an introvert or dealing with an introverted spouse, child, employee, boss, neighbor, etc. The more specific you are about the setting and the relationship dynamics involved, the better.
Please send your essay/article/post to innies@yudkin.com.
Target length is 700 to 1500 words. See the first post in this series at https://www.introvertupthink.com/p/reader-stories-1. If I use your post, I will of course credit you with a byline and a brief bio.
Thank you in advance for sharing your story.
- Marcia