A very good afternoon I wish to Mdm mastura and member of the floor. Before I come to my topic today let us just visualize this. When you’re on the ride in the bus and one stranger come and sits next to you. After a while, he tried to break the silence by wanting to have a chat with you. How would you react to this? He’s definitely not someone that you know. Not only you, even all of us were raised up not to talk to strangers or someone that we don’t know. Does that mean that we’re being cocky? Or maybe, when you are in the meeting, having a break and so forth, you just prefer to be silent while most of your co-workers dominate the conversation. Even if you engage with the conversation, do you really feel that you want to end the conversation so that you can bury yourself in your books or phones? If the answers for both scenarios are true, chances are you are an introvert. According to most of the psychologist, there are actually 30% of introverts in our population. That means in every 3 person, one person may be an introvert. Introvert is not some disease or some weird disorder like bipolar or split identity. They are just a normal human being like all of us.. I repeat normal human being like all of us except that they think and stimulate differently. I have also seen some of my friends who like to be alone and sometimes when I come near him/her trying to start a conversation I would just be dismissed right away. There are times where I would get offended with such behavior of these people. But soon I realize that they behave as such because they are introvert. Based on my reading about introverts from several academic sources such as journal psychology, psychology books and some journal, these introverts need time to be alone simply because they need to recharge themselves from the surrounding. Thus, today I feel it is very important to speak before you about understanding introvert’s behavior, problem encountered by them and the inspiration strategies to care for them in a better way. But in my speech today, I will only highlight about understanding their typical behavior portrayed by them. So let’s move on to the characteristic of the introverts. How do you know that someone is introvert? Is it just by looking through his physical appearance, action like being shy and we can categorize them as introvert? That would be a very vague judgment to know whether someone is introvert or not. Most of us use the words shy and introvert interchangeably in everyday language, but they actually give different meaning respectively. While many people are both shy and introvert, some introverts are not shy and some shy people are in facts extroverts. What shyness and introversion have in common is discomfort in social situation in varying degrees for many different reasons. Introvert sometimes resembles shyness because many introverts are uncomfortable in social situations but the source of the discomfort is very different. As originally described by psychologist Carl Jung, introverts find social encounters draining, particularly those involving a lot of people. Introverts gain energy from the inner world of ideas, and they typically enjoy periods of solitude to rejuvenate. Extroverts by way of contrast draw their energy from social encounters and find prolonged solitude draining.
Because introverts recharge their batteries by pulling away from social encounters, they are often labeled by others as shy. Shyness at its most basic is discomfort in the presence of others, characterized by self-consciousness. According to Dr. Signe Dayhoff, a social psychologist specializing in selfpresentation, “shyness is a normal personality trait wherein there is inhibited behavior, a wariness of unfamiliar people, and timidity in situations which contain a risk of harm or failure.” Nearly 50% of the population identify themselves as shy (a number that’s increasing, according to researchers), with up to 95% saying they are or have been shy in some circumstances. Normally, shy people are fear of judged or criticized and they typically dislike being in the spotlight. But not all introverts are, in fact, shy, and many do have good social skills. In fact, some introverts are quite outgoing, and many have shared their experience of being mistaken for extroverts—but they pay a price in terms of energy depletion. Those social encounters can be over-stimulating, and introverts need to plan time to reenergize A second characteristic of introverts is that they process information more slowly than extroverts. The brains of introverts and extroverts use different pathways when processing information and the introvert pathway is longer. That explains why introverts speak of needing time to process information before they act or think, and describe encountering problems retrieving the word or thought that they’re trying to think of. Some introverts report getting so caught up in the long pathway of their thoughts that they don’t even realize they haven’t communicated them out loud, or they start midthought, not realizing they haven’t shared the early stages of their thoughts. There are many assessments that can help identify whether someone is an introvert or extravert—the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® instrument being among the most prominent. Introverts Reflect before they talk or act Are energized by solitude Prefer socializing one-on-one to group events Like periods of quiet; feel depleted after a lot of activity Enjoy deep relationships with just a few select friends Frequently turn their focus to thoughts, ideas, the inner world Are characterized by depth of interest
Extraverts Talk out loud as they think Are energized by being around people Enjoy large group activities Like a lot of activities Enjoy a wide circle of friendships Frequently turn their focus to people, things, the outer world Are characterized by breadth of interest
In psychological terms, having a “preference” for introversion or extroversion simply means that your energy more naturally flows in one direction or the other, inward or outward. It’s a lot like being naturally right-handed (or left-handed). Assuming that you have the use of both hands, you can and do use your non-dominant hand in many activities, but it typically feels awkward to do so and more natural or comfortable to use your dominant hand. Most often, you use your non-dominant hand to support what your dominant hand is doing. As introverts, the dominant personality type draws them toward solitude and reflection or intimate conversations, and they learn to navigate in the outer world to balance their natural inclinations.
As noted earlier, we’re talking about a spectrum, and there are situations where they may behave in more extroverted or introverted ways. Developing the versatility to apply whichever skills are most appropriate to the situation is one of the keys to success. Unlike shyness, you can’t “overcome” introversion; but like shyness, there are choices you can make that will enable you to manage it so that you can function most effectively in your activities. And like shyness, you’ll see that there are quite a number of famous and successful people who have been identified as introverts. Being introverts is not bad after all as they say “silent people have the loudest mind” and this referring to the introvert would have the loud mind that speak inside them to gain their energy. I hope by sharing all these information about the characteristic of the introverts, we could understand them better and as for introvert, they say make lemonade out of lemon because the weak side of yours can be a strong value for you. Thank you.
