Differences between extroverts, introverts and shy people

Today, it seems that successful people are the ones who have the most friends, the most persuasive and who communicate the most with others. What it takes is to go to the more parties the better and be the king of your social circle, dominating all the social skills possible.

Introverts: Weirdos?

In recent times, the extraversion it has become the ideal to which we should all aspire. If a person is more comfortable reading than at a party with loud music and hundreds of people around, he is called shy and asocial, and we say that he has a problem.

Recommended reading: "How to know if you tend towards introversion or towards extroversion"

And while it is true that some of the people who avoid social situations do so because of a problem (such as social phobia, the anxiety or one exaggerated shyness), others do it because they really prefer solitude. Almost a century ago, Carl Gustav Jung defined in his work Psychological types two types of personality, classifying people into introverts and extroverts.

Differences between introverts and extraverts

In this article, we are going to examine the differences between introversion, extraversion, and other related concepts. We start with the first one, social anxiety.

Social anxiety

Social anxiety disorder, also known as social phobia, is a pathology classified within anxiety disorders. It is characterized because lThe person who suffers from it suffers a persistent fear of one or more social situations, due to the fear of being ridiculed.

The most common symptoms are pressure in the chest, sweating, trembling in the legs, blushing, negative thoughts, fear of negative evaluation... These symptoms can appear in different social situations that the person has to face, such as speaking in public or being at a party.

Like all disorders, the problem of social anxiety occurs because the person wishes they could behave normally in situations that scare them, but they cannot. To alleviate this, he usually resorts to one or more coping strategies, which can vary from avoid going to parties and social gatherings, getting drunk or taking drugs to increase your sense of control.

Many of the people who suffer from this disorder could be classified as extraverted, and it is precisely the clash between the desire they have to relate to and fear of social situations, which produces more suffering.

Shyness

If we imagine a straight line with social anxiety at one extreme and introversion at the other, shyness would be more or less in the middle. Contrary to what many people think, shyness is not considered a psychological disorder, although it shares many traits with social phobia.

The main difference it presents with social anxiety is that, while a person with this disorder will tend to avoid the situations that cause discomfort, either by not going or using some other coping strategy such as drinking alcohol, a shy person may continue to be exposed to those situations. Mind you, having to deal with your own feelings of discomfort in the process.

Another difference is the generalization of the symptoms. While a shy person may enjoy certain types of social situations, depending on their conditions, someone who suffers from social phobia will feel discomfort in almost all situations in which he feels exposed to criticism from others.

As in the previous point, we can find many extroverted people who are to the timid, so we can not identify introversion with this pattern of behavior.

But then what is introversion? Traits of an introvert

According to Jung's theory, one of the most important classifications we can make between people is whether they are extraverts or introverts.

The difference is in how they get the stimulation they need to feel good. While an extravert is “charged” with energy in social settings, an introvert generates his own internal stimulation, so that very energetic environments saturate him and end running out.

Therefore, an outgoing person will tend to look for situations in which there are a lot of people, loud music, or extreme sensations. It will not be uncommon to find someone with these characteristics being the center of attention of a group, or surrounded by many friends, doing extreme sports or performing on stage.

On the contrary, and although an introvert can also enjoy these things, they will usually look for another type of relaxing activities: reading a good book, having deep conversations with close friends, spending the day at the nature...

Recapping: am I an introvert or shy?

Of course, there are no pure introverts or extroverts (and as Jung himself said, "if there were, we would have to look for them in the psychiatric hospital"). We can all show characteristics of one kind or another depending on the moment and the situation in which we find ourselves. But it is important to know that it is possible to enjoy solitude without assuming that we have a disorder.

In short, if you think you are an introvert, see if you fit in with these five characteristics:

• Although you enjoy social relationships, you tend to prefer to speak in small groups than with many people at the same time.
• When you go to a party, instead of increasing, your energy decreases throughout the night, sometimes to the point of wanting to leave much earlier than others.
• You don't mind being alone from time to time, you know how to enjoy your time with yourself.
• You have a few close friends, and your relationship with them runs very deep.
• When you are interested, you are able to strike up superficial conversations with people you don't know, although you usually don't put too much effort into this task.

On the other hand, if you see yourself reflected in the following characteristics, it is likely that you suffer from shyness or social phobia:

• You would like to meet more people but just imagining yourself approaching a stranger makes you feel uneasy.
• You are not able to enjoy the holidays because when you are in one you worry about what others may think of you.
• Although you do not like to be alone, many times you do not leave the house for fear of exposing yourself to situations in which you will feel bad.
• Sometimes you feel that you have contradictory desires, because you would like to talk to a person or expose yourself to an audience, but at the same time just thinking about it makes you panic.

I hope this article has helped you understand the differences between introversion and the different disorders that can affect our behavior with others, and better understand your own feelings about social situations.