The Surprisingly Simple Psychology Behind Introverts and Extroverts

According to psychology, the arousal theory of motivation states that motivation is dictated by specific levels of “arousal”, which in psychology represents mental alertness. People have different levels of optimal arousal and are motivated to take actions that help them achieve their optimum level. I will come around to what that has to do with extroversion and introversion in a moment.

You see, introverts get a bad rap. They are known as shy, quiet, timid, anti-social, and unconfident. Some of these tend to be true to an extent—probably because people keep feeding it to them. But according to psychology once more,

The definition of an introvert is someone who prefers calm, minimally stimulating environments. Introverts tend to feel drained after socializing and regain their energy by spending time alone.

Do you notice that they didn’t mention shy, quiet, and unconfident anywhere? Basically, an introvert can be seen as having a low social battery. It gets drained easily—and the only way to recharge is through spending time alone. The opposite is true for extroverts.

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So Why Is The Arousal Theory Important?

The arousal theory states that people come pre-built with a specific level of arousal—this is called the natural level of arousal. For some people their natural level of arousal is so high, they have to continually seek a lower level. For some, theirs are so low, they have to seek a higher level (you might start seeing how this relates to everything already). This level everyone is seeking is called the optimal level of arousal.

We all seek it from the moment we are born to the day we inevitably die. We need it to feel grounded and motivated.

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Introversion And Extroversion

Humans hate messiness and like to classify people into groups and classes. So to a lot of people, there are introverts and there are extroverts—plain and simple. But if you know how the world works, things are never that black and white—in fact, things are more grey-like than black and white. So saying somebody is an introvert or an extrovert and stopping there is not entirely accurate.

Introversion and extroversion are two extreme ends of a very long spectrum. This gave birth to ‘Ambiverts’—people that are 50% extroverted and introverted. This is a very limited mindset as the spectrum is too long to only break down to three—Introvert, Ambivert and Extrovert. So most of us lie somewhere in the very long spectrum making it harder to classify.

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So What Does The ‘Arousal Theory’ Have To Do With Introversion And Extroversion?

Since we now have a decent mark on what extroversion and introversion is, we can move on

According to Hans Eysenck’s with the Eysenck theory, he stated that the difference between introverts and extroverts is their level of arousal. That is how responsive and stimulated they become to their immediate environment.

This means introverts are basically born with a very high natural level of brain arousal and as such, they seek more calm and serene activities to lower it down to the optimal arousal levels. These activities primarily involve spending time alone or with a few people.

Extroverts on the other hand have low natural levels of brain arousal and as such, they seek out activities that would allow them increase it to the optimal level of arousal. These activities primarily involve going to parties, spending time with lots of friends,—and basically anything with high potential for increased social stimulation.

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Key Takeaway

Introverts have a level of brain arousal higher than the optimal level of arousal and extroverts have a level of brain arousal lower than than the optimal level of arousal (add it to your list of tongue-twisters). They then seek to increase it or decrease it accordingly. Thanks for reading!

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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