Introverted society

[Otto Kretschmer]

Guys how do you guys Imagine a society in which everyone is an introvert? In what ways would it differ from our own?

In general people would be less sociable, less sensation seeking, generally less active in general.

[Pabappa]

kind of reminds me of the autistic society, to be honest .... it depends really if the trait is biologically bound to last forever, which is probably the best way to answer the question ... because if not, i imagine that the few extroverts in society would command such power that they would take charge and over time the society would evolve towards something barely distinguishable from ours.

if it *is* biologically bound, such that we will begin and remain introverts forever, i guess we might be somewhat like cats .... each with our own territory, which might mean that cities would simply not exist and people would forever live in the wilderness catching fish. introversion doesnt rule out social contact entirely, of course .... but this is where the question becomes open to interpretation of what it means to be an introvert. Im an introvert, and here I am on social media happily tapping away on my keyboard, while also connected to Discord, and planning to visit my parents tomorrow. Introversion to me means that while I might enjoy social contact, it's only enjoyable when I can put it away and return to being alone any time I want to. A society of people like me would probably have a low fertility rate, since although we'd still find life partners, we would continue mostly leading our separate lives, with our only common bond being our children.

edit: fixed a typo

[linguistcat]

I think cities could still exist, there would just be different mores to lessen social friction. Actually, as someone very introverted, living in a city was fine for me. Most people left me alone, public transit meant I had a lot of time to read before and after work.

People would likely be more formal, and introductions would be mediated by someone who knows both people. Parties, such as they were, would be more intimate gatherings. More people might take trips out into nature to get away from the cities. Writing and similar technologies might have caught on more quickly and been more widely used early on, as much as was possible.

Also I keep seeing people say "Introverts are less sensation seeking" which I personally don't understand. I enjoy trying new things or going to new places quite a lot, I just don't want to meet a bunch of new people all at once. I have a lot of friends, but I just don't tend to talk to them all, all at once. Introversion is specifically about social interactions, and the level at which people become overloaded from them. And everyone also has a base level of how much interaction they need in order to feel socially satisfied. Even the most introverted people will seek out some social interaction if that isn't met.

[Otto Kretschmer]

I think cities could still exist, there would just be different mores to lessen social friction. Actually, as someone very introverted, living in a city was fine for me. Most people left me alone, public transit meant I had a lot of time to read before and after work.

People would likely be more formal, and introductions would be mediated by someone who knows both people. Parties, such as they were, would be more intimate gatherings. More people might take trips out into nature to get away from the cities. Writing and similar technologies might have caught on more quickly and been more widely used early on, as much as was possible.

Also I keep seeing people say "Introverts are less sensation seeking" which I personally don't understand. I enjoy trying new things or going to new places quite a lot, I just don't want to meet a bunch of new people all at once. I have a lot of friends, but I just don't tend to talk to them all, all at once. Introversion is specifically about social interactions, and the level at which people become overloaded from them. And everyone also has a base level of how much interaction they need in order to feel socially satisfied. Even the most introverted people will seek out some social interaction if that isn't met.

Big Five model of personality describes 6 facets of extraversion
- warmth
- gregariousness
- assertiveness
- activity
- excitement seeking
- positive emotions

Only the first 3 relate to people. Alex Honnold would be high on activity and excitement seeking but low on all else.

[Ares Land]

Apparently, Finland.
The joke is they were relieved a lot when social distancing rules got relaxed. 2 meters was way too close.

[linguistcat]

I think cities could still exist, there would just be different mores to lessen social friction. Actually, as someone very introverted, living in a city was fine for me. Most people left me alone, public transit meant I had a lot of time to read before and after work.

People would likely be more formal, and introductions would be mediated by someone who knows both people. Parties, such as they were, would be more intimate gatherings. More people might take trips out into nature to get away from the cities. Writing and similar technologies might have caught on more quickly and been more widely used early on, as much as was possible.

Also I keep seeing people say "Introverts are less sensation seeking" which I personally don't understand. I enjoy trying new things or going to new places quite a lot, I just don't want to meet a bunch of new people all at once. I have a lot of friends, but I just don't tend to talk to them all, all at once. Introversion is specifically about social interactions, and the level at which people become overloaded from them. And everyone also has a base level of how much interaction they need in order to feel socially satisfied. Even the most introverted people will seek out some social interaction if that isn't met.

Big Five model of personality describes 6 facets of extraversion
- warmth
- gregariousness
- assertiveness
- activity
- excitement seeking
- positive emotions

Only the first 3 relate to people. Alex Honnold would be high on activity and excitement seeking but low on all else.

I don't know in-depth about the Big 5. All I know is that I'm often considered the most introverted person in a given group, but I am far from shy, or unassertive, or a negative person (depression notwithstanding). I just prefer being on my own to being social, and if I have to be social, I prefer one on one conversations over group ones, or indirect contact like this to being in-person, and people I already know to meeting new people.

If there's a correlation between being an introvert and being inactive or a negative person, I can imagine much of it comes from the social expectations that one should do things WITH other people and that if you are doing something alone, that at best you're a bit odd, and at worst it's because you're someone no one wants to interact with. But I'm not sure if I want to be the one to delve into that specific aspect. I do think that extroverted people wouldn't be seen so positively if the majority of people and baseline for humanity was being introverted. They would rub against the social mores of an introvert-based society just as much as introverts in our extrovert-based societies do.

Apparently, Finland.
The joke is they were relieved a lot when social distancing rules got relaxed. 2 meters was way too close.

I was actually going to suggest them, or even Japan. I think they tend to have more introverted people in those cultures, or at least have social mores that are easier on people who are introverted

[Otto Kretschmer]

Being negative has nothing to do with extraversion. Neuroticism measures negative emotions, extraversion does not.

If you are not inassertive or inactive, then you likely are below average on warmth and gregariousness but average or above average on other facets. As I said Alex Honnold is an example of such person

So a society that is introverted would
- have less positive emotions (but NOT more negative emotions!)
- be less active physically
less excitment seeking
- less social in general

[linguistcat]

Being negative has nothing to do with extraversion. Neuroticism measures negative emotions, extraversion does not.

If you are not inassertive or inactive, then you likely are below average on warmth and gregariousness but average or above average on other facets. As I said Alex Honnold is an example of such person

So a society that is introverted would
- have less positive emotions (but NOT more negative emotions!)
- be less active physically
less excitment seeking
- less social in general

The only one I think is directly tied to being introverted is being less social/gregarious. Especially if we remove certain social pressures to either be social or not do a lot. I suppose I did assume a false dichotomy with the mention of "positive" emotions being tied to Extroversion, but it still stands that I haven't noticed Introverts I know being less "positive" than Extroverts. Still, anecdotes aren't data. I just feel that experiencing less positive emotions in Introverts isn't inherent to Introversion, but from the pressures society puts on us to act Extroverted. It would be interesting to design some experiment to see if Introverts who aren't forced to act Extroverted would still correlate with those other aspects, but I don't know how one would do that ethically.

[Otto Kretschmer]

Being negative has nothing to do with extraversion. Neuroticism measures negative emotions, extraversion does not.

If you are not inassertive or inactive, then you likely are below average on warmth and gregariousness but average or above average on other facets. As I said Alex Honnold is an example of such person

So a society that is introverted would
- have less positive emotions (but NOT more negative emotions!)
- be less active physically
less excitment seeking
- less social in general

The only one I think is directly tied to being introverted is being less social/gregarious. Especially if we remove certain social pressures to either be social or not do a lot. I suppose I did assume a false dichotomy with the mention of "positive" emotions being tied to Extroversion, but it still stands that I haven't noticed Introverts I know being less "positive" than Extroverts. Still, anecdotes aren't data. I just feel that experiencing less positive emotions in Introverts isn't inherent to Introversion, but from the pressures society puts on us to act Extroverted. It would be interesting to design some experiment to see if Introverts who aren't forced to act Extroverted would still correlate with those other aspects, but I don't know how one would do that ethically.

The Big Five test was designed with this stuff on mind. This is why Positive Emotions is a facet of Extraversion and not a separate domain. 10,000s people got tested and researchers noticed that corellation. Jordan Peterson talks about this in One of his videos about personality psychology but I dont know which one