Why Being An Introvert Doesn’t Automatically Mean You Are Shy

Several months ago I met a new person. After a brief conversation she said “I can tell you are shy”. I was curious what gave her that impression, so I pried further. “Really? What makes you say that?” I asked. “Because you are quiet.”

I hear this a lot from people who are extroverted. There’s a false correlation that a quiet person must also be shy person. It’s an unfair, sweeping generalization that if you are quiet in the company of others, you must be afraid of speaking. Far from the truth, but introverts are often misunderstood. Growing up, being an introvert is a negative term that adults try to fix by making kids speak more or pushing them way outside of their comforts or strengths. You may have been labeled ‘odd’ or ‘weird’ if your instinct was to observe others from the perimeter of social interactions.

Now I’m raising two daughters and trying not to fall into the same traps. Recently, we were invited to a birthday party and I was able to see something that they don’t yet know is a strength of an introvert. Observation. They are typically playful kids, but when the volume of chaos in a room reaches a certain level, they withdraw from the interaction. It’s not that they ran and hid, but rather they became quiet and observant. Instead of trying to coax them back into the situation I allowed them to hang on the fringes. I want them to development the skill that Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Blink called ‘thin-slicing’:

“Thin-slicing is a term used in psychology and philosophy to describe the ability to find patterns in events based only on “thin slices,” or narrow windows, of experience. The term means making very quick inferences about the state, characteristics or details of an individual or situation with minimal amounts of information.”

When introverts quietly observe a social interaction, whether it be a meeting, a party or other event, they are sub-consciously thin-slicing or picking up on things that people engaged in conversation are not; they pick up on body language, the melody in someone’s voice, the real meaning behind someone’s words.

So instead of encouraging your child, student, peer or employee to participate in the discussions, engage them after the fact. Find out what they observed. If it’s a child, ask them to replay the events that took place in the room. See if they are seeing what others aren’t picking up on and praise that action. If your employee is disengaged in meetings, don’t write them off as not being a team-player. Ask them “what is something you picked up on in that meeting that I might have missed?”

For more resources on the strengths of introverts, check out Quiet by Susan Cainand Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.