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The trait of extroversion-introversion is probably the most recognizable personality characteristic for members of the general public. As a result, there are many common stereotypes and biases about this core personality construct. Many see extroversion as advantageous because extroverts are friendly, outgoing, and sociable. In fact, these beliefs about this particular personality trait have become part of our everyday language (“He’s the life of the party — a real extrovert!” “I’ve got to go home and recharge because I’m an introvert.”).
Is one better than the other?
In the research literature, there is some limited evidence of an extroversion advantage. A meta-analysis suggests that possession of extroversion is related to positive outcomes in the workplace, such as performance in a job interview and in building positive relationships with others, but the positive effects tend to be pretty small (Wilmot, et al., 2019).
On the other hand, there is a belief that introverts also have certain advantages. One commonly-held belief is that while extroverts are outgoing and talkative, introverts are better listeners. This was tested in a recent series of studies (Winchester, et al., 2024). In that research, there was no firm evidence of an introversion listening advantage.
Are these beliefs about the personality trait of extroversion-introversion simply wrong, or are we missing the bigger picture?
Reasons why personality may not be a particularly good predictor of social and work behavior
There are several reasons why personality traits don’t consistently predict behaviors that people believe (via common sense) should be clearly related to that personality type. Let’s look at two of those reasons.
The Typology Problem
We label people (and ourselves) as being of one type – either an introvert or an extrovert. But, personality traits are assumed to be normally distributed (think of the “bell-curve” with introversion on one end of the continuum and extroversion on the opposite end). The bell shape represents people’s scores on this continuous dimension, with few people in the extremes and most people scoring in the middle. What that means is that those people clustered around the mean/midpoint aren’t very different from one another when it comes to possession of introversion-extroversion. Only those relatively few individuals in the “tails” of the distribution look like “true” introverts or extroverts. Simply dividing people at the midpoint into two types then “waters down” the fact that true introverts and extroverts may indeed differ in their behaviors.
Skills Trump Traits
Listening is a skill. Effective public speaking and being able to network with people effectively are also skills. What some of this research suggests (as well as our own research on the topic) is that if you want to more accurately predict certain social behaviors, measuring possession of skills is a better predictor of outcomes. Take performance in a job interview. If you are a skilled communicator, able to easily express yourself, you are more likely to present yourself well and get the job. Extroverts, because they spend more time than introverts with people, may have a slight advantage in developing the communication skills required for a good job interview performance. So, there may be an extroversion advantage there. But, if the introvert works on developing their communication skills, they might perform as well, negating the extroversion advantage.
We found this when we explored the extroversion advantage in leader emergence. There is good evidence that extroverts are more likely than introverts to attain positions of leadership. However, when we did a mediational analysis, taking into account these individuals’ possession of communication skills, the extroversion advantage disappeared (Guerin, et al., 2011). Simply put, extroverts and introverts, if they possessed high levels of social skills, were just as likely to attain leadership positions. This makes sense because it is the skills that matter (even though extroverts, through repeated socializing, have an advantage in communication skill development).
The takeaways: We need to fully test common sense beliefs about how personality traits might affect behaviors; Skills are often more predictive of social behaviors than are personality traits (see Friedman, 1979, for more on this).
