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The idea that it’s important to find a match between yourself and your environment shouldn’t seem all that difficult to comprehend. No one likes to feel that they don’t fit in to their surroundings.
As simple as this may seem, however, psychology doesn’t always take this into account when predicting who will be happiest or unhappiest in their social surroundings. Too many times, people are expected to adapt to whatever vagaries their path in life may take them through. It would seem as though psychology would want to lessen the impact of an imperfect fit on an individual’s well-being.
The Person-Environment Fit at Work
In a recent study by University of Minnesota’s Connie Wanberg and colleagues (2025), the idea of person-environment fit forms the basic framework for understanding how happy or miserable workers are when their job demands that they act in ways inconsistent with their personalities. It’s known that people will try to leave incompatible jobs, but what about the consequences in the moment of being made to feel uncomfortable with a specific demands or set of demands?
Consider what happens when Janelle, who basically likes to keep to herself, gets handed the job of preparing for a large meeting being held for corporate bigwigs, complete with showing up at the door to meet the guests. Janelle loves to organize and never shies away from planning events, social or otherwise. But having to serve as the greeter to a bunch of people she doesn’t know, much less is on the same level as? This is not what she signed up for when she took the job of office administrator.
Most person-environment fit models look at the broader issues of overall job, vs. specific duty, instances of mismatch. They also tend to evaluate, Wanberg notes, mismatch from the standpoint of groups rather than the standpoint of individuals. To overcome these limitations, the authors approach the problem through the lens of “trait activation theory.” In this approach, a specific trait forms the unit of analysis rather than personality overall. What’s more, this approach advocates for “how employees experience and navigate personality-work demand-related misfit in the moments before, during, and immediately following the work demand in trait-relevant situations” (p. 152). Introversion, the quality Janelle seems to be high on, would be the specific personality trait which the demands of serving as greeter would fail to mesh with.
The Unhappy Life of the Misfit Introvert
The U. Minnesota research team approached this problem using a mixed-method analysis involving surveys and semi-structured interviews to tap into trait-incongruent situations and how they’re experienced by people high in introversion. In the survey, which was open-ended, participants recalled times when they were called on to act “more introverted than you tend to be,” or times when they had to cover up the fact that they were introverts. This phase of the research involved 135 of the lowest-scoring participants on an extraversion measure. In the next phase, 17 of these individuals completed interviews to gain deeper insights into their questionnaire responses.
As examples of misfit-related work demands, the authors list such situations as interacting with new people, engaging in small talk at work-related events, leading a presentation, and articulating opinions during conflicts.
Before, during, and after these situations, participants reported feeling anxious, annoyed, uncomfortable, disappointed, ashamed, self-doubting, and physiologically aroused (heart pounding, sweating, feeling nauseous). However, there were also positive emotional experiences, including feeling self-assured, relieved, confident, and even serene.
Given the stress involved in the instances of misfit, the authors also decided to find out how participants coped. Some used problem-focused in which they prepared but more typical were the emotion-focused strategies of procrastinating, withdrawing, taking recovery time, and engaging in surface or deep acting. These latter strategies involve putting on a false front to cover up an individual’s true fears and worries.
As an example of a particularly excruciating reaction, consider the following quote:
“I’m wiped out. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I don’t want to have phone calls with anyone. I certainly don’t want to be on the computer or on a Zoom call. I’m ready for bed and maybe watching TV, something to disassociate myself from the outside world. I just want to be in my bubble to decompress and then sleep, and then I’m ready for the next day.”
There were plenty of negative reactions prior to and after the incongruent task, but the most intense came while the situations were ongoing. These included fear, dread, and anxiety along with exhaustion, sadness, timidity, and discomfort. However, it was unlikely for anyone to leave their reactions at work; participants reported ruminating. Furthermore, even for those respondents who figured out how to calm down afterward, this only went so far.
Personality Essential Reads
As it turned out, though, negative reactions also occurred in the form of “anticipatory misfit.” Making things worse, some participants reported trying to hide to avoid being tapped for a task they didn’t want to complete.
Should the task be more than a one-off, despite all of this turmoil, participants found a way to adapt over time. However, this never became perfect. If Janelle was given these duties every day, she might figure out how to handle her anxiety and worry, but she’ll never feel truly comfortable with such assignments.
How an Introvert Can Fit in an Extraverted Situation
Luckily, participants could make certain adaptations, so all was not a total disaster when it came to fitting into mismatch situations. Furthermore, some of the strategies that participants reported using showed that it is possible to be that square peg in the round hole by knowing what to expect and then how to change their inner narratives.
The first strategy is preparation, such as going over who to expect to meet at an event and then findings possible topics of conversation. Second, those who managed to adapt to lack of fit learned that they could try to pick out people they knew for comfort; if this wasn’t possible, they learned to use self-talk to boost their feelings of confidence. Sadly, many participants reported on having “blank mind syndrome” due to their high anxiety; they could overcome this by learning to take notes during those moments when their fear got the better of them. A fourth strategy was to replace ruminating thoughts about how badly they performed with a more positive reframing of the situation; this could include seeing the situation as an opportunity for growth. The remaining strategy is one that everyone can use for dealing with stress, which is to build in some down time to regroup and revitalize.
To sum up, the world’s demands can place people in positions that are diametrically opposed to their inner nature. The U. Minnesota study shows that, though the experience can be draining, fulfillment is possible by building on your inner resilience.
