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Comment by maverick2007 | Hacker News Reader

maverick2007

One thing I don't see mentioned very much is that introversion/extroversion is a very different axis from shyness/outgoingness. I feel like these two axes get conflated really often (like in this article) but they really are two different things. I'm an introvert, I get energy being alone, but when I need to I can be very outgoing and make small talk and all of the things that introverts supposedly hate. I just need time to recharge by myself afterwards. On the other hand I've had friends that got energy from others but tended to be a wallflower (for lack of a better term) when they were around others. I hope people recognize it's more subtle of a distinction than just introvert/extrovert and don't let their self chosen label define them.

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There is a sort of common knowledge definition of introversion that involves 'recharging' while alone, but it's not a dictionary definition, and it's not an academic definition. The dictionary will just say shyness, while academic sources are a little more nuanced, generally circling 'unsociable' or 'not attention-seeking' or 'experiencing fewer positive sensations'.

I'm very much an introvert, but if I spend a few days without human contact, I start to come apart. I expect extraverts encounter in long-term social contact the exhaustion I experience in the short-to-medium term. Further, I find that I can have extensive conversations with individuals I know well without needing to recharge whatsoever. There's something to the notion of feeling drained in either scenario, but it isn't boolean or single-factor.

Myers-Briggs asks about recharging, but you can say you experience nothing of the sort and still wind up with an 'I'. It is an adjacent effect, but not neccesarily core to what is being measured there.

All in all, while recharging is certainly an existent related element and worth discussing, it doesn't make sense to criticize the article for conflating two terms that are academically the same thing.

Personality psychology is very underdeveloped. Probably personalities shift minute to minute on thousands of axes, and while Big 5 tests can be helpful for modeling and understanding your own behavior, you have to recognize them as massively oversimplifying an 86 billion neuron network. They are potentially a serious limiting factor on how one defines oneself.

I wasn't aware of and failed to draw this distinction until I read Quiet Power by Susan Cain. A wonderful book for anyone interested that really helped me understand that introversion is not inherently undesirable, but also how to distinguish shyness to avoid falling into that trap, as this can be undesirable.

> I just need time to recharge by myself afterwards

Yes!

The way I've started explaining this to people is it's like going to the gym: I like going to the gym. I make sure to go to the gym regularly. But I can't spend all day at the gym, and if I spend many hours at the gym I'm going to be very sore and tired and need a day or two off.

Good analogy, and I find it slightly ironic, because the introvert will go to the gym, focus for an hour, and be tired out, while the extrovert will go to the gym, talk to people half the time, and not put in nearly as heavy a workout...

This is also a big area where I think there may genuinely be discrimination in the workplace. Employers try to conflate introversion with shyness because they can more easily defend the idea that outgoing behavior is required for adequate performance of a role. If they can systematically avoid hiring introverted people because “they’re shy” then they are less likely to be forced to make workplace concessions that allow introverts the mental bandwidth needed to recharge and engage in outgoing behavior (which they may be quite good at).

For example, I think this is a major contributor to the perpetuation of open-plan office layouts, which are quite actively harmful to introverts.

To be fair, there are certain roles for which extroversion actually is beneficial. Specifically, sales. The ability to be always on is definitely an asset to a sales executive.

Also, I don’t think this has anything to do with open-office layouts. There’s a much, much simpler reason for that: it’s way cheaper. Having individual (or shared) offices costs way more - you need doors, lots of walls, lots of construction, etc. for an open office space? All you need is tables, chairs, and headphones. Way cheaper. Maybe not more productive (there are arguments to be made in either direction here, though I suspect I know which direction your argument will take), but definitely much cheaper.

A this point I’d love to go back to proper cubicles, with 5 ft high walls.

But even those are expensive. I wonder if there are ways to lower the costs.

> I wonder if there are ways to lower the costs

Lower the cubicles' walls to 1-2 ft and made them out of frosted glass (added bonus if the glass amplifies noise). /s

This is bigotry pure and simple. It’s so sad that it’s socially acceptable to talk about introversion this way, and it will never undergo an advent like sexual orientation or gender to be seen as a protected class so that you can’t discriminate against introverted people like this.

Separately, open plan offices are not cheaper, not even in dense urban areas. They only appear cheaper in a very narrow, very short term sense that ultimately loses money overall.

I’d also add that I’ve worked in a company before that actively paid tens of millions of dollars to completely rip out private offices from a large Columbus, OH, campus where only corporate HR employees (who had offices for decades and sincerely needed private offices for their work), even though the staff was not growing in Columbus and there was no plan to increase worker seating density. The CEO just decreed “innovative people love open spaces” and that’s all.

On my exit interview from that company, a woman who had worked 25 years in HR at the company was telling me how she needs to talk to people who are being laid off, or giving specifics about medical leave or grief leave for a death in the family, stuff that requires privacy. She had her own office for the past 13 years, and now she was relegated to competing for 15-minute slices of time in Jabbrbox-like phone booths which couldn’t serve the full needs of the staff.

Open plan offices are not at all chosen to save money. It’s a combination of status signalling, trend following and surveillance culture. Absolutely not about saving money.

With all due respect, I’m not sure why you’re taking umbrage with my statement. I am not being bigoted; by and large, successful salespeople are extroverted. That is not an opinion. This is true because extroversion generally leads to more time spent with people, rather than less (which is not to say introverts never spend time with people), and thus extroverts tend to be more successful in field sales. Similarly, it is not bigoted to state that conventionally attractive people are more successful in field sales; you may not like it, but that isn’t an opinion - people buy more from people they see as attractive. Intelligence and subject matter expertise plays a (often much larger) factor as well, depending on the industry of course. The point is that there are absolutely legitimate reasons to discriminate hiring on certain factors. You also would be unlikely to hire someone afraid of heights as a helicopter pilot; that doesn’t make them any less of a person, just less suited for the job than someone who isn’t afraid of heights.

Please explain what you mean by them not being cheaper long-term. In terms of pure expense, and now that nearly every company has built open office plans as their main plan, they are actually cheaper in the long term too.

That CEO sounds like an idiot. That doesn’t mean every CEO is an idiot. Nor does it mean open plan offices never make sense. It also doesn’t mean they aren’t cheaper.

Open plan offices have very little to do with status signaling or trend following, though I will grant you that this does occur. And it certainly has nothing to do with surveillance culture; if it did, there are much better ways to do that, like periodic chat log reviews (a real thing at some companies).

Open plan offices are about saving money, and about not having to plan. It’s that simple.

I agree l but it's literally the number one point I expect to see when this topic comes up. Everyone and their mother is quick to point out that the two axes are different

Yep. I was introduced to this two-axis model several years ago, and it's been very helpful for me to understand my own personality and energy flow.

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