Being an extrovert: The good and the bad.

A term first introduced by psychologist Carl Jung, extraversion is a personality trait where a person directs their energy outwards by seeking stimulus from either being social and outgoing, taking risk taking activities and generally seeking excitement from the outside environment. These traits are contrary to being an introvert. The modern western world often praises extrovert characteristics which is usually perceived as being well adjusted and often socially intelligent; to quote Susan Cain the author of the book Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking ...

 ''We live in a culture of personality, where extraversion is ideal, a far departure from the past that was the culture of character which prized honour and discipline.''

Naturally being an extrovert comes with a lot more emotionally rich experiences leading to possibly a more varied lifestyle than introverts; usually keeping an eye open to meet new people and networking opportunities extroverts generally have more doors opened for them due to the sheer amount of socializing they do and prefer being around the company of other people and being included in novelty or risky taking situations.

Extrovert characteristics
These are the general characteristics of  someone with an extravert personality may possess, though this may not be an absolute description for every extrovert but it will give you a good outline of their overall demeanour.

- Outspoken
- Thrives in the company of other people
- Constantly seeks new experiences
- Easily bored
- Drawn to crowds
- Generally quite animated
- Assertive
- Responsive to external stimulus 
- Opinionated

Pro's of being an extrovert
There are definitely some positives in regards to having an extrovert personality trait. Extroverts are very outgoing and are usually motivated to attend social gatherings and mingle with new people exposing themselves to a variety of social interactions, this may explain why extroverts usually have a story to tell because of this frequent exposure to new interactions and situations. On a similar note because of the quantity of interactions extroverts get involved in they learn their social skills at a faster rate than an introvert would. Their constant craving for social interactions and proactiveness in this regards means that they can make friends easily, are easy to get to know as they often let their thoughts and feelings be known and love to be engaged in conversation to a wide variety of people whether it is one on one or a group discussion. Extroverts aren't known to shy away from the spotlight they can handle social pressure quite well while some may even welcome it, this comes with their love of being the focus of attention; a reason why you may find a large amount of extroverts in the entertainment industry. They usually are very upbeat people with high self esteem, with the ability to make many friends they can flourish in circumstances where there are groups and even crowds of people. Lastly their lust for excitement can translate into their lifestyle or hobbies they choose, they can be career choices such as being in the media, being a fire-fighter, deep sea diver etc., or risk taking ventures like skydiving, tornado chasing or maybe an extreme sport like rock climbing or snowboarding. These kind of hobbies or career choices keeps their day emotionally rich and keeps them highly engaged mentally also.

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Con's of being an extrovert
Believe it or not being extroverted does have some down falls despite the positives discussed earlier. Though extroverts do have the ability to meet and greet with a lot of people; often a lot of the people an extrovert meets will just be acquaintances and nothing more and that means a lot of shallow relationships, this is because there often isn't enough time to delve in and develop a meaningful relationship with each and every person they meet. From time to time they also may have to learn to break off from undesirable relationships because due to the sheer amount of people they may meet they will eventually come across people they feel they do not mingle well with or worse not get along with at all. The need to be constantly engaged with another person can be a hindrance to the extrovert  as they can find it quite difficult to be alone or in solitude for too long, even something as simple as reading a book in a quiet room can be quite a task to some extroverts, they find that either they get incredibly bored very easily or their mind starts to wonder due to their short attention span and need for an external stimulus. People can see extroverts as attention seekers and even a little shallow. Though most people enjoy the company of an extrovert person because of their upbeat nature, with enough time they can feel a sense hollowness in  their relationship between them and the extrovert because they feel they haven't really gotten to know them past their social persona.


As stated in the last post no one is completely extroverted or introverted and are usually a balance between the two and may swing one way or the other depending on a variety of factors.