Book Review: Introvert Power
Jan. 3rd, 2009 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI have to confess, I read this book because of the title: Introvert Power. Who can resist a book that sounds like an introverted bid to world domination?
The most interesting part in Introvert Power is a statistic it quotes in the introduction: 50% of the population is introverted. No, truly; the first large-scale MBTI study was in 1998, and it showed that roughly 50% of the population in introverted.
(If anyone wants to look into this more, I did some checking on the internet; here is a longer report summarizing the findings of the study. To find the introvert percentages, search “introvert.”)
The usual estimates are that one-quarter to one-third of the population is introverted. The one-third number is the original estimate from the 1962 MBTI book, and is based on a study of about four hundred high school age boys, which makes it a dodgy estimate to say the least.
And the one-fourth estimate? That appears to have come out of the ether. I suspect the reason it caught on so is that American culture prefers extroversion, and if introverts are outnumbered three to one then ignoring them isn’t just okay—the American Way makes it practically imperative. Majority rules!
Of course 51% (she also quotes a different study that makes a 57% estimate, but it’s quite so authoritative) makes introverts the majority, so perhaps the book is a subtle call for world domination.
It does spend a good deal of time discussing how to create a more introvert friendly world. Basically, don’t apologize for being an introvert; prefacing requests for alone time with “I’m so sorry for being a weirdo like this, but…” just reinforces the idea that introverts are abnormal.
On a completely different note, the book has an awesome word: flâneuse, a French word that means “passionate spectator”—not someone passively sitting back and being entertained, like a spectator in English, but someone who is mentally engaged with whatever she is watching. (The masculine form is flâneur, if anyone is curious, but I think flâneuse sounds better, although I’m probably pronouncing them both wrong so that’s kind of immaterial.)
I’d recommend it if you’re interested in introversion. It’s an interesting book, if not mind-blowing.
The most interesting part in Introvert Power is a statistic it quotes in the introduction: 50% of the population is introverted. No, truly; the first large-scale MBTI study was in 1998, and it showed that roughly 50% of the population in introverted.
(If anyone wants to look into this more, I did some checking on the internet; here is a longer report summarizing the findings of the study. To find the introvert percentages, search “introvert.”)
The usual estimates are that one-quarter to one-third of the population is introverted. The one-third number is the original estimate from the 1962 MBTI book, and is based on a study of about four hundred high school age boys, which makes it a dodgy estimate to say the least.
And the one-fourth estimate? That appears to have come out of the ether. I suspect the reason it caught on so is that American culture prefers extroversion, and if introverts are outnumbered three to one then ignoring them isn’t just okay—the American Way makes it practically imperative. Majority rules!
Of course 51% (she also quotes a different study that makes a 57% estimate, but it’s quite so authoritative) makes introverts the majority, so perhaps the book is a subtle call for world domination.
It does spend a good deal of time discussing how to create a more introvert friendly world. Basically, don’t apologize for being an introvert; prefacing requests for alone time with “I’m so sorry for being a weirdo like this, but…” just reinforces the idea that introverts are abnormal.
On a completely different note, the book has an awesome word: flâneuse, a French word that means “passionate spectator”—not someone passively sitting back and being entertained, like a spectator in English, but someone who is mentally engaged with whatever she is watching. (The masculine form is flâneur, if anyone is curious, but I think flâneuse sounds better, although I’m probably pronouncing them both wrong so that’s kind of immaterial.)
I’d recommend it if you’re interested in introversion. It’s an interesting book, if not mind-blowing.
