Screening Out The Introverts: The Chronicle Of Higher Education

Pannapacker, William. "Screening Out the Introverts." The Chronicle of Higher Education 58.33 (2012). Academic OneFile. Web. 6 Nov. 2014.
This essay discusses how people, especially children, see being an introvert as frowned upon; therefore feel the need to conform to being the ideal extroverted child. Pannapacker narrates about a time when his students and he took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a test that determines personality type, but no one else, except for him, received an “I” for introversion, even though he knew some of his students were introverts.
I will use this essay for the section of my paper where I will discuss the pressure on introverts to become or be extroverts. After having seen the results of the Myers-Briggs test and

Pat Galagan describes a time where he “watched a facilitator separate a group of 100 people into two groups—Myers-Briggs-typed extroverts and introverts. The big group of “Es” occupied most of the room, bonding aggressively with one another, while the “Is” huddled silently in a corner, looking embarrassed and probably wishing they could escape to someplace quiet and read a book about introversion that did not make it sound like a sickness.” He then goes on “how a very high number of very creative people are introverts, and their ability to sit still and think quietly helps introverts earn better grades in high school and college than extroverts, and individuals working alone are usually more productive than groups.” (Galagan) The reason why introverts constantly feel out of place, other than introversion being a “second-class” personality trait, is because schools and work places make it difficult for people to find quiet alone time for reflection. Galagan uses the example of Harvard Business School where “the essence of leadership education is that leaders have to act confidently and make decisions in the face of incomplete information.” In which Galagan notes that in the U.S business culture, according to research done by Stanford Business School,

Susan Cain explains “We live with a value system that I call the Extrovert Ideal—the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight… prefers action over contemplation, risk taking to heed taking, certainty to doubt. He favors quick decisions, even at the risk of being wrong” (4). Extroversion has always been a very appealing personality, but lately it has become a standard to which most of us feel the need to conform. Research shows that “the voluble are considered smarter than the reticent—even though there’s zero correlation between the gift of gab and ideas”(Cain, 5) However, some of out greatest ideas, art, and inventions come from introverts such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Al Gore, Warren Buffett, Gandhi, Rosa Parks, and Van Gogh, who achieved what they did because of their introversion, not in spite of it. Children are often told to “come out of their shells—that noxious expression which fails to realize some animals choose to carry a shell with them and some humans are just the same” or the “you’re in your head too much, a phrase used against the quiet and cerebral, also known as: thinkers” (Cain, 7). Introverts work deliberately slower, like to focus on one task at a time, can have “mighty powers of concentration”, and have a much lower desire for fame and fortune. (Cain, 11). Cain