Who are you, really? The puzzle of personality

What an intriguing
group of individuals you are ...

to a psychologist.

(Laughter)

I've had the opportunity
over the last couple of days

of listening in on some
of your conversations,

and watching you interact with each other.

And I think it's fair to say,

already,

that there are 47 people in this audience,

at this moment,

displaying psychological symptoms
I would like to discuss today.

(Laughter)

And I thought you might like
to know who you are.

(Laughter)

But instead of pointing at you --

which would be gratuitous and intrusive --

I thought I would tell you
a few facts and stories

in which you may
catch a glimpse of yourself.

I'm in the field of research
known as Personality Psychology,

which is part of a larger
personality science

which spans the full spectrum
from neurons to narratives.

And what we try to do,

in our own way,

is to make sense of how each of us --

each of you --

is in certain respects
like all other people,

like some other people,

and like no other person.

Now already you may be saying of yourself,

"I'm not intriguing ...

I am the 46th most boring person
in the Western hemisphere."

Or you may say of yourself,

"I am intriguing ...

even if I am regarded by most people
as a great, thundering twit."

(Laughter)

But it is your self-diagnosed boringness
and your inherent "twitiness"

that makes me as a psychologist
really fascinated by you.

So let me explain why this is so.

One of the most influential
approaches in personality science

is known as trait psychology,

and it aligns you along five dimensions
which are normally distributed

and that describe universally held
aspects of difference between people.

They spell out the acronym OCEAN.

So, O stands for open to experience

versus those who are more closed;

C stands for conscientiousness

in contrast to those with a more
lackadaisical approach to life;

E, extroversion in contrast
to more introverted people;

A, agreeable individuals in contrast
to those decidedly not agreeable;

and N --

neurotic individuals in contrast
to those who are more stable.

All of these dimensions have
implications for our well-being,

for how our life goes.

And so we know that for example,

openness and conscientiousness
are very good predictors of life success,

but the open people achieve that success
through being audacious,

and occasionally odd.

The conscientious people
achieve it through sticking to deadlines,

to persevering as well as
having some passion.

Extroversion and agreeableness are both
conducive to working well with people.

Extroverts for example,

I find intriguing with my classes,

I sometimes give them a basic fact

that might be revealing
with respect to their personality.

I tell them that it is
virtually impossible

for adults to lick the outside
of their own elbow.

Did you know that?

Already, some of you have tried to lick
the outside of your own elbow,

but extroverts amongst you

are probably those who've not only tried,

but they have successfully licked

the elbow of the person
sitting next to them.

(Laughter)

Those are the extroverts.

Let me deal in a bit more detail
with extroversion,

because it's consequential
and it's intriguing,

and it helps us understand
what I call our three natures.

First, our biogenic nature,

our neurophysiology.

Second, our sociogenic or second nature,

which has to do with the cultural
and social aspects of our lives.

And third,

what makes you individually you --

idiosyncratic --

what I call your "idiogenic" nature.

Let me explain.

One of the things that characterizes
extroverts is they need stimulation.

And that stimulation can be achieved
by finding things that are exciting:

loud noises,

parties

and social events here at TED.

You see the extroverts forming
a magnetic core,

and they all gather together,

and I've seen you.

The introverts are more likely
to spend time in the quiet spaces,

up on the second floor,

where they are able
to reduce stimulation --

and may be misconstrued
as being antisocial,

but you're not necessarily antisocial.

It may be that you simply realize
that you do better

when you have a chance
to lower that level of stimulation.

Sometimes it's an internal stimulant,

from your body --

caffeine for example works much better
with extroverts than it does introverts.

When extroverts come into the office
at nine o'clock in the morning

and say, "I really need a cup of coffee,"

they're not kidding,

they really do.

Introverts do not do as well,

particularly if the tasks
they're engaged in --

and they've had some coffee --

if those tasks are speeded,

and if they're quantitative,

introverts may give the appearance
of not being particularly quantitative.

But it's a misconstrual.

So here are the consequences
that are really quite intriguing.

We're not always what seem to be,

and that takes me to my next point.

I should say,

before getting to this,

something about sexual intercourse.

Although I may not have time.

And so if you would like me to --

yes, you would?

OK.

(Laughter)

There are studies done

on the frequency with which
individuals engage in the conjugal act.

It's broken down by male, female;

introvert, extrovert.

So I ask you,

how many times per minute ...

Oh, I'm sorry, that was a rat study --

(Laughter)

How many times per month ...

do introverted men engage in the act?

3.0.

Extroverted men?

More or less?

Yes, more.

5.5 --

almost twice as much.

Introverted women: 3.1.

Extroverted women --

frankly speaking as an introverted male,

which I will explain later --

they are heroic.

7.5.

They not only handle
all the male extroverts,

they pick up a few introverts as well.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

We communicate differently,

extroverts and introverts.

Extroverts when they interact,

want to have lots of social encounters
punctuated by closeness.

They'd like to stand close
from comfortable communication.

They like to have a lot of eye contact,

your mutual gaze.

We found in some research

that they use more diminutive
terms when they meet somebody.

So when an extrovert meets Charles,

it rapidly becomes Charlie and then Chuck,

and then Chuckles Baby.

(Laughter)

Where as for introverts,

it remains Charles until he's given
a pass to be more intimate

by the person he's talking to.

We speak differently.

Extroverts prefer black and white,
concrete, simple language.

Introverts prefer --

and I must again tell you

that I am as extreme an introvert
as you could possibly imagine --

we speak differently,

we prefer contextually complex,
contingent, weasel word sentences --

(Laughter)

More or less.

(Laughter)

As it were ...

not to put too fine a point upon it.

Like that.

When we talk,

we sometimes talk past each other.

I had a consulting contract
I shared with a colleague,

who's as different from me as two
people can possibly be.

First, his name is Tom.

Mine isn't.

(Laughter)

Secondly, he's six foot five,

I have a tendency not to be.

(Laughter)

And thirdly,

he's as extroverted
a person as you could find,

I am seriously introverted.

I overload so much

I can't even have a cup of coffee
after three in the afternoon

and expect to sleep in the evening.

We had [seconded] to this project
a fellow called Michael.

And Michael almost brought
the project to a crashing halt.

So the person who [seconded] him
asked Tom and me,

"What do you make of Michael?"

Well, I'll tell you
what Tom said in a minute.

He spoke in classic "extrovertese."

And here is how extroverted ears
heard what I said,

which is actually pretty accurate.

I said, "Well Michael does have
a tendency at times

of behaving in a way that some of us
might see as perhaps more assertive

than is normally called for."

(Laughter)

Tom rolled his eyes and he said,

"Brian, that's what I said ...

he's an asshole!"

(Laughter)

Now as an introvert,

I might gently allude to certain
"assholic" qualities

in this man's behavior,

but I'm not going to lunge for the a-word.

(Laughter)

But the extrovert says he walks like one,

he talks like one,

if he talks like one I call him one.

And we go past each other.

Now is this something
that we should be heedful of?

Of course.

It's important that we know this.

Is that all we are?

Are we just a bunch of traits?

No we're not.

Remember you're like some other people
and like no other person.

How about that idiosyncratic you?

As Elizabeth or as George,

you may share you extraversion
or your neuroticism,

but are their some distinctive Elizabethan
features of your behavior,

or Georgian of yours,

that makes us understand you
better than just a bunch of traits?

That make us love you.

Not just because you're
a certain type of person.

I'm uncomfortable putting
people in pigeon holes.

I don't even think pigeons
belong in pigeon holes.

(Laughter)

So what is it that makes us different?

It's the doings that we have in our life.

The personal projects.

You have a personal project right now,

but nobody may know it here.

It relates to your kid --

you've been back three
times to the hospital

and they still don't know what's wrong.

Or it could be your mom.

And you'd been acting out of character.

These are free traits.

You're very agreeable,

but you act disagreeably in order
to break down those barriers

of administrative torpor in the hospital,

to get something for you mom ...

or your child.

What are these free traits?

They're where were enact a script

in order to advance a core
project in our lives.

And they are what matters.

Don't ask people what type you are,

ask them:

what are your core projects in your life?

And we enact those free traits.

I'm an introvert,

but I have a core project,

which is to profess.

I'm a professor.

And I adore my students,

and I adore my field.

And I can't wait to tell them
about what's new,

what's exciting,

what I can't wait to tell them about.

And so I act in an extroverted way,

because at eight in the morning,

the students need a little bit of humor,

a little bit of engagement
to keep them going

in arduous days of study.

But we need to be very careful

when we act protractedly out of character.

Sometimes we may find
that we don't take care of ourselves.

I find,

for example after a period
of pseudo-extroverted behavior,

I need to repair somewhere on my own.

As Susan Cain said in her Quiet book,

in a chapter that featured
the strange Canadian professor

who was teaching at the time at Harvard,

I sometimes go to the men's room

to escape the slings and arrows
of outrageous extroverts.

(Laughter)

I remember one particular day,

when I was retired to a cubicle
trying to avoid overstimulation.

And a real extrovert came beside --

not right in my cubicle,

but in the next cubicle over --

and I could hear various
evacuatory noises,

which we hate --

even our own,

that's why we flush during
as well as after --

(Laughter)

And then I heard
this gravelly voice saying,

"Hey is that Dr. Little?"

(Laughter)

If anything is guaranteed
to constipate an introvert for six months,

it's talking on the john.

That's where I'm going now.

Thank you.

(Applause)