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What an intriguing
group of individuals you are ...
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to a psychologist.
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(Laughter)
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I've had the opportunity
over the last couple of days
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of listening in on some
of your conversations
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and watching you interact with each other.
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And I think it's fair to say, already,
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that there are 47 people in this audience,
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at this moment,
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displaying psychological symptoms
I would like to discuss today.
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(Laughter)
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And I thought you might
like to know who you are.
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(Laughter)
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But instead of pointing at you,
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which would be gratuitous and intrusive,
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I thought I would tell you
a few facts and stories,
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in which you may catch
a glimpse of yourself.
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I'm in the field of research
known as personality psychology,
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which is part of a larger
personality science
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which spans the full spectrum,
from neurons to narratives.
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And what we try to do,
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in our own way,
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is to make sense of how each of us --
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each of you --
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is, in certain respects,
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like all other people,
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like some other people
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and like no other person.
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Now, already you may
be saying of yourself,
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"I'm not intriguing.
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I am the 46th most boring person
in the Western Hemisphere."
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Or you may say of yourself,
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"I am intriguing,
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even if I am regarded by most people
as a great, thundering twit."
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(Laughter)
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But it is your self-diagnosed boringness
and your inherent "twitiness"
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that makes me, as a psychologist,
really fascinated by you.
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So let me explain why this is so.
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One of the most influential approaches
in personality science
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is known as trait psychology,
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and it aligns you along five dimensions
which are normally distributed,
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and that describe universally held aspects
of difference between people.
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They spell out the acronym OCEAN.
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So, "O" stands for "open to experience,"
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versus those who are more closed.
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"C" stands for "conscientiousness,"
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in contrast to those with a more
lackadaisical approach to life.
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"E" -- "extroversion," in contrast
to more introverted people.
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"A" -- "agreeable individuals,"
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in contrast to those
decidedly not agreeable.
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And "N" -- "neurotic individuals,"
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in contrast to those who are more stable.
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All of these dimensions have
implications for our well-being,
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for how our life goes.
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And so we know that, for example,
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openness and conscientiousness
are very good predictors of life success,
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but the open people achieve that success
through being audacious
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and, occasionally, odd.
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The conscientious people
achieve it through sticking to deadlines,
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to persevering, as well as
having some passion.
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Extroversion and agreeableness
are both conducive
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to working well with people.
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Extroverts, for example,
I find intriguing.
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With my classes, I sometimes
give them a basic fact
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that might be revealing
with respect to their personality:
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I tell them that it is virtually
impossible for adults
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to lick the outside of their own elbow.
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(Laughter)
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Did you know that?
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Already, some of you have tried
to lick the outside of your own elbow.
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But extroverts amongst you
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are probably those
who have not only tried,
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but they have successfully
licked the elbow
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of the person sitting next to them.
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(Laughter)
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Those are the extroverts.
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Let me deal in a bit more detail
with extroversion,
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because it's consequential
and it's intriguing,
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and it helps us understand
what I call our three natures.
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First, our biogenic nature --
our neurophysiology.
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Second, our sociogenic or second nature,
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which has to do with the cultural
and social aspects of our lives.
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And third, what makes you
individually you -- idiosyncratic --
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what I call your "idiogenic" nature.
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Let me explain.
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One of the things that characterizes
extroverts is they need stimulation.
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And that stimulation can be achieved
by finding things that are exciting:
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loud noises, parties
and social events here at TED --
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you see the extroverts
forming a magnetic core.
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They all gather together.
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And I've seen you.
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The introverts are more likely
to spend time in the quiet spaces
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up on the second floor,
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where they are able
to reduce stimulation --
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and may be misconstrued
as being antisocial,
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but you're not necessarily antisocial.
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It may be that you simply realize
that you do better
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when you have a chance
to lower that level of stimulation.
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Sometimes it's an internal
stimulant, from your body.
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Caffeine, for example, works much better
with extroverts than it does introverts.
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When extroverts come into the office
at nine o'clock in the morning
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and say, "I really need a cup of coffee,"
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they're not kidding --
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they really do.
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Introverts do not do as well,
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particularly if the tasks
they're engaged in --
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and they've had some coffee --
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if those tasks are speeded,
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and if they're quantitative,
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introverts may give the appearance
of not being particularly quantitative.
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But it's a misconstrual.
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So here are the consequences
that are really quite intriguing:
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we're not always what seem to be,
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and that takes me to my next point.
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I should say, before getting to this,
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something about sexual intercourse,
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although I may not have time.
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And so, if you would like me to --
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yes, you would?
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OK.
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(Laughter)
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There are studies done
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on the frequency with which
individuals engage in the conjugal act,
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as broken down by male, female;
introvert, extrovert.
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So I ask you:
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How many times per minute --
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oh, I'm sorry, that was a rat study --
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(Laughter)
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How many times per month
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do introverted men engage in the act?
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3.0.
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Extroverted men?
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More or less?
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Yes, more.
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5.5 -- almost twice as much.
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Introverted women: 3.1.
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Extroverted women?
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Frankly, speaking as an introverted male,
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which I will explain later --
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they are heroic.
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7.5.
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They not only handle
all the male extroverts,
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they pick up a few introverts as well.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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We communicate differently,
extroverts and introverts.
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Extroverts, when they interact,
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want to have lots of social encounter
punctuated by closeness.
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They'd like to stand close
for comfortable communication.
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They like to have a lot of eye contact,
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or mutual gaze.
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We found in some research
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that they use more diminutive terms
when they meet somebody.
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So when an extrovert meets a Charles,
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it rapidly becomes "Charlie,"
and then "Chuck,"
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and then "Chuckles Baby."
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(Laughter)
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Whereas for introverts,
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it remains "Charles," until he's given
a pass to be more intimate
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by the person he's talking to.
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We speak differently.
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Extroverts prefer black-and-white,
concrete, simple language.
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Introverts prefer --
and I must again tell you
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that I am as extreme an introvert
as you could possibly imagine --
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we speak differently.
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We prefer contextually complex,
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contingent,
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weasel-word sentences --
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(Laughter)
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More or less.
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(Laughter)
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As it were.
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(Laughter)
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Not to put too fine a point upon it --
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like that.
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When we talk,
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we sometimes talk past each other.
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I had a consulting contract
I shared with a colleague
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who's as different from me
as two people can possibly be.
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First, his name is Tom.
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Mine isn't.
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(Laughter)
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Secondly, he's six foot five.
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I have a tendency not to be.
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(Laughter)
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And thirdly, he's as extroverted
a person as you could find.
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I am seriously introverted.
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I overload so much,
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I can't even have a cup of coffee
after three in the afternoon
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and expect to sleep in the evening.
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We had seconded to this project
a fellow called Michael.
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And Michael almost brought
the project to a crashing halt.
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So the person who seconded him
asked Tom and me,
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"What do you make of Michael?"
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Well, I'll tell you
what Tom said in a minute.
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He spoke in classic "extrovert-ese."
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And here is how extroverted ears
heard what I said,
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which is actually pretty accurate.
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I said, "Well Michael does have
a tendency at times
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of behaving in a way
that some of us might see
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as perhaps more assertive
than is normally called for."
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(Laughter)
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Tom rolled his eyes and he said,
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"Brian, that's what I said:
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he's an asshole!"
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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Now, as an introvert,
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I might gently allude to certain
"assholic" qualities
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in this man's behavior,
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but I'm not going to lunge for the a-word.
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(Laughter)
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But the extrovert says,
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"If he walks like one, if he talks
like one, I call him one."
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And we go past each other.
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Now is this something
that we should be heedful of?
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Of course.
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It's important that we know this.
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Is that all we are?
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Are we just a bunch of traits?
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No, we're not.
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Remember, you're like some other people
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and like no other person.
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How about that idiosyncratic you?
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As Elizabeth or as George,
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you may share your extroversion
or your neuroticism.
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But are there some distinctively
Elizabethan features of your behavior,
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or Georgian of yours,
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that make us understand you
better than just a bunch of traits?
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That make us love you?
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Not just because you're
a certain type of person.
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I'm uncomfortable putting
people in pigeonholes.
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I don't even think pigeons
belong in pigeonholes.
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So what is it that makes us different?
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It's the doings that we have
in our life -- the personal projects.
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You have a personal project right now,
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but nobody may know it here.
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It relates to your kid --
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you've been back three times
to the hospital,
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and they still don't know what's wrong.
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Or it could be your mom.
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And you'd been acting out of character.
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These are free traits.
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You're very agreeable,
but you act disagreeably
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in order to break down those barriers
of administrative torpor
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in the hospital,
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to get something
for your mom or your child.
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What are these free traits?
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They're where were enact a script
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in order to advance
a core project in our lives.
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And they are what matters.
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Don't ask people what type you are;
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ask them, "What are your core
projects in your life?"
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And we enact those free traits.
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I'm an introvert,
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but I have a core project,
which is to profess.
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I'm a professor.
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And I adore my students,
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and I adore my field.
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And I can't wait to tell them
about what's new, what's exciting,
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what I can't wait to tell them about.
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And so I act in an extroverted way,
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because at eight in the morning,
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the students need a little bit of humor,
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a little bit of engagement
to keep them going
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in arduous days of study.
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But we need to be very careful
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when we act protractedly out of character.
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Sometimes we may find
that we don't take care of ourselves.
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I find, for example, after a period
of pseudo-extroverted behavior,
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I need to repair somewhere on my own.
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As Susan Cain said in her Quiet book,
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in a chapter that featured
the strange Canadian professor
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who was teaching at the time at Harvard,
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I sometimes go to the men's room
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to escape the slings and arrows
of outrageous extroverts.
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(Laughter)
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I remember one particular day
when I was retired to a cubicle,
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trying to avoid overstimulation.
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And a real extrovert came
in beside me -- not right in my cubicle,
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but in the next cubicle over --
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and I could hear various
evacuatory noises,
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which we hate -- even our own,
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that's why we flush
during as well as after.
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(Laughter)
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And then I heard
this gravelly voice saying,
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"Hey, is that Dr. Little?"
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(Laughter)
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If anything is guaranteed
to constipate an introvert for six months,
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it's talking on the john.
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(Laughter)
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That's where I'm going now.
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Don't follow me.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)