Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
“Introversion—along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness—is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man’s world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.”
— Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain
— Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain
In the bestselling book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, Susan Cain brilliantly discusses how the world undervalues the special characteristics of introverts and how we could all be improved by accepting the inputs of these people. Cain discusses how our society is promoting the need for each of us to have extrovert qualities, regardless of the fact that introverts have much to offer to better society. For example, people often follow dominant, charismatic and well spoken individuals, yet these individuals at times do not have the best or most appropriate ideas. Sometimes we need the leadership of thoughtful, quiet, reflective people to be successful.
Susan Cain discusses the idea of pseudo-extroversion, or the "faking" of extrovert characteristics by introverted personalities. When introverts do this, are they forced to give up the best version of themselves to take on more popular personality characteristics? She discusses how these biases affect the workplace and the classroom.
This book, and further research by Susan Cain and others like her, are necessary for our world to understand a personality that is often misunderstood, even though about half of our population are introverts. This book gives a well researched and ulterior approach to the topic that we have seen very little of.
To see more about Susan Cain and her work, please click the link below:
http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/
Also, see this article by Forbes magazine about the work of Susan Cain:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/01/26/the-secret-power-of-introverts/1/