Back to Iseng, who is the father of all this and also the culprit, the perpetrator of most of our misunderstandings and nonsensical perceptions of introversion and extroversion.

Iseng, to remind you, described extroversion and introversion as a degree to which a person is outgoing and interactive with other people. So Iseng’s kind of three-tiered, three-tier personality structure is heavily dependent on observations. In other words, it’s anecdotal, it’s phenomenological, if you wish to be charitable.

Later iterations of Iseng’s model were even less rigorous because they relied on dictionaries, I’m not kidding you’re not, on words in dictionaries, in lexicons. These behavioral differences are presumed to be the result of some brain physiology, which had never been demonstrated or proven.

Iseng, associated for some oblivious reason, cortical inhibition and excitation with the ascending reticular activation system, a pathway located in the brain stem, stem, mind you, the reptile part.

Extroverts, he said, seek excitement and social activity in an effort to raise their naturally low arousal level. While introverts tend to avoid social situation, in an effort to avoid raising their naturally high arousal level too far. So Iseng designated extroversion as one of his of three major traits, as I said, there’s the PEN model, yeah, psychoticism, extroversion and neuroticism.

He originally suggested that extroversion is a combination of two major tendencies, impulsivity or impulsiveness and sociability. Later Iseng added several other more specific traits, liveliness, activity level, excitability, etc.

And these traits are further linked in his personality model to even more specific habitual responses such as partying.

Iseng compared extroversion to the four temperaments of ancient medicine with choleric and sanguine temperaments equating to extroversion and melancholic and phlegmatic temperaments equating to introversion.

And today our view of introversion and extroversion is heavily influenced by Iseng’s model and by his tendency to link it to some mysterious hitherto to be proven dynamics in the brain, which are supposedly genetically and hereditarily determined.

Okay, what about shyness?

Shyness is a tendency to feel awkward, to feel worried, concerned, tense during social encounters, especially with unfamiliar people.

Severely shy people have physical symptoms. They blush, they sweat, skin conductance changes, the heart pounds, blood pressure, upset stomach, you name it. They develop negative feelings about themselves. They develop worries about how other people view them and they tend to become avoidant. They have a tendency to withdraw from social interactions.

The thing is that most people are shy all the time. Whenever you meet someone new, whenever in a new situation and so on, you tend to be shy.

Shyness seems to be a reflexive and very common response.

But when it is intense, dysregulated, it takes over. That’s when we begin to discuss a kind of pathology.

So as the Encyclopedia of Psychology says, most people feel shy, at least occasionally. Some people shyness is so intense, however, that it can keep them from interacting with others, even when they want to or need to, leading to problems in relationships and at work.

Shyness is a personality trait. It’s most likely to occur, as we said, in unfamiliar setting, environments and situations. But it hinders, it obstructs, it’s dysfunctional and it metastasizes.

So it starts as a kind of hypervigilant response to unfamiliar settings, but it takes over.

And then you begin to be shy in familiar situations and relationships. You begin to avoid objects.

I mean, other people, you begin to be apprehensive, you begin to feel uncomfortable in act, you develop a low or fluctuating sense of self-worth, low self-esteem, negative self-image, etc. It becomes cancerous. It becomes malignant.

Shyness perpetuates and enhances itself. It’s a self-reinforcing mechanism.

Sometimes shyness vanishes, fades away, but that’s actually extremely rare. There’s a lot of data in studies that suggest that three personality types, evident in infancy, easy, slow to warm up and difficult, tend to change as children mature. Extreme traits become less pronounced and personalities evolve in predictable patterns over time.

But the tendency to internalize or externalize problems, this tendency remains pretty constant.

And by the way, also attachment styles, they’re pretty constant.

So individuals who are shy, they’re shy because they tend to internalize their problems. They dwell on problems internally instead of expressing problems, sharing, communicating their concerns. And this internalization leads to disorders like depression and anxiety.

Humans experience shyness in different degrees in different areas.

But if it’s all pervasive, if it permeates everything, ultimately you will end up developing depression and anxiety.

So shyness is a form of discomfort. Very often it’s because the person feels clueless. The person misinterprets social and sexual cues, is bound and apt to misbehave, to react wrongly.

So people with autism spectrum disorder, for example, also tend to develop shyness. It’s the difficulty of knowing what to say, what to do in social situation, a crippling physical manifestation of an easiness which can culminate in severe anxiety and panic attack.

Shyness involves symptoms. It’s quite devastating. It’s the person feels that she’s boring or that she’s bizarre or then she attempts to overcompensate to try to create interest and this alienates people further.

So she doesn’t know when to smile. She doesn’t know what how to engage in conversation, when to assume a relaxed posture, when to make good eye contact, when to respond to sexual cues and which social cues to respond to and how to do that.

So there’s a lot of dysregulated and boundary sexual promiscuity.

Shyness becomes not only a second nature, it becomes the first nature. It determines actually the manifestation and expression of all other personality dimensions, traits, and it is a behavioral determinant.

It’s also socially self-reinforced because people tend to perceive shy people negatively. People react very negatively to shy people, especially in cultures that are extroverted cultures like for example the west, the United States, the United Kingdom. Sociability is considered a sign of health, especially mental health, and if you avoid people, if you withdraw and so on, something’s wrong with you.

Shy individuals are distant, they are not conversational, and other people form poor impressions of shy people, consider them standoffish or snobbish or crazy or stupid or something. People who are not shy are affirmed, they may even be aggressive, but they’re perceived as okay. These are perceived as variations on a healthy theme, but everyone is critical towards shy people. Everyone is trying to get shy people out of their shells kind of, motivate them to not become shy.

So when people try to draw out shy people, a shy person, even if they’re kind, even if they are well intentioned, the exercise backfires because it focuses attention on the individual who is shy anyhow and increases self-consciousness, a sense of awkwardness and shyness.

But what’s the difference between shyness and introversion?

Shyness actually captures a family of afflictions, a family of disorders including timidity, apprehension in meeting new people, bashfulness, diffidence, reluctance to assert oneself, apprehension and anticipation, dissipatory anxiety, general fear of potential interaction, intimidation, object of fear, not a low self-confidence but fear.

So shyness is a catch-all umbrella term, but in some cases what appears to be shyness is actually reservation or introversion. It’s a character trait which causes an individual to voluntarily avoid excessive social contact because of overstimulation, causes an individual to be terse and abrupt and curt in communication.

But introverts avoid social contact, minimize communication, not because of discomfort, fear, anxiety, apprehension or lack of confidence.

I repeat this because it’s again a crucial differential diagnostic feature.

Introverts avoid people, not because they experience discomfort, not because they’re apprehensive, not because they lack confidence, not because they hate people. Introverts avoid people because people overstimulate them.

So introverts are not shy, but they simply have a preference in order to avoid overstimulation.

Schizoids avoid people because they derive no benefit from social interactions. They find social interactions boring.

So schizoids are bored, introverts are overstimulated, shy people are anxious and fearful. Introversion is a personal preference.

Shyness is a form of distress.

Bernardo Cauducci, professor of psychology, emphasizes that introverts choose to avoid social interactions because they are under pressure in social interactions owing to overstimulation, because they derive no reward, no other reward.

So there’s a surplus of sensory input. It’s overwhelming, but they’re getting nothing to compensate for it.

Shy people are simply afraid. They’re anxious.

There’s been a lot of research which had demonstrated that shyness overlaps with introversion and neuroticism, negative emotionality, but only very, very mildly, only in the fringes.

In other words, these are not the same phenomena. Low societal acceptance of shyness or introversion reinforce shy or introverted behaviors owing to a lowering of self-confidence, but the etiology, the motivation, couldn’t be more different.

Schizoids are not introverts. Introverts are not shy.

Shyness and introversion outwardly manifest as social withdrawal.

This tendency is to avoid social situations, especially unfamiliar ones, but research is clear that shyness and introversion possess clearly distinct motivational forces, lead to uniquely different personal and peer reactions, and cannot be described as the same.

Again, I refer you to Susan Cain’s book, Quiet, published in 2012. She deserves introversion as involving being differently social, preferring one-on-one or small group interactions.

The introvert is not antisocial or asocial, but simply has a preference for one-on-one. The introvert will never go to a party. The introvert will never go to a club. The introvert will never go to a bar. The introvert will try her best to not travel with big groups of people, organized tour.

So unique physiological responses are also attendant upon these states.

What about social phobia? So extreme shyness may amount to social phobia.

Actually, in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in 1980, they identified social phobia as a form of malignant shyness, extreme shyness.

But when the DSM-IV was published 14 years later in 1994, it was converted to social anxiety disorder, and they said it’s nothing to do with or little to do with shyness.

But today, more recent studies demonstrate a very close correlation between shyness and social anxiety disorder. So it seems that social anxiety and social phobia are correlated with shyness.

Social inhibition, they are correlated with shyness.

Back to introversion.

Introversion is a basic personality trait. It’s a preference for the inner life of the mind over the outer world of other people.

One of the big five dimensions that define all personalities includes introversion. Introversion is a continuum. The opposite is extroversion.

Compared to extroverts, introverts enjoy subdued and solitary experiences. Introverts do not fear others. Introverts do not dislike others. They’re not shy. They’re not plagued by loneliness. They never feel lonely.

So introverts are going to avoid crowded situations, clubs, parties, bars, overcrowded workplaces. These are torture for introverts because of the overstimulation. They enjoy one-on-one engagement in calm environments. It’s a nervous system issue probably.

Evidence suggests that the brains of introverts are a bit different as far as dopamine. But again, it’s scanned evidence.

And so I hope that I made the distinctions clear. It’s not easy to distinguish these. You need to be clinically adept. You need to be exposed to these various disorders.

But the rules of thumb are pretty simple. Introverts avoid overstimulation and overstimulation environments.

Skisways avoid all environments with other people. Introverts avoid environment.

Introverts avoid other people, not because they don’t like other people, not because they don’t enjoy the company of other people, but because they need to take it one person at a time.

Skisways avoid other people because they don’t enjoy the company of other people.

Introverts are incapable of impulsive, reckless, defined behavior. Skisways are.

Skisways are capable. Introverts cannot survive in an overtaxing, overstimulating environment like a nightclub or a cruise. Skisways can and often do, actually.

Psychopaths seek such environments occasionally if they are anxious or depressed.

So the behaviors tell a part.

The introvert is heavily invested emotionally, analytically, intellectually in analyzing herself all the time. That’s her main preoccupation.

The skisway never does this, avoids it actively because there’s nothing there. It’s a surface phenomenon, a shimmering pond of no depth. The psychopath doesn’t even understand what is introspection or self-awareness. He wouldn’t understand it if you try to communicate.

So introvert, the introverted person is a benign phenomenon, not a pathology, while psychopathy and schizoidism are extreme pathologies on the border of psychosis in some respects.

Same goes for borderline personality disorder, which combines the worst of both worlds, emotional dysregulation and psychopathy, the tendency to act psychopathically when she decompensates.

Thank you for surviving this.