Field Guide to Loners: The Real Insiders

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http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/17H5wt/www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php%253Fterm%253Dpto-20070320-000001%2526page%253D1

The above linke is an article regarding those people are are incredibly introverted.  Although they are commonly stigmatized as being awkward, weird, crazy, or creepy many introverts are quite content in their lifestyle choice and are not secretly plotting a murder spree, or complex seriel killing, but simply enjoy being alone. 

The article claims that nearly three quarters of the population are extroverts, and if true this may help account for why introverts would be viewed as more deviant than they probably are, minorities are always less well understood and are thus more often the objects of fear, prejudice and discrimination. 

One of the most common responses made to introverts from their friends and family is to let loose and "Have a little fun!"  But some research with introverted and extroverted children playing a game where you have to hit a button to win money, demonstrated that introverts experienced a significantly higher amount of activity in areas of the brain associated with rewards.  Should these results be widely accepted, something I can't gather from this article, it would indicate that introverts do experience the world in a much different way than do extraverts. 

Introversion as a personality trait has also been linked with creativity, originality, and amongst lay people with general intelligence.  These studies may begin to indicate why we see this correlations.  The article mentions that introverts tend to have a much greater attention to detail, and a better ability to recognize (I assume more quickly and accurately) novelty in situations. 

I wonder if research on eye-witness testimony, memory evidence, facial recognition, and other research discussed in class has made a categorical distinction between introverts and extraverts?  Given that a minority of people are introverts it would seem that just enough people would be introverted as to skew data?  Or perhaps important data is left out entirely as introverts would be far less likely to participate in research programs?  Then again they may also be less likely to be invovled in crimes due to their more sedentary, solitary lifestyles.

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