Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain,
Speaker 1: behavior and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest
Speaker 1: who will stimulate your mind and give you a greater
Speaker 1: understanding of yourself, others, and the world we live in.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Today we have
Speaker 1: Luke Smiley on the podcast. Luke is a personality researcher
Speaker 1: and senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne. He runs
Speaker 1: the Personality Processes Lab. Luke, Hey, Scott, great to have
Speaker 1: you on here. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you teach a course and happiness? Is that right? I
Speaker 1: teach across several courses, largely in personality and social psychology,
Speaker 1: but in some of those subjects. Yeah, teach some lectures
Speaker 1: into well being and happiness, and I've run a few
Speaker 1: seminars on that. Yeah. And it's great that they have
Speaker 1: Professor Smiley in the course. Yeah, it's a nice little coincidence,
Speaker 1: A big attraction to the course. I find a research
Speaker 1: really quite fascinating and debunking a lot of the myths
Speaker 1: about personality variation, particularly in the introversion extroversion dimension. I'm
Speaker 1: very interested in the core aspects differentiating introverts from extverts
Speaker 1: because people talk about all these kinds of differences in
Speaker 1: at comvits there. You know, these things in the popular
Speaker 1: media really are the core essential aspects. I thought today
Speaker 1: we could really get to the nitty gritty of this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds good. I mean, that's yeah. I mean that's
Speaker 1: something that interests me as well. The disconnect between the
Speaker 1: popular conception of what extra version introversion is, which is
Speaker 1: is it's really probably the personality trait that's become a
Speaker 1: household name, and yet the way in which it's defined
Speaker 1: in the popular sphere is well, it differs from one
Speaker 1: person to another, but it also differs sharply with the
Speaker 1: definition that's being used in psychological science. So I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of confusion around the it's right. I mean,
Speaker 1: how do we objectively know who's right? I mean, you
Speaker 1: guys could be wrong. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. I mean
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone that really owns the you know,
Speaker 1: can sort of claim that they own the term and
Speaker 1: that their definition is correct. Yeah. Have you so? Have
Speaker 1: you read Susan Kane's book Quiet? Yeah? I've read Susan
Speaker 1: Kaines quiet yeap, what are your thoughts on that on
Speaker 1: some of the conceptualizations of introversion. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that I think the books really it's its value, I suppose,
Speaker 1: is that there are a lot of people who identify
Speaker 1: as an introvert in the way that she defines introversion
Speaker 1: and feel maybe marginalized or just not not sort of
Speaker 1: part of not as well accepted by particularly Western society,
Speaker 1: where extraversion and traits surrounding confidence and talkativeness and outgoingness
Speaker 1: are really valued. So I think the book really speaks
Speaker 1: for a lot of people who who are maybe you know,
Speaker 1: tired of the what might be perceived to be the
Speaker 1: most desirable characteristics to have, and she's basically saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: there are these other characteristics that people have that can
Speaker 1: be really valuable too. So that's that's what I think
Speaker 1: I really like about the book. Yeah, I mean powering
Speaker 1: to a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean
Speaker 1: the disagreement that I guess a lot of people in
Speaker 1: personality would have is again around that that definition of
Speaker 1: of introversion. And yeah, I mean there's that's not to
Speaker 1: say the one you know, who's right and who's wrong there.
Speaker 1: But it's more, I mean, you could think of it
Speaker 1: more as a translation. So when I read Susan Kine's work,
Speaker 1: I'm really interpreting it as a combination of of low
Speaker 1: introversion as well as some other traits such as open
Speaker 1: you mean, well, extroversion, sorry, low, yes, introversion, low extroversion.
Speaker 1: So when she's talking about introversion, I am indeed interpreting
Speaker 1: it as introversion, but with some other traits surrounding openness
Speaker 1: and and also conscientiousness and neuroticism, yeah, nervousism too, so
Speaker 1: basically all of personality. Yeah yeah, and there are some
Speaker 1: occasionally I also see elements of agreeableness there with being
Speaker 1: She often talks about introverts as being more sort of
Speaker 1: sensitive to others and more thoughtful and aware of how
Speaker 1: they're impacting on others, and that's sounding a little bit
Speaker 1: like agreeableness as well. So I guess the main disagreement
Speaker 1: would be that I think there are clearly many people
Speaker 1: who fit her a definition of introversion, but I don't
Speaker 1: think that there that trait she's talking about is a
Speaker 1: sort of exists as a basic dimension of personality. That's
Speaker 1: where the divergences, I guess between the popula of the
Speaker 1: term and the terms it's used in psychological science. Let
Speaker 1: me say something here. You know, it's possible that even
Speaker 1: if all the traits and characteristics she puts under the
Speaker 1: umbrella of introversion don't cohere scientifically as a single source
Speaker 1: of variation, that doesn't necessarily follow that they don't all
Speaker 1: belong under the label of introversion. That becomes a conceptual issue. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you know what I mean, I would say that
Speaker 1: the I mean, my preference would actually be that psychologists
Speaker 1: didn't use the term introversion. Yeah, I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: sort of stuck. I think it's going to It would
Speaker 1: take a while to it's such an ingrained term because
Speaker 1: the dimension has been around for sixty seventy years in
Speaker 1: personality psychology. But I think it's not. I mean, it
Speaker 1: means inward focusing, doesn't it. But it's introversion has described
Speaker 1: as defined by psychologists, is more about just being less active,
Speaker 1: less bold, less talkative, less social, more quiet, and so
Speaker 1: for there's nothing necessarily about inwardness. So I actually quite
Speaker 1: like the term. I can't remember where he suggested it,
Speaker 1: but mutual colleague Colin de Young has suggested a term detachment.
Speaker 1: And you can see why people who identify as introverts
Speaker 1: really take issue with the way we describe introverts because
Speaker 1: they're probably saying, now, this sounds like people are really
Speaker 1: kind of detached and lethargic. We're not solving that sounds
Speaker 1: and you know, we say, but we're not talking about
Speaker 1: you guys. Yes, right, it does get very tricky. I
Speaker 1: I've had the great pleasure of collaborating with Susan Keenan
Speaker 1: her research and her team there. This is the new
Speaker 1: the thing. She just looks the quite quite revolution la,
Speaker 1: the quite relish. We came up with a new test
Speaker 1: of introversion, which you know, Collins like, okay with it.
Speaker 1: You know, so it's got it's got some you know,
Speaker 1: and you know an Adam Granite Penn really likes the model.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you the two aspects that we came
Speaker 1: up with. Let me see if I can guess. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I'd love to see it if you guess.
Speaker 1: And just so you know, I saw the website. I
Speaker 1: saw the website and I am I scrolled through the
Speaker 1: items and they're definitely two facets there, and one of
Speaker 1: them I would say is is classic intro lower sociability idea,
Speaker 1: and the other is more something more of what I
Speaker 1: would say is related to conscientiousness, persistence or something like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's you almost nailed it well. The second ask,
Speaker 1: the second aspect is deliberation. Deliberation, yeah, versus action need
Speaker 1: for deliberation versus you know, tendency towards action immediately without
Speaker 1: thinking through the consequence. So there's this kind of risk
Speaker 1: taking as self control aspect to it. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: kind of that that sort of resonates with with how
Speaker 1: Susan talks about introversion of the book. But introverts are
Speaker 1: these sort of quiet but determined people or people who
Speaker 1: basically think things through before doing it. You don't just
Speaker 1: blurt things out and fly up the handle. They they're
Speaker 1: kind of considered quiet and considered people. That's right, and
Speaker 1: that aspect is not very well captured on the Big Five,
Speaker 1: just at the higher order level. Yeah, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think now about how the sort of lower level traits
Speaker 1: of the aspect of facet level of the Big Five
Speaker 1: would correlate and even at the aspect level of the
Speaker 1: b fast model, like conscientiousness, you have orderliness, and orderliness
Speaker 1: and ambition or something like that, Like that's seriousness industriousness. Right,
Speaker 1: it still doesn't quite fit even in those two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's even lower than that. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I was just because one of the things, of course,
Speaker 1: is that components of the Big five are are not
Speaker 1: as independent as people often assume will describe them to
Speaker 1: be exactly. So, I mean you do have this these
Speaker 1: sort of margins where some aspects are facets of one
Speaker 1: Big five train of highly correlated with another. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: you know, you constantly see that that low extra version
Speaker 1: is correlated with very strongly positively related to the withdrawal
Speaker 1: aspect of neuroticism. And we're talking like we found you know,
Speaker 1: point six zero correlations there in large samples. Yeah. You
Speaker 1: can't ignore that, you can't deny that. Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And so in that first, let's talk about the first
Speaker 1: aspect of our model, which you described as like sociability
Speaker 1: to and I it does that is that aspect correlates
Speaker 1: much much more highly with a Big Five extra version
Speaker 1: than the deliberation one. However, I don't think you know,
Speaker 1: we call it stimulation we think it goes it goes
Speaker 1: above just sociability to this general sort of reward sensitivity,
Speaker 1: and you know, and and and that really gets to the
Speaker 1: the heart of a lot of the research you've been
Speaker 1: doing on extra version. So that might be a good
Speaker 1: segue into maybe you can explain a little bit how
Speaker 1: you've tried to tackle the question of what is extraversion?
Speaker 1: What is the core psychological mechanism underlining extra version. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the reward sensitivity theory is one that I've I've definitely
Speaker 1: become persuaded by the reward sensitivity theory of extraversion, and
Speaker 1: I kind of got to that point what you in
Speaker 1: a way that you might describe as a kind of
Speaker 1: bottom operapproach that I was very interested in in theories
Speaker 1: that had suggested that that variation in the functioning of
Speaker 1: the brain's reward system would likely have consequences for personality.
Speaker 1: That is, if they were kind of individual differences in
Speaker 1: how motivated people were by rewards, and that that that
Speaker 1: that should come out somewhere as a major trait or
Speaker 1: that should be related to a major aspect of that personality.
Speaker 1: And in the nineties and the early two thousands, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of there still wasn't much consensus about
Speaker 1: what that trait might look like. Some people were saying
Speaker 1: in prosivity, and some people had said extraversion. And and
Speaker 1: I was at that in the early two thousands. You know,
Speaker 1: the question that motivated me, or that interested me, if
Speaker 1: you like, is what is the what is the trait
Speaker 1: that's really reflecting these differences in reward sensitivity? And I
Speaker 1: think ten years on, my impression is that there's really
Speaker 1: now a lot of consensus around reward sensitivity being one
Speaker 1: of the key underlying mechanisms that accounts for differences in
Speaker 1: extra version. Yes, you said there is a consensus, right,
Speaker 1: I think so I feel that that you. I don't
Speaker 1: sort of see any evidence of any sort of debate
Speaker 1: or discussion around It's kind of become definitional now when
Speaker 1: people describe what extraversion is, if they get anywhere into
Speaker 1: the theory about it, they're usually saying reward sensitivity or
Speaker 1: our approach, motivation and sort of related mechanisms usually get
Speaker 1: at a mention. So I agree, Now, let's be very clear,
Speaker 1: we're talking about competitive rewards. Yeah, you know, we're about
Speaker 1: like you know, like money, sex, you know, uh, power, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all these things that narcissists like so, I find it
Speaker 1: interesting there's a very hard correlation between grandiose narcissism and extraversion,
Speaker 1: probably some mechanisms that play there, which is not surprising,
Speaker 1: and that, Yeah, not to go too much on a tangent,
Speaker 1: but that I think one of the other, because we're
Speaker 1: talking about conceptualizing extraversion introversion before and one of the
Speaker 1: conceptual confusions or clarifications. I think that's something needed. People
Speaker 1: interpret extra version as basically being kind of nice and friendly.
Speaker 1: There's that blurring between extraversion and agreeableness. But I think
Speaker 1: in an important sense, a lot of what's underlying extraversion
Speaker 1: is social. Yeah, is just attention and and uh and
Speaker 1: and well even selfishness and uh, a strong focus on
Speaker 1: gains for oneself. It's such a good point. Such, so
Speaker 1: good a point. Yeah, and then of course you get
Speaker 1: these blends where you can get high agreeableness and high
Speaker 1: extra version and then yeah, and then it has a
Speaker 1: different flavor than very low extra version and very high agreeableness.
Speaker 1: It kind of that kind of these people looked at
Speaker 1: they not look different, but they act differently, They act differently,
Speaker 1: they work different. Some have a bitterer forehead. You know,
Speaker 1: it's this extra vision agreeableness distinction sometimes really vexes some
Speaker 1: of my students, and I mean, I forget the question,
Speaker 1: can you you know, can you even have a person
Speaker 1: who's really extroverted but really low and agreeableness? And my
Speaker 1: favorite joke, apologies, my favorite joke is yeah, of course
Speaker 1: you can. They're ever in the business school. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: very urgentic, Yeah yeah, very agentic. Yeah. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's very interesting how all these blends can you know?
Speaker 1: Can can? Well, basically, we're just saying that people are complex.
Speaker 1: We're saying that, and that's that's also I think, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's an obvious point, but it's also why people
Speaker 1: have even when they know a lot about models of personality,
Speaker 1: they might have a little bit of difficulty describing themselves
Speaker 1: because they're often they're trying to think of these traits
Speaker 1: in isolation, whereas when you for each individual there they're
Speaker 1: complex blends of these traits in most instances. Absolutely, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to bequre this new test of introversion that
Speaker 1: we came up with, it was built completely from a
Speaker 1: self identification of introversion perspective, you know, it was we
Speaker 1: wanted to see which items would correlate most strongly with
Speaker 1: the item I identify as an introvert. All right, that's
Speaker 1: a really interesting approach. Yeah, so it's a different kind
Speaker 1: of approach. And the Big Five took and we specifically
Speaker 1: for the purposes of creating a scale that that interests
Speaker 1: cauldly identify with, and we found that those were the two.
Speaker 1: So it's the scientific finding there that might be useful
Speaker 1: a field is we found these two aspects really get
Speaker 1: the core of what every day people think of when
Speaker 1: they think of introversion. Yeah, okay, that's interesting because if
Speaker 1: I were to if I were to have made a prediction,
Speaker 1: I would have expected so you know, in Big five terms,
Speaker 1: this measure that you have is is like a blend
Speaker 1: of components of extraversion and components of conscientiousness. Right, what
Speaker 1: I would have expected in Big five terms, there's a
Speaker 1: blend of extraversion and openness. Because the popular conceptualization of
Speaker 1: the introversion is often this kind of inward person who
Speaker 1: enjoys their inner mental life, is very curious and not
Speaker 1: just sort of quiet and and more reserved, but very
Speaker 1: you know, it loves reading and loves it about ideas
Speaker 1: and all of these Uh, these these characteristics you're linked
Speaker 1: with openness. But keep keep in mind that the the
Speaker 1: the way that the items if you actually look at
Speaker 1: the needy, gritty items, there aren't any items like I
Speaker 1: love to read, you know. Yeah, so if you just
Speaker 1: if you think about it for a second, we found that,
Speaker 1: you know, in the BFS mode and the big aspects,
Speaker 1: the openest experience to me and has intellect and openness, right,
Speaker 1: And we found that our scale is negatively correlated with
Speaker 1: intellect but positively correlated with openness because the kinds of
Speaker 1: items on the intellect scale or I'm a quick thinker,
Speaker 1: I like quickly thinking. Well, well that's a complete odds
Speaker 1: with with people say I like to deliberate before I think.
Speaker 1: So I think that this scale kind of highlights the
Speaker 1: important the distinction, the importance in between quick thinking and
Speaker 1: deep thinking or reflective reflective thinking. Yeah, that makes sense,
Speaker 1: so you will. So that's why we don't find our scale.
Speaker 1: If you look at the higher order level of openness
Speaker 1: to experience, you get nothing. But it's only really when
Speaker 1: you break it into the two aspects then you find
Speaker 1: like it is positive core with openness. Things like I
Speaker 1: see beauty, you know, I'm very sensitive to the environment.
Speaker 1: And we also find that our you know, first aspect
Speaker 1: of stimulation is very highly related to the withdrawal aspect
Speaker 1: of neuroticism and the highly sensitive person scale that has
Speaker 1: been created by the irons. So there is this course,
Speaker 1: there is this sensitivity aspect that is You're right, it
Speaker 1: is part of self identification of introversion. But you really
Speaker 1: kindly see that when you separate out the intellect kind
Speaker 1: of items. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Yes, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you find that interesting. Yeah, but a lot of
Speaker 1: this stuff, you know, it really does get definitional and conceptual.
Speaker 1: There is no objective truth of what the real introversion
Speaker 1: is like. Will the real introversion stand up? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, which is why that's that's why I think
Speaker 1: in some ways I'm not saying everybody should stop using
Speaker 1: the label, but it's it's become a troublesome term because
Speaker 1: it's because it has so many different It does have
Speaker 1: quite a few different conceptualizations, I mean, at least troublesome
Speaker 1: in in in the context of the goals of personality research,
Speaker 1: I suppose I hear intelligence researchers make the same argument
Speaker 1: about intelligence. Yeah. Yeahs like Scott, shut up, shut up,
Speaker 1: You're making it harder for us to measure g And
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, well, I'm that were like disrupting
Speaker 1: your science. But there are real people out there in
Speaker 1: the world who this this these conceptualizations affect their lives,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But I mean, I like,
Speaker 1: I totally see it from the point of view the scientists,
Speaker 1: because I am a scientist too. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: these these these these these impact, these labels do mean
Speaker 1: something to people. Yeah, so yeah, I you know, how
Speaker 1: how do you spot an extrovert or know if you
Speaker 1: are one? Well, yeah, I mean I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: obviously steak to the Big five definition again. But I
Speaker 1: mean there's a whole area of research that I haven't
Speaker 1: I haven't really I haven't done any research necessarily myself.
Speaker 1: But that I've that have found really interesting is is
Speaker 1: in personality judgments, which is really which is really about
Speaker 1: how how accurately can someone perceive your personality from the outside.
Speaker 1: Extra Version is always found to be the most easily
Speaker 1: judged or actually, accuracy is not really the right way
Speaker 1: to talk about it. You really talk about consensus. So
Speaker 1: if I how close a match is there between how
Speaker 1: you describe yourself on extraversion and how others describe you
Speaker 1: on extra version. And even if that person has never
Speaker 1: even met you, and they just see you in a
Speaker 1: very you know, have been for maybe five minutes, they
Speaker 1: will get reasonable levels of consensus. They will very quickly
Speaker 1: be able to pick up on how extroverted you are.
Speaker 1: And that's because most of the components of extraversion our
Speaker 1: behavioral visible and so it's quite I mean, I actually
Speaker 1: had a probably the episode that really convinced me that
Speaker 1: it sounds like a funny thing to say, but their
Speaker 1: personality was real. So I feel like, unknowingly for a while,
Speaker 1: like when I was doing my PhD personality traits, these
Speaker 1: were just sort of variables. These were hypothetical variables. I
Speaker 1: never really thought of them as being sort of real
Speaker 1: things about real people. And then I was doing a
Speaker 1: study where I had extreme scores on extraversion high and
Speaker 1: low coming into the lab and it was for an
Speaker 1: EEG study, and it takes about sort of a half
Speaker 1: hour to get everything ready for the EG study, to
Speaker 1: put the electrode cap on and to do a range
Speaker 1: of things, and I found I was blind to. I
Speaker 1: didn't know how when they came into the lab, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what their score was, what group they belonged
Speaker 1: to when they were hire a low, But I knew
Speaker 1: about two minutes later because the extroverts were so talkative
Speaker 1: and so engaged and so kind of wired almost you
Speaker 1: just knew immediately who was in the high extrovert group.
Speaker 1: So I think it's actually very easy to spot an extrovert. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: at the extremes. And I think this brings an interesting
Speaker 1: question is what is an ambrovert? What do you believe
Speaker 1: in the idea of an ambrovert, and what do you
Speaker 1: say most people really are ambroverts? Yeah, yeah, I would.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think there's I mean, the whole
Speaker 1: time we've been saying extrovert an introvert, they're just shorthands.
Speaker 1: Of course, there are no categories, and you know, by
Speaker 1: the same token, I wouldn't sort of say there's a
Speaker 1: sort of a category in the middle of ambiverts. But
Speaker 1: most people, the majority people will not be at the extremes.
Speaker 1: By definition, They're going to be somewhere around the middle.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's another reason why it's often hard to
Speaker 1: identify that that's that's where it might be hard to
Speaker 1: identify somebody who's as more or less excerated, because they
Speaker 1: might not be more or less exuated. They might be
Speaker 1: somewhere in the middle. And that's where the majority of
Speaker 1: people get full. Okay. And so there's this, like, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out some of these defining characteristics something
Speaker 1: a lot of introverts say, you know, it really is
Speaker 1: about how you recharge your batteries, Like do you get
Speaker 1: energized by people or to get energy or to get
Speaker 1: not the opposite of energize's it's the opposite of the
Speaker 1: word energized. What's the opposite of that, de energized? Sorry,
Speaker 1: do you mean extras being energized? Yes, I just here
Speaker 1: energized by people, by people, by by vigorous social interactions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think I would say that it's maybe
Speaker 1: not inherently social. It happens that I this brings us
Speaker 1: back to I think the idea of getting energized by
Speaker 1: social interactions is ultimately consistent with the reward sensitivity idea.
Speaker 1: So the reward sensitivity idea I've sort of described as
Speaker 1: extroverts basically get more banged for the fuck they get
Speaker 1: a lot more of that positive enjoyment out of rewarding
Speaker 1: stimulated situations. And I just think one of the most
Speaker 1: important rewarding situations for human beings are social situations. Human
Speaker 1: contact is rewarding. Many of the rewards we obtained we
Speaker 1: get via humans, or they're somehow embedded in social construct
Speaker 1: some examples. Well, you mentioned power for example, So power
Speaker 1: and status is rewarding and desirable, and it's inherently embedded
Speaker 1: in social context. But also people are I don't I
Speaker 1: don't want to sort of describe people as a means
Speaker 1: to an end, but you rely on people to get
Speaker 1: many of the things you want. It's very difficult to
Speaker 1: get many of the things you want just on your own.
Speaker 1: So whether it be you know, getting it to get
Speaker 1: promoted at work you need there's there's somebody who needs
Speaker 1: to to actually give you that promotion. So I think
Speaker 1: people are a lot of a lot of rewards we
Speaker 1: depend on people to get, and a lot of rewards
Speaker 1: are embedded in social processes themselves. That's an excellent point,
Speaker 1: And Okay, I'm really interested in that because I think
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, extraversion is quintessentially social. That
Speaker 1: I'm interested in. And this is something I think is
Speaker 1: really hard to disentangle. Is is it is? Is it? So?
Speaker 1: You have some people who who who their kind of
Speaker 1: version of the reward sensitivity theory of extraversion is are
Speaker 1: that the mechanism underlying extraversion is a mechanism for attracting
Speaker 1: social attention. So that that's sort of that's that's saying
Speaker 1: the core of extraversion, it's really driven by some essentially
Speaker 1: social mechanism, Right, But I wonder if if, if if
Speaker 1: it's broader than that, and it just as I said,
Speaker 1: it just happens that that so much of what we're
Speaker 1: motivated by is is somehow embedded within or connected to
Speaker 1: social processes. Yeah, this is a this is an ongoing debate.
Speaker 1: You know, there was that study where they try to
Speaker 1: measure the social aspect and remove the reward value the
Speaker 1: way the items ordered, and you know, Colin and I
Speaker 1: looked at those items were like, wait a minute, these
Speaker 1: are its actually all just extraversion items. So they're just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the one maybe about ten years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because there was this back and forth with other you know,
Speaker 1: the other research saying I think the cue is this,
Speaker 1: I think the cues this. You know, it's rewards instead,
Speaker 1: you know, it's social attention. Yeah, it is hard to
Speaker 1: really pinpoint you and and and you know when we
Speaker 1: say the the core, what we're what we're saying, you know,
Speaker 1: to translate into into science language, we're just four saying
Speaker 1: what's the common variance? Yeah, that's what we're saying. That's
Speaker 1: not really intuitive to the everyday person. What that What
Speaker 1: that means? Common variance? You know? Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think there may be two ways of the two things
Speaker 1: that were interested in on the science side, and there's
Speaker 1: the common variant. So that's really what I guess that's
Speaker 1: the defining characteristics. I suppose, well, what the what the
Speaker 1: central you know, if extra version is really a cluster
Speaker 1: of characteristics and traits, what is the the core of
Speaker 1: those characteristics and traits? But I think another thing is
Speaker 1: almost at a kind of different level. It's kind of
Speaker 1: what's underlying or producing this, what accounts for these traits
Speaker 1: clustering together so closely. And that's just going back to
Speaker 1: the reward sensitivity idea again. I mean, that's one thing
Speaker 1: that I find really compelling about the idea of extraversion
Speaker 1: being underpinned by the motivation to pursue all kinds of rewards,
Speaker 1: because I think many of the key traits and characteristics
Speaker 1: that are kind of bound up in extra version can
Speaker 1: be their coherence, the common denominator they have. It seems
Speaker 1: plausible that that could be approach motivation of the desire
Speaker 1: to see rewards. So everything from you know, sociability because
Speaker 1: of all the what we just discussed with reward being
Speaker 1: im bettered in social context or behavioral activity, to achievement,
Speaker 1: to social dominance, talkativeness and positive affect yeah, leadership assertiveness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. It's it's also hard to distinguish between they
Speaker 1: like statements that are just like part of the human
Speaker 1: condition versus differentiating real like variation, because like when you
Speaker 1: say something like sometimes that could be really extroverted, but
Speaker 1: sometimes I like to relax quietly home. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: who is like gonna say, Oh, that's not me at all,
Speaker 1: Like that's such a that's just called being like freaking human.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah right, yeah, yes, So how can you work?
Speaker 1: Do you only really get it when you ward things?
Speaker 1: Like I prefer on average two you know, we're talking
Speaker 1: about we're talking about average, we're talking about absolutes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, I mean, I hope I'm on
Speaker 1: the right track. I think I think there are sort
Speaker 1: of two things that relate to what you're saying there,
Speaker 1: and one is I think when people are responding to
Speaker 1: one is how we measure how we typically measure personality
Speaker 1: with a questionnaire, And if you focus on any one item, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, it seems like, well, yeah, any anyone could
Speaker 1: agree with this, or it might depend on the day
Speaker 1: whether I agree with this or not. And and that
Speaker 1: that really sort of I think that underlies a lot
Speaker 1: of doubt about how well you can measure personality with
Speaker 1: these questionnaire items. And I guess what I always encourage
Speaker 1: people to think about is, I mean, yeah, that you
Speaker 1: can you can take issue with any one item, but
Speaker 1: over over sort of twenty of these, if you've consistently
Speaker 1: agreed with all kinds of different items about the kind
Speaker 1: of characteristic then then maybe that is starting to say
Speaker 1: something meaningful about you. Yeah, just I was going to say.
Speaker 1: The other the other point that maybe relates to what
Speaker 1: you were saying is is the I really like the
Speaker 1: approach of Will Fleeson, who was just going to say yeah,
Speaker 1: who really formalizes so we've we've kind of tended to
Speaker 1: conceptualize personality traits as these regularities in the way you
Speaker 1: behave and regularities and behavior and experience. And he's kind
Speaker 1: of formalized it by saying, yeah, you know, we're our
Speaker 1: behavior and experience. So take characteristics relating to extraversion, dominance,
Speaker 1: and talkativeness. That's actually varying for everyone all over the place,
Speaker 1: across time, across situations. But if you look back over
Speaker 1: though that that time period, you'll you'll you'll see that
Speaker 1: people have a sort of an average level. And you're saying,
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about. If you if your average
Speaker 1: level is relatively high, then then you are by definition
Speaker 1: relatively extroverted, even if you spent many times during the
Speaker 1: week being quite talkative or you know, whether you're being
Speaker 1: talkative or not, whether you're being relaxed or really outgoing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really like that approach. It really is. The end
Speaker 1: of the day, your personality is is simply your habits
Speaker 1: of behavior and average like that, that's all your personality is.
Speaker 1: It's it's like you can change your personality literally if
Speaker 1: you like change your habits, you know, Yeah, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a really I don't know if you've seen this. There's
Speaker 1: a really amazing paper. It's sort of amazing in a
Speaker 1: way that it's taken so long for a paper like
Speaker 1: this to come out, But it's it's just following up
Speaker 1: people who who who want to make certain changes to
Speaker 1: their personality and and I mean, without going into all
Speaker 1: the details of just it shows what people have suspected
Speaker 1: for a while, the volitional change in personality is possible.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, and you know, in the case of
Speaker 1: extra version, I mean that may be, as you say,
Speaker 1: just sort of cultivating a bit your ways of behaving.
Speaker 1: So can you make yourself more extroverted? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think, I mean the kind of I think that's
Speaker 1: a common goal, particularly when for people who have maybe
Speaker 1: jobs or situations in which it can be more advantageous
Speaker 1: to be a little more bold and dominant and talkative.
Speaker 1: So like being a lecturer, I'm probably I think overall,
Speaker 1: I'm probably slightly low on extra version, maybe middling to
Speaker 1: middling to just below average, made you but it's it's
Speaker 1: it's helpful. I mean, I can be a better lecturer
Speaker 1: if I behave in a more extradded way. And I
Speaker 1: think you cultivate. People can cultivate these ways of behaving
Speaker 1: in particular situations. But I guess people may also have
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, they may feel like it would be
Speaker 1: better if they were higher or lower extroversion. Maybe they
Speaker 1: feel they could just be more outgoing and and and energized,
Speaker 1: and they can cultivate different ways of behaving. Can you
Speaker 1: make yourself more introverted? I guess so. I mean, certainly
Speaker 1: the sort of studies that I've been interested in. Again,
Speaker 1: it was Will Fleeson who developed this paradigm, and I've
Speaker 1: had a couple of studies in this area as well.
Speaker 1: We're just a in a small lab context where they're
Speaker 1: as an interactive exercise that a few people are working on.
Speaker 1: You can just instruct people to behave in ways that
Speaker 1: are more characteristic of being either extroverted or introverted, and
Speaker 1: I mean people people will behave behave in those ways,
Speaker 1: and you see effects of acting in a more extroverted
Speaker 1: way that are reminiscent of actually being more extroverted. Okay,
Speaker 1: which is quite interesting. I guess that that whole area
Speaker 1: of research basically suggests that if extraversion is just typically
Speaker 1: it is just the kind of you're an average level
Speaker 1: of certain behaviors and experiences, and if you if you
Speaker 1: actually engage or disengage in those behaviors, then on average,
Speaker 1: you by definition, will be lower on lower higher an extroversion.
Speaker 1: That's right, That's that's exactly right. I agree. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that if you're an introvert, you know, meaning
Speaker 1: you score them extremely high in introversion on the Bell curve,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you never have extroverted behaviors. No, no,
Speaker 1: And that's that's another I mean, that's kind of why
Speaker 1: I like this approach of Will Fleeson's in talking about
Speaker 1: your average levels, because you know, a typical response when
Speaker 1: people learn about personality might be, but you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I would say, I'm quite introverted. But there are plenty
Speaker 1: of times where I'm you know, I'll be at a
Speaker 1: at a party and I'll be being really gregarious and
Speaker 1: love being in the center of attention at that particular point,
Speaker 1: and We'll be really talking with all my friends, and
Speaker 1: but I'm just not like that all the time. That's right,
Speaker 1: and and that that definition allows for that. You go, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, being an introvert does not mean you have
Speaker 1: an inability to be more extroverted. It just means you
Speaker 1: have a tendency to be less extruded. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I find it interesting that introversion is is correlated with
Speaker 1: deficits in social intelligence tests. So maybe there is something
Speaker 1: going on there which the less you exercise it, the
Speaker 1: less developed those skills are. Yeah. Possibly. I always find
Speaker 1: that very interesting, even though of course I don't want
Speaker 1: to stereotype. There's plenty of introverts with great social skills,
Speaker 1: but you do find that correlation. Yeah, it's interesting, And
Speaker 1: I haven't I haven't sort of seen a really clear
Speaker 1: picture of what's going on there. The literature seems sort
Speaker 1: of fragmented there. That there's there's a paper a long
Speaker 1: time ago that that found some evidence for the idea
Speaker 1: that it may not be social skills per se, that
Speaker 1: that introverts lack, but that extras are a little bit
Speaker 1: better at at at multitasking, and that a lot of
Speaker 1: what's required in social interaction requires you to keep track
Speaker 1: of a lot of different pieces of information. You've got
Speaker 1: to be keeping track of what you're saying, what the
Speaker 1: other person's saying, when it's your turn to talk, and
Speaker 1: so forth, and so it may I mean, there's basically
Speaker 1: some indication that there are a few I guess more
Speaker 1: cognitive skills that may vary with extra version that actually
Speaker 1: may explain some of those more social the parent differences
Speaker 1: in social skills. That's very interesting, you know that the
Speaker 1: it's very fragmented. I haven't seen much on that topic,
Speaker 1: to be honest, There certainly needs to be more research
Speaker 1: on it. I find it very interesting that there's such
Speaker 1: a strikingly high correlation between the autism spectrum, cautient and introversion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very very high. Yeah, and that I identify a
Speaker 1: really good hypothesis about that, except just two. I mean,
Speaker 1: it may be the case that there are kind of
Speaker 1: there are multiple ways in which you can be less
Speaker 1: talkative and sociable and engaged and and so forth. And
Speaker 1: and the autism question that may be picking up more
Speaker 1: on a you would you would expect that if picking
Speaker 1: up more on on kind of skill deficits and and
Speaker 1: cognitive capacities, whereas introversion may be a little bit more
Speaker 1: about about sort of preferences and the habitual ways of behaving.
Speaker 1: I like that. I like that model a lot. There's
Speaker 1: much more mouths to these these different traits. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: I guess, which is, you know, the the Thornia side
Speaker 1: of of personality. I mean, you could just you could say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's as simple as that. If you if you don't,
Speaker 1: if you're not very bold and assertive and talkative and
Speaker 1: behavioral active, then then you're introutive. But there could be
Speaker 1: many reasons why somebody is not bold, assertive and talkative. Right,
Speaker 1: So is it better to be more extroverted or interrouted? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a that's that's probably the question that the popular
Speaker 1: writers on introversion really really hate what. I imagine they
Speaker 1: really dislike what the what A lot of research is
Speaker 1: shown about extroversion. Well, yeah, a lot of researchers have
Speaker 1: shown that extraversion is correlated with higher well being, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's exactly right. And and and yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people who who you know, self identify as
Speaker 1: an new rote and don't really like that idea. And
Speaker 1: there's there's a great book chapter by John Zelenski at
Speaker 1: Carlton or Carleton Carlton University in Canada which kind of
Speaker 1: walks through all of the objections to this idea that
Speaker 1: extra rets are happy, you know, perhaps happy or higher
Speaker 1: on measures of well being. You sent me there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I will send it to you. It's it's really, it's
Speaker 1: really I think it's a nice instructional chapter because it
Speaker 1: kind of it kind of goes through each different objection
Speaker 1: one by one. But I mean, I think I think
Speaker 1: that the research is pretty clear it's ex orasion for
Speaker 1: one of the strongest predictors of the range of well
Speaker 1: being constructs. But I think the caveat maybe or or
Speaker 1: the the thing that I guess the thing to bear
Speaker 1: in mind is, I think there are a couple of
Speaker 1: things to bear in mind which may make you come
Speaker 1: short of saying that it's that it's therefore better to
Speaker 1: be higher an extra version. One. One thing is that
Speaker 1: the aspects of well being that extra version predict most
Speaker 1: clearly are really those intense positive emotions the what what's
Speaker 1: something called activated positive affect. There's feelings of liveliness and
Speaker 1: excitement and enthusiasm that aroused positive affict and and if
Speaker 1: you if you kind of narrow the focus to that,
Speaker 1: then it's it's not immediately clear that that is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the be All and mend All. In fact,
Speaker 1: there's there's some evidence that people lower an extra version
Speaker 1: or more introverted people actually prefer lower levels of those
Speaker 1: intense positive states anyway, right right, And Susan would make
Speaker 1: that point. Yeah, yeah, I mean that that would be
Speaker 1: that I think is probably Yeah, the main reason that
Speaker 1: you would maybe why come a little bit short of saying, oh,
Speaker 1: it's therefore better to be more extroverted, because it's I
Speaker 1: guess because extra resion is not only correlated with the
Speaker 1: levels of those positive emotions, but also the preferences for
Speaker 1: those levels exactly exactly they actually be. I mean, on
Speaker 1: the one idea of find interesting is that so we've
Speaker 1: talked about how you can act more or less extraverted,
Speaker 1: and one idea of find interesting is that the way
Speaker 1: people habitually act is a that it can partly function
Speaker 1: as a mood regulation strategy. So extroverts may behave in
Speaker 1: a way that routinely brings them to these higher levels
Speaker 1: of positive emotion that they prefer, while introverts may routinely
Speaker 1: behave in a way that keeps them at those slightly
Speaker 1: lower levels of these these particular positive emotions. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: two projects I want to work on with some students
Speaker 1: over the course the next year. One is maybe cataloging
Speaker 1: some of the more quiet positive emotions like contentments. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that and that is not well, this is this
Speaker 1: paper that that Colin and I, Colin de Young and
Speaker 1: I've worked on last year. Those emotions are not really
Speaker 1: those positive emotions are not really predicted by extroversion at all.
Speaker 1: That's really important finding, I think, Yeah, I mean, my
Speaker 1: my sort of take on that issue. It's it's one
Speaker 1: of those It really was one of those situations where
Speaker 1: it was hard to know whether I was confused or
Speaker 1: whether there was a confusion in the literature. And so
Speaker 1: either the paper clarifies something for the literature or just
Speaker 1: clarified my own confusion, and the confusion is. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: people use the word positive emotions to refer to actually
Speaker 1: quite a wide range of constructs, and those quieter positive emotions,
Speaker 1: if you mentioned the only time, the only way in
Speaker 1: which that seems to be related to higher extraversion is
Speaker 1: as a result of extrarets tending to be a little
Speaker 1: bit lower on some aspects of neurosism. So basically, once
Speaker 1: you control for neuroticism, there's really no relation between extraversion
Speaker 1: and those kind of quiet, content, satisfied, relaxed mood says,
Speaker 1: do you mean like you're basical controlling for emotional stability. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: not the other end, like yeah, yeah, yeah right, because
Speaker 1: you would you would think those emotions would be correlated
Speaker 1: with emotional stability. Yeah yeah, yeah, well that makes that
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I don't like this
Speaker 1: question of which which is better, which personality trait is better,
Speaker 1: because we're talking, we're talking about you know, that's ignoring blends,
Speaker 1: that's ignoring the all. If there's no all also being equal,
Speaker 1: you know, all's being equal in the real world, doesn't
Speaker 1: really make sense. Yeah, I really, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: kind of explain why I'm really. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: the same reaction. I don't like talking about better or
Speaker 1: worse ends of different personality traits, and that's that's for
Speaker 1: that reason. One of the kind of finding that I
Speaker 1: really enjoy when I when I see it come out
Speaker 1: in a in a paper is where a trait that
Speaker 1: you normally think of is well, that many people think
Speaker 1: of as being like the bad end, turns out turns
Speaker 1: out that's some advantage or or a so called good
Speaker 1: trait turns out to predict something undesirable. And I just
Speaker 1: like those reminders that there's there's really there are strengths
Speaker 1: and weaknesses of of of high or low ends of
Speaker 1: any characteristic. I don't think overall any with the exception
Speaker 1: that I think it's you know, there there are very
Speaker 1: few advantages to being high in eurobicism or lower and
Speaker 1: emotional stability. With that exception, maybe I think that that
Speaker 1: all traits are really positive, or both ends of all
Speaker 1: traits have really really positive. I don't know. Tell some
Speaker 1: of the greatest poets of all time that their high
Speaker 1: neuroticism was a disadvantage to their poetry. Yeah, yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: I think. I mean this is just totally anecdotal, but
Speaker 1: you when thinking about historical characters and characters in film
Speaker 1: and literature, I think you often see the uh you
Speaker 1: see it. They often tend to you would characterize as
Speaker 1: high in eu auticism. But I think you would also
Speaker 1: characterize and as being high openness as well. Most in
Speaker 1: culmination get blended together. I think that's absolutely true, and
Speaker 1: specifically the openness aspect. Yeah, I agree. I agree. This
Speaker 1: has been such a fascinating conversation. I want to be
Speaker 1: respectable of all your time, but we haven't gotten to
Speaker 1: the neurochemistry yet and all that. Yeah, so what is
Speaker 1: the role of nature and nurture in determining introversion. I
Speaker 1: think we can pretty much say that there's a mix
Speaker 1: of both. But do you think to some extent introversion
Speaker 1: next version can be it fooced all by how you're
Speaker 1: treated by your peers when you're younger. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess there's there's some there's I've seen a few ideas
Speaker 1: along those lines. For example, that there are often I
Speaker 1: think extra reds tend to be slightly taller, and there's
Speaker 1: a there's a sort of a maybe it's sort of
Speaker 1: a wacky fringe idea that the differences in the height
Speaker 1: of them impact on how you're treated growing up, maybe
Speaker 1: by your peers, and and that that may have a
Speaker 1: role in the the development of a more sort of
Speaker 1: introverted I guess, a less more or less dominant personality.
Speaker 1: So that I mean, there are some ideas that I've
Speaker 1: seen along those lines, But I guess generally, I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of a lot of people seem to
Speaker 1: take the lesson of all the behavior of genetics research
Speaker 1: is that a lot of your your the environmental impact
Speaker 1: is your your unique experiences, right, I haven't haven't really
Speaker 1: gone to basically zivil. It's you know, how how your
Speaker 1: your personality doesn't really depend much on those those shared
Speaker 1: experiences that are happening within the family environment. They're they're
Speaker 1: they're being more driven by these unique experiences if you
Speaker 1: have outside the family environment. But I don't see a
Speaker 1: lot of sort of following up on that to to
Speaker 1: kind of start to understand what those unique experiences might be, right, right? Right?
Speaker 1: Do we just know that unique experiences matter? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I guess it. I guess the answer is it
Speaker 1: seems plausible, But I don't of a lot of work
Speaker 1: that's so shown that that's fair. So the best we
Speaker 1: could say right now is its nature nurture. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I wish, I wish we could see more. Wantitunal studies
Speaker 1: of personality development from dispositions to traits? Yeah? Well okay,
Speaker 1: Well what is the role of genes, the brain, and neurochemicals?
Speaker 1: So do you need a brain? Do you need a brain? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean all of the all personality traits seem to
Speaker 1: be at least moderately veritable. What does that mean? Uh?
Speaker 1: It means that the the reason a large part of
Speaker 1: the reason that people differ from another or more similar
Speaker 1: to one another is as a result of differences in genes.
Speaker 1: And what does that mean? That means that part of
Speaker 1: the part of your the variation that you see in
Speaker 1: personality in the population is based in differences in genetics,
Speaker 1: in in in a biology. Well, I think that people
Speaker 1: don't really have a good idea of what that means,
Speaker 1: of what even differences in genes, it doesn't mean, you know,
Speaker 1: what does that really mean in terms of the impact
Speaker 1: on the trade. I saw a study recently that found
Speaker 1: the higher the heritability is going to blow your mind,
Speaker 1: you ready, the higher the heritability of an i Q
Speaker 1: test item, the more culturally influenced that item was. The
Speaker 1: higher the higher the heritability of that item, the more
Speaker 1: culturally influenced that well, that that actually kind of could
Speaker 1: make some weird, a weird kind of sense. Yes, And
Speaker 1: so I don't know if this is right. This is
Speaker 1: the time I've heard this, But I mean, the kind
Speaker 1: of thought experiment I would think about was imagine, imagine
Speaker 1: four different cultures that differ really from one another, but
Speaker 1: each of them have these very they don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of variation in the environment within each culture. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: So if if you had a situation. There's a there's
Speaker 1: an old saying that I think it's called Hanstein's paradox,
Speaker 1: which is that if you had, if you had a
Speaker 1: perfectly even handed environment where everybody was basically under the
Speaker 1: same environmental conditions, a sort of you know, radical social
Speaker 1: engineering experiment or something, then all of the variation in
Speaker 1: personality would be genetic. And the reason being that there's
Speaker 1: no environmental variation, and it can't it kind of explain
Speaker 1: why people are different from one another, So all of
Speaker 1: the differences will just be a genetic So yeah, yeah, yeah, god, yeah,
Speaker 1: just so that that that finding, I mean, maybe what
Speaker 1: it's saying is that the cultures there's a lot more
Speaker 1: variation in the environment between cultures than within cultures. And
Speaker 1: uh and and and therefore the the the aspects the components,
Speaker 1: So was the components of intelligence or the items of
Speaker 1: an intelligence, Well, if you look at the items, you
Speaker 1: find that the group together is either crystallized or fluid intelligence.
Speaker 1: You find the crystallized items actually have higher heritability than
Speaker 1: the fluid. The crystallized are, in theory, the ones that
Speaker 1: are more independent on learning and culture. Maybe it's just
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, so this makes sense to you that
Speaker 1: that'd be higher herritability. Yeah so, but I mean the
Speaker 1: high heritability may another way of expressing that might might
Speaker 1: be that there's there's not a lot of variation within
Speaker 1: any population that's that's impacting upon that particular aspect of
Speaker 1: the toligence, but there might be variation, a lot more
Speaker 1: variation when you look at the cultural from one culture
Speaker 1: to another. Yeah, no, I think that could make sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe it makes sense. We took this interesting. It's
Speaker 1: sort of a seemingly paradoxical finding exactly which is which
Speaker 1: is what I just we twined this whole tangent just
Speaker 1: and I could easily not have brought that up is Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just you know, I don't think it's as easy
Speaker 1: like we say, like, well we know that has a
Speaker 1: heritable coefficient to really know what that really means from
Speaker 1: a mechanistic point of view. But but yeah, so we
Speaker 1: do know that we can say that genes influence the
Speaker 1: development of introversion. What what have any of those genes
Speaker 1: been identified? Are? They are? They? Do? They operate on
Speaker 1: the dop coin your theory they should be dopamine really
Speaker 1: the gens right? Yeah, yeah, and so we a colleague
Speaker 1: of mine, Young Backer at the University of Hamburg. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we just we just did a review of you know,
Speaker 1: try to do a really critical review of you know,
Speaker 1: where is the how how strong is the evidence for
Speaker 1: this the idea that extra version is underpinned by dopamine function,
Speaker 1: with dopamine being the neurochemical that is involved in reward
Speaker 1: processing and and motivation by reward. And the interesting thing
Speaker 1: is that the genetic evidence and this this is fairly
Speaker 1: true for a lot of areas of personality, but the
Speaker 1: genetic evidence is just really patchy. So by which I mean,
Speaker 1: even though behavior geneticists have told us, yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: strong role for genes, identifying which gene are are involved
Speaker 1: has has been a very uh not a very successful venture.
Speaker 1: So so so that's where, yeah, it gets sort of mucky
Speaker 1: in the sense that you're right on hand, there seems
Speaker 1: to be good evidence that there there are these genetic influences,
Speaker 1: but actually hitting them down has has not been so successful. Well,
Speaker 1: let me ask you something. There's got to be there's
Speaker 1: got to be a influence of genes related domain because
Speaker 1: you find it the neurological level that you see striatum,
Speaker 1: you see you know, you see some of these subcortical
Speaker 1: dopamine structures, you see differences in them in structure, structure,
Speaker 1: and functions. But between introverts and extroverts, is there any
Speaker 1: way is there any universe in which you would see
Speaker 1: those differences without there being genetic differences at all? You know, like,
Speaker 1: what would that mean? I didn't I didn't think so
Speaker 1: I think gene fluid structure. Yeah, yeah, So genes are
Speaker 1: obviously coding for proteins that that build the body and
Speaker 1: the brain, so they do have an influence on structure.
Speaker 1: I mean, where the evidence seems to be strongest. But
Speaker 1: the idea that dopamin is involved in the underpinning extraversion
Speaker 1: is that the neurochemical studies so showing that drugs that
Speaker 1: impact on the dopamain system influence behavior and experience differently
Speaker 1: for extroverts and intro its. So the response to a
Speaker 1: dominatic drug is very much dependent on how extroverted you are.
Speaker 1: So I mean that seems to be where the evidence
Speaker 1: space is really strongest. This this psychopharmacological research, and it's
Speaker 1: suggesting that the systems that respond to these managing drugs
Speaker 1: are are quite different and and it seems quite difficult
Speaker 1: to imagine how that might that would not ultimately be
Speaker 1: at least partly influenced by genetics. Okay, that's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 1: So it is it is possible, It is possible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and obviously experiences impact the structure of the
Speaker 1: brain as well. Yeah yeah, yeah, but but I just
Speaker 1: keep thinking about, you know, a major difference not just
Speaker 1: being structure, but but you know what what triggers dopamine release?
Speaker 1: You know, competitive rewards seem to trigger dopamine release and
Speaker 1: extroverts more than it does in introverts. And I find
Speaker 1: that really interesting because I don't think we have a
Speaker 1: really good biological understanding of like, like what is like
Speaker 1: why why is that? Like? Why? What is what is
Speaker 1: what is about that nervous system that that that is
Speaker 1: more sensitive, you know, that makes this the because of
Speaker 1: the same quantities of dopamine and extrots next introverts. What
Speaker 1: what what differs is what activates the release? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think it's I mean, it's not so much that there
Speaker 1: are different things that activate the release, but there's there
Speaker 1: seems to be a lower threshold, I suppose, good point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that the the system as a reward processing system.
Speaker 1: It's it's working very similarly for experts into it, but
Speaker 1: it's just got a slightly more kind of hair trigger
Speaker 1: for extrodots, or very much more hair trigger, depends on
Speaker 1: where you Events that are motivational significance, any kind of
Speaker 1: reward events just just really kind of capture the the
Speaker 1: the attention of this system. If you like, you know,
Speaker 1: a rewarding event for an extrovert in being processed by
Speaker 1: the brains, if this is really important, You've really got
Speaker 1: to focus on this, right, Yeah, But I mean in
Speaker 1: terms of why that might be so, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's yeah, the ultimate reason for that is really quite
Speaker 1: a difficult one to answer. I mean, were you thinking
Speaker 1: along the lines of, you know, you asked this question
Speaker 1: about early experiences. Do you wonder if there could be
Speaker 1: early experiences that shape that kind of tune the sensitivity
Speaker 1: of that neurochemical system. Absolutely, it might be these experiences
Speaker 1: earlier in life that really switch on one child's brain
Speaker 1: to really be to be really strongly impacted upon by
Speaker 1: these incentives and reward events. Yes, I suspect that it
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with the so called sensitivity
Speaker 1: gene that have been discovered in recent years that are
Speaker 1: not that that these genes code for sensitivity to the
Speaker 1: environment for better or worse, for better and worse, and
Speaker 1: so early in life, some of these genes may uh
Speaker 1: you know, like really traumatic life experiences may cause those
Speaker 1: genes to be hyper sensitive and result in neuroticism as
Speaker 1: a as a trait or introversion, where but the same
Speaker 1: genes in a very welcoming, encouraging environment would would be
Speaker 1: related to openness to experience and curiosity. And you do
Speaker 1: you do see some research there on you know, depending
Speaker 1: on you know, uh, your kind of background experience, you
Speaker 1: either have intense curiosity or intense fear of the environment
Speaker 1: of novelty. Yeah, novelty, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, But there's so
Speaker 1: much that needs to be fleshed out, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean that's the interesting thing with this whole area
Speaker 1: of the neurobiology and extra version, I think, and that
Speaker 1: on the one hand, it's it's often kind of held
Speaker 1: up as the sort of success story in personality neuroscience
Speaker 1: that that that's where you know, we know most about
Speaker 1: the role of dopamin and an extra version. But then
Speaker 1: on the other hand, we know so little even about
Speaker 1: that you know, it's it's it's success story is also
Speaker 1: an illustration of how how still in its infancy, the
Speaker 1: whole area of these questions nature and nurture, how genes
Speaker 1: might influence personality, How are the experiences might influence personality
Speaker 1: and shape brain structure in neurochemical response. I mean that
Speaker 1: there's just there's just there's just sort of questions everywhere,
Speaker 1: still with with with not not so many firm answers.
Speaker 1: I mean even the whole even the whole theory. You know,
Speaker 1: the so called dopamine hypothesis of extras. The actual finer
Speaker 1: details of that hypothesis a very vague. It's you know,
Speaker 1: you could be quite critical and say, okay, so basically
Speaker 1: full the easy as the years later always saying, is
Speaker 1: dopamine has something to do something about the dopamine differs
Speaker 1: between extroverts and introverts. It's still not that precise. No, No,
Speaker 1: it really isn't. So we don't know anything. What do
Speaker 1: you think is the future? I'll ask I'll end with
Speaker 1: this question. This interview has gone really long because it's
Speaker 1: I find this stuff stuff still fascinating. But where do
Speaker 1: you see the future, What tech methodologies? What you know
Speaker 1: how can we move the field for I I'll answer
Speaker 1: it my way. I'll answer what I think, and then
Speaker 1: I love to hear what you think. I think it's
Speaker 1: I think there needs to be a lot more research
Speaker 1: on the effects of personality times environment interactions. I think
Speaker 1: you'll find that that introverts will report higher well being
Speaker 1: when you stop with living in an extroverted ideal world.
Speaker 1: You give them like, you know, like ways to express
Speaker 1: themselves and that's more conducive to how they on their
Speaker 1: own terms. You may find that well being increases. So
Speaker 1: that's that's a possibility, is just looking at those interactions.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so what do you think? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I agree, I do, I do agree. I mean I
Speaker 1: think there's this really and there seems that does seem
Speaker 1: to be a sort of an increase in trying to
Speaker 1: to focus more on interactions between personality and situations, and
Speaker 1: I think that that will be a real, real growth area.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I could put my finger on
Speaker 1: just one thing, but I mean I think they're a
Speaker 1: cluster of things. I mean, there's the there's I mean
Speaker 1: that maybe the slightly less interesting one to talk about
Speaker 1: is the methodological advances. I mean, I think people at
Speaker 1: the moment, with all these non replication crises and underpowered
Speaker 1: the studies are just based on enough on a sufficiently
Speaker 1: large sample size. I think that's all going to change.
Speaker 1: I mean, our standards for what is a good study,
Speaker 1: it's going to change, and that will that will be
Speaker 1: a good thing. I mean, I think the you know,
Speaker 1: the next ten years relative to the last ten years
Speaker 1: is going to is maybe going to bring a lot
Speaker 1: more certainty because the the rigor with which we do
Speaker 1: our research is just going to be held to a
Speaker 1: much higher standard. And I think, I mean, maybe one
Speaker 1: of the really sort of exciting areas to come will
Speaker 1: will be in the area that that we've already gone across,
Speaker 1: that we've already sort of skipped across, that we we
Speaker 1: sort of you know, reach the point where we know
Speaker 1: that that there's a the nature and nurture is involved
Speaker 1: in personality. It's a product of genes in the environment,
Speaker 1: and starting to pin down some of those specific causes
Speaker 1: so that we haven't been able to pin down too
Speaker 1: many specific genes yet, but maybe maybe that's going to improve,
Speaker 1: and it would be really interesting to see people starting
Speaker 1: to pin down, Yeah, these unique experiences people have, what
Speaker 1: what kinds of unique experiences shape particular traits they would
Speaker 1: be there would be there would be some examples that
Speaker 1: I would think what I'd like to see? Wow, well
Speaker 1: I would love to see the same stuff. Maybe we
Speaker 1: can collaborate someday. Yeah, that'd be so cool. Man. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for this chat. It was elucidating.
Speaker 1: I hope it was listening to my listeners really fun. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much for invoting me in a really interesting conversation.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as
Speaker 1: informative and thought provoking as I did. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to read the show notes for this episode or here
Speaker 1: past episodes, you can go to the Psychology Podcast dot
Speaker 1: com