n = 40, this is junk. they couldn’t even get 100 people for this?
these were all sampled from 1 company in amsterdam. the differences could be explained by company culture, or local culture, or whatever. more work needed.
That’s very concrete language you’re using there. Are you perchance an introvert? We could make it n = 41 and add a dash more selection bias to boot!
anything with personality types i already assume is junk. might as well use their zodiac sign.
Shitty sample sizes are the majority of “research” nowadays. It’s sad how hard it is to find any even in the triple digits.
You can say that people who identify as introverts use more concrete language, but there’s no reliable way to identify intro/extraversion because it’s about as scientific as an internet personality quiz.
Jung’s original definition that some people get energy from socializing while others have to expend energy to socialize doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. We’re social primates and sometimes we like socializing and other times we find it taxing but often it’s a little of both.
If you really don’t like socializing you may have some degree of social anxiety, and maybe you identify as an introvert. Which is fine of course - most people will understand what you mean.
But I think it’s important to remember that we’re not talking about a real thing that actually exists in our genes or brains. It’s just a vague description of your attitude to socializing.
I can’t say for sure whether or not this particular study used proper testing, but as a whole introversion and extroversion is not pseudoscientific.
Jung wasn’t a good scientist, but he did a lot of studies and came up with a lot of theories, some of which happened to be at least partially correct. Also, you seem to be getting something mixed up because Jung defined introversion as an “attitude-type characterised by orientation in life through subjective psychic contents”, and extraversion as “an attitude-type characterised by concentration of interest on the external object”, whereas the more common energy focused definition is not from Jung at all - at least, as far as I am aware.
The big five personality traits, namely openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism have been shown to be consistent, even cross culturally.
There are limitations to that: like how it’s an empirical observation, that other personality traits exist that aren’t factored into those five, or that it’s possible there are a larger number of smaller subfactors that make up those five traits, but ultimately they are scientific.
In addition to Aezora’s response, extrovert vs introvert being a description of your attitude to socializing is only a colloquial use of the term. I am a shy extrovert. I do not get social energy by being alone, like an introvert does, and I have problems talking with new people and even with friends prefer a back seat in the conversation.
Most people seem to fit into more clear buckets, if you believe the marketing, but that doesn’t make the buckets the definition.
Extrovert. Not extravert. Source: am introvert.
Tldr A British English, O American English
A is also the way the inventor of the term spelled it, the way it is often spelled in science and the correct Latin form.
I’m not saying O is wrong, that’s what happens in language, just adding the other points.
Yes, the article clearly spells out that she fucked up the translation.
Things evolve, I like that. Even if it isn’t technically correct.
I have never heard an American say ‘extravert’ I am OK with that
This is not to say that Jung wasn’t a genius. Jung was THE BOMB DIGGIDITY (which, by the way, I wish was an official term in the Oxford dictionary).
If they love Jung so much (which I agree they should because Jung was amaaaaazing), why don’t they honor him by using the spelling he actually used?
Love etymological articles with unreliable narrators.
Unreliable narrators keep us all in check, they make us question what we believe or know to be true.
Tldr A British English, O American English
What? How did you get to that conclusion? That’s not what the article says at all? It says Phyllis Blanchard used the (then incorrect) spelling with an O (while also changing the definition of the term to something most people I think would disagree with) in a paper she wrote and nobody knows why. And it spread from there.
I think you’re interpreting “Today, ExtrOvert is the most common spelling of the term in the United States.” to mean it’s spelled with an A elsewhere, but the author even brings up the Oxford Dictionary (UK) that says that the original spelling with an A is rare in general use. I live outside the US and I pretty much exclusively see the O-spelling.
EDIT: Changed from “incorrect” to “then incorrect” to clarify. She wrote her article before extrOvert entered the dictionary, and - according to the author of the article linked earlier in this thread - her article might have been a big contributing factor for it entering the dictionary that was published soon after.
It very clearly states that since 1918 the american spelling has been ‘extrovert’. That has nothing to do with whether the A or O is correct, only that O is more common in American English.
It also says she changed the definition, that’s the nature of language, it evolves. That can be through a colloquialism, a hard change (as this seems to be), or many other reasons.
I am not arguing whether it is correct or not, I am simply saying it is different.
Maybe I’m tired but this comment reads to me as if you’re disagreeing with me when everything you say supports what I said? My objection/question was how you came to the conclusion it’s a US/UK thing. There’s no support for that in the article.
We can both be tired, it’s OK.
I based it on this
Thanks to Phyllis Blanchard ExtrOversion is the prominent spelling of the word in the United States today.
In her 1918 paper, “A Psycho-Analytic Study of August Comte” she writes:
“In order to understand the marked contract between Comte’s mental attitude during his early years and that of his later life, we must keep in mind Jung’s hypothesis of the two psychological types, the introvert and extrovert, – the thinking type and the feeling type.”
Not only did she change the spelling of the word, but she also changed the definition!
That’s what I’m saying! It does not say anywhere that it’s spelled extrAverted in the UK. If anything it says the exact opposite.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “The original spelling ‘Extravert’ is now rare in general use but is found in technical use in psychology.”
(emphasis mine)
The Queen has been informed of your transgression.
Please remain calm and do not attempt to flee.
KEEP CALM AND REMAIN STILL
So confident, yet so wrong.
It’s almost like language is inconsistent and evolving
Why not intravert? Could be fun!
no you misunderstand, these people are EXTRA verted, just SUPER verted to a degree it’s hard to comprehend
I get so much satisfaction whenever I see extravert spelled correctly, which is very rare these days.
First I wondered if the post had it spelled incorrectly.
Then you had me wondering if I’ve been spelling it incorrectly this whole time.
Turns out extravert and extrovert are both acceptable spellings but extravert did come first.
Correct. But extrOvert makes no sense, etymologically (latin). The dictionaries accept it, but I (jokingly) don’t.
Curious, because in Portuguese it’s “extrOvertido.” But I just learned the Spanish spelling can be both “extravertido” and “extrovertido.”
“Correct” is in languages how the general population uses it.
People seem to be downvoting you but you’re absolutely right. Languages are dynamic and evolve all the time. The language “rules” are merely descriptive; they explain how most people use the language, and if you want to make sure everyone can understand you it’s best to follow them.
Even then there’s some wiggle-room. Take the gif/jif pronunciation debate, it was coined as “jif” but the majority of people switched to “gif”. So (depending on the dictionary you own) it will often either list just “gif” as correct, or list both as equally valid pronunciations (which given the sizeable minority for “jif” seems like the correct approach imo). All the gift/giraffe/creator-says-x is just fluff and not actually all that relevant.
IMHO absolute descriptivism and absolute prescriptivism are both bullshit. Language evolves, but that doesn’t mean there should be no rules.
Rules definitely help keep a language more consistent! They’re not without use. It also helps to teach language to children and makes established parts of a language stay more consisteny over time. However, pretending there’s a rhyme or reason behind all of them is hard to justify, as well as claiming “x is correct because of rule y” if a majority decides z is correct instead.
It’s a bit hard to take in the present era, when the old rules were maintained by highly literate people like copy editors, and the new rules are made by anyone with a smartphone. I didn’t agree with all the traditional rules, but they have an elegance and consistency that Internet discourse usually lacks.
Thank you.
I’m gonna start spelling it intravert.
Thank you! There are dozens of us who care. Dozens!
Yes? This wasn’t known yet?
This is accurate until proven otherwise.
