When I first started work, my coworker, CK, made up a private nickname for me. It wasn't until a few months later that he felt comfortable enough to share it with me. I'm not sure what he was so worried about. When I heard it, I couldn't stop laughing.
For those of you who have never seen the MTV cartoon, Daria, I do recommend at least the first few episodes. Though it's not a perfect comparison, the resemblance is a little uncanny - at least outwardly (and maybe a little inwardly, too :P )
Back in April, I compared my brain to a faulty servo. Later in the month, I briefly talked about the MBTI test that I took, and then preceded to blow off the results. I don't know why it never occurred to me to link the two ideas together, but I guess hindsight is 20/20.
On paper, I am the textbook example of an introvert. In the past few months, both BuzzFeed and Huff Post independently published articles about X-number of signs that you are an introvert, and I pretty much checked every item off each list. But, as I think more on it, introversion vs. extroversion is more than behavior. It's chemistry.
"Oh, fricker-fracker, she's going to do the science thing again, isn't she?"
You can bet your sweet tookus that I am! But first:
I can't explain how much I love that video, and if you've never seen it, I'm glad to have popped your cherry.
Anywho. So you probably learned in Chem 101 the basic form of a chemical reaction:
aA + bB --> cC + dD
where A, B, C, and D are the chemicals, and a, b, c, and d, are the stoichiometric amounts. Reactions are atoms breaking bonds and forming new ones with their outermost electrons, etc. etc. More Chem 101 stuff that I won't go into.
If you ever got any higher into Thermodynamics and Kinetics, you might have seen something like this:
Many reactions need external energy in some form to help instigate - something to actually turn A & B into C & D. At the end of a reaction, some energy might be released or absorbed. If more energy is released, it's more likely that the reaction will take place spontaneously. Just to simplify things, we'll talk about reactions in terms of an atom's free electrons, their ability to actually take part in reactions. Atoms with more unbonded electrons tend to want to react.
But screw that noise. We're talking about social psych. Instead of reactants and products, we'll talk about people.
Let's pretend instead that we have different people going to a party. Instead of activation energy, it's motivation to actually go and be social. Instead of enthalpy, we'll call it recharge - i.e., the energy you get out of being social that helps you recharge mentally.
Instead of atoms and electrons, we'll say we have people and... their tendency to socially interact with a number of people That's a mouthful. We'll call it... um... hug nodes. Yeaaaaahhhhhhh.
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| These plastered on a person. You should see the s*** that haunts my nightmares. |
So the diagram above would be for your standard, well-adjusted guy:
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| No, I don't know why he has hair like Teagan and Sara |
He has an average number of hug nodes. He needs to mentally prep as much as anyone else for a get together, and he feels OK afterwards.
Then there are the two extremes. There's the introvert:
And... uh... this guy:
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| For some reason, it is always a bro who thinks he is fracking Apollo. |
Introverts have few hug nodes, so each time they have to interact, they wear down a little more. Their night at the party kind of looks like this:
They need quite a bit of motivation/psyche up time/whatnot, and in the end, while it might not be apparent by the diagram, they actually burn up energy instead of recharging.
Extroverts have a metric pork-load of hug nodes. Their night is more like this:
Little motivation required, and they get a ton of benefit from being around others.
Keep in mind, though - reaction coordinates don't tell us whether or not the reaction happens. They just tell us how much energy is expended or gained when the reaction actually occurs. There are a lot of factors that actually tell us the probability of something happening.
Similarly, being an extrovert or an introvert doesn't tell us whether or not a person is enjoying a party. It only tells us if they are going to be more or less tired by the time the night is through.
AND, it doesn't even touch upon the idea of introverted extroverts or extroverted introverts.
Not to mention, catalysts.
Catalysts, in chemistry, lower the activation energy required of a reaction. In our example?
Really, there is no reason that this couldn't happen:
Until the next.
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