There is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in the lunatic asylum. ~ Carl G Jung
It was when he started saying things like “you must be an INTJ” and “thinkers are more objective than feelers” that I became more interested in staring outside the window than listening to this guy – a psychology student. Personality types are fascinating to talk about, but depending on who’s doing the talking, it can get a bit too stiff for me.
Often I’ve wondered why I’m less than enthusiastic about my personality type, or types. There are as many personality tests based on Introversion and Extroversion as there are types: Jung’s Typology, Big 5, Myers Briggs, Socionics, Enneagram. Sometimes I’m an introvert, others I’m extroverted, sometimes a feeler and others a thinker. For many, personality types provide a lucid way of understanding what were felt to be the abstract traits of ones character. Finally we can share on our Facebook and twitter pages that we’re “INFJ’s!”, “ISTP’s!!”, “ISFJ’s!!!” We seem to believe that our entire emotional and mental functions as a human being perfectly correlate with this well thought out, 4 letter description of who we are. Introspection and self-analysis just became a whole lot easier – just 70 questions away to discover who you really are.
But amidst all the introvert and extrovert extremist polarity hype there exists one forgotten type. The Ambivert. I had once remotely read of the term Ambivert while perusing through Young’s “Source Book for Social Psychology“. I’ve scoured the internet extensively and found very little on the subject. It seems this ambiguous, complicated, mythical creature is nowhere to be found.
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Continuum Personality Scale
Introversion and extroversion are typically viewed as a single continuum. In other words: to be high in one, it is necessary to be low in the other. Jung and Briggs proposed that everyone has both an extroverted side and an introverted side, one having more predominance than the other. However, Isabel Briggs Myers only strictly allowed the classification of these two types, even though she based her work on Jung’s theory. Jung was of the idea that there was a third “middle” group. The Ambivert.
“There is, finally, a third group… the most numerous and includes the less differentiated normal man… He constitutes the extensive middle group… I call the first group extraverted and the second group introverted.” (p516, Psychological Types)
This would allow for the possibility that the majority of the population are in fact Ambiverts. Ambiverts seem like a grey area in the personality-type world. Inconveniently, paying attention to the Ambivert would present a difficult and unnecessary complication – that is, that the entire population couldn’t be squeezed into one of two boxes. Tests can never be accurate because the psyche doesn’t work in percentages. In fact, the introvert and extrovert notion was never intended to be a testable dichotomy. The concept of the Introvert and Extrovert was originally intended to determine whether a function is introverted or extroverted – not a person. However, the MBTI asserts otherwise (take our free personality test based on it here.)
Fifty Shades of Ambivert
Isn’t is more likely that our personalities are varying mixtures of introverted and extroverted functions instead of say, all functions being introverted or extroverted?
I believe that people are simply more dynamically complex than the way we polarize ourselves. The most shameless of party-goers has his insecurities, and the quietest at work can be the wildest at night. Put simply, when we’re in a comfortable environment, we’re more likely to be ourselves.
The majority of us have traits of both personalities which are contextually driven. In other words, the majority of our behavior is a result of our interactions with a situation.
If an “extrovert” has to present an assignment, he may become an introvert for the day by blocking out exterior stimulation and getting lost in a world of thought. Jung defined introversion as an “attitude-type characterised by orientation in life through subjective psychic contents” (or focus on one’s inner psychic activity). Extroversion on the other hand was defined as “an attitude type characterised by concentration of interest on the external object” (or the outside world).
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This means that just because you are considered an “introvert” does not mean you’re highly introspective and posses much self-knowledge. Most likely, it’s simply your “Extroverted” brain function that becomes over stimulated easily, causing you to avoid socializing. Meanwhile, you’re still getting lost in a world outside of your ‘self’, just like an extrovert does, by reading a fantasy book, or getting lost in a video game (an extrovert thought function). You may have a big imagination, but the function of your brain that finds ‘fun’ in storylines is the same as the extroverts who find ‘fun’ in experiences. Neither is left in solitude with the introverted function of self-analysis and introspection (introvert thought function). Simply put, you can have an extroverted mind while still functioning as an introvert.
However, there are those rare true unwavering personality types who possess almost all dominant extrovert functions and no introverted functions regardless of the situation. Even presenting an assignment would involve yapping away with others. Or for instance, the predominantly introverted functioners who find no sense of fun in celebrating birthdays or anything even with their closest loved ones, and would rather read a book instead.
The Freedom Of Being an Ambivert
From my understanding, Jung would say that we all have “preferences” of what we would like to do, but we also have the capacity to be able to be both introverted and extroverted. And as we get older, we slowly migrate towards the center of the continuum scale in most of our functions, as part of the self-actualization process. The majority of people, although slanted towards one side of the scale, operate using traits and preferences from both sides.
Ambiverts are people who don’t really prefer one way of functioning over another. In other words, you could say they’re the neutral, middle-ground hippies. They’re equally comfortable in situations where the introvert feels most at home and situations where the extrovert is having a good time. That being said, I would consider myself an Ambivert. I don’t feel drained from social interaction or going out shopping, and discussion energizes and invigorates me. I constantly seek daredevil risk-taking stimulation, while simultaneously relishing quiet time with my books and catching up on scientific essays. I’m both overly confident, but also reclusive and critical in thought.
The freedom with Ambiversion comes in finding both Introverted and Extroverted worlds satisfying and rewarding. Ambiversion helps you to enjoy a varied life. Ambiverts have enough introversion to slowly absorb the world around them and enough extroversion to be able to propound ideas and express themselves (through writing of verbally) without feeling depleted.
The notion of Ambiversion changed my life. Previously, when filling in a personality type questionnaire, I”d hesitate when answering questions like: “would you prefer to go to a party or read a book?” My first thought was “Depends on the party or book and also how tired I am from the previous night.” But that contextual option wasn’t available. Now I realize what a gift it is to be sensible, reasonable and well balanced enough to have the freedom of choice.
I don’t consider myself either extroverted or introverted. Even though I may be 49% extrovert and 51% introvert, I’m equally labeled an INTJ. Yet other’s with 99% introvert and 1% extrovert are still labelled INTJ’s. Superficially we have the same label, but psychologically we are entirely different. This is why I much prefer the Big 5 Personality traits, and their more balanced way of analyzing our personalities.
I’m an Ambivert with 70 shades of Introvert and 30 shades of Extrovert! What are you?
Did you know: You can take our Introvert, Ambivert or Extrovert Test?
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I totally agree with the whole “Depends on what book it is, what kind of party it is, and how tired I am”. :)
Living according to the context of the situation rather than a predefined label of what I should be doing or enjoying or shouldn’t is the most liberating aspect of being Ambiverted :)
Thanks for the discussion and awareness spreading on ambiversion. I’ve taken the quiz a few times and scored every time in the 65-75% range, with slight variation depending on mood, which lines up exactly with what I know about myself re: the extrovert/introvert dichotomy.
I know I’m somewhat of an unusual case in the E/I discussion – in another life, I’m pretty sure I would be significantly even further to the extrovert end of the spectrum, but I was severely emotionally abused as a child, a situation I only was able to get out of within the past five years, and I deal with a lot of complex PTSD issues as a result. Forced shyness was actively used as a means of control in my situation – from as young as I could remember, my abusive parent would jump in before I could answer questions from others outside of my family situation with a response of, “oh, she’s so shy, she’s too nervous to even speak, I’ll have to answer for her.” I’m also far enough above average intellectually that growing up, I fought a lot of rhetoric from teachers and pop culture equating traditional intelligence and responsibility with introversion – extroverts were the class clowns and the party animals and the troublemakers, while the “good kids” and “smart kids” could, of course, be nothing but calm, bookish introverts. For as much as people want to claim there’s an extrovert bias in our society (which is true in broader pop culture), there’s a strong introvert bias in academia, and a strong push for well-performing students to self-identify as introverts because of their studiousness or aptitude.
As far as major sorting systems go, I’m pretty solidly an ENFJ and Enneagram 2, neither of which helped in my internalization of all of that rhetoric for the first two decades of my life – it made me a sponge to all of it in ways I’m just starting to recover from now. As I’ve come to understand my personal functionality better and distance myself from all of that rhetoric, I’ve become a huge proponent for separating stereotypes of shy/outgoing, as well as stereotypes related to social anxiety diagnoses, from the actual measure of the E/I spectrum. I know that I’m solidly into extrovert territory because I know that there’s a limit (one that’s much smaller than most expect from me) to how long I can spend alone in my head with my thoughts or alone in a room without interaction before I can’t take it anymore. Externalizing myself and my thoughts is ALWAYS the key for me to feeling better about a situation – if I don’t do so, within a few hours it will literally start to feel as if I’ve got a swarm of a thousand bees colliding around in my head. But the ambivert tendencies come in because I don’t fit the stereotypical extrovert mold of being comfortable around anyone and everyone – I thrive like nothing else on social situations I am comfortable in, but if I’m in a social situation with overly strong or negative personalities or people who aren’t respectful in actually getting to know me rather than making assumptions about the way they’ve decided I must be, if I don’t feel like I’m in a safe enough environment to externalize myself appropriately, I might as well just be in a room alone with my thoughts, because I’m not actually externalizing myself, just putting on a performance of myself. I’m not recharged by EVERY social situation I’m in – but I’m NEVER recharged by alone time.
I think a big issue with MBTI is its failure to account for trauma and other extenuating life circumstance, especially when discussing the cognitive functions. There’s also a huge failure in a lot of systems like MBTI that work on multiples of two rather than three for their classification grid – I’m almost automatically inclined to better trust personality systems that work on multiples of three, because I’ve found they’re more likely to view non-binary choices like ambiversion as necessary and valid balance along a personality spectrum, not indecisiveness about one’s behavior.
Hola Kate,
I completely agree with your mistrust with MBTI, as you’ve personally illustrated with your own story (I appreciate you sharing it as it as I’m sure many of our readers will identify and benefit from) there is an infinity of variable that go unaccounted for, the most obvious is the fact that we are generalized into one of two groups, regardless of whether you are 99% introverted or only 51%, you are treated the same.
I suggest you look into the Big 5, it not only measures a percentage of, say, how extroverted you are. But in a thorough test, they also measure the facets that exists WITHIN each function of the five functions (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism). Within Extroversion for example, there is the sub facets of: Friendliness, Gregariousness, Assertiveness, Activity Level, Excitement Seeking and Cheerfulness. Calling someone an “extrovert” is assuming that they rank on all those facets equally, which they don’t.
Thank you once more for sharing such a great experience of yourself, and how detrimental our parents influences can sometimes be.
Took the quiz and scored a 47% so guess that makes me 47 shades of introvert and 53 shades of extrovert(?).
Also a great article. Thanks for the read :)
It does indeed!
I’m happy you enjoyed it, you’re almost a perfect Ambivert right in the middle! :)
Hi Mateo, this is a great article! I came across the term ‘ambivert’ when I was searching for an ‘in-between’ on the introversion/extroversion spectrum for a friend. It’s so satisfying to know that there’s not only two terms.
I have two questions:
1. Can A (for Ambivert) be put in place of I/E (for Introvert/Extrovert) on your Myers-Briggs personality type?
2. Can depression cause introversion? Because I’m all my tests say I’m an introvert and I have depression and social anxiety disorder, but I feel like if I didn’t have any mental health issues I would be an extrovert? Because I love interacting with people and socialising but my depression tends to get in the way of that. I’m currently in therapy, so do you think when I finish therapy I could be an extrovert?
I hope this made sense, thank you!
Hola Ivy,
The world is never black and wide, everything is a whole that we’ve divided with our minds in order to analyze and understand.
Myers Briggs is a flawed personality classifying system as it polarizes you to either one side of the spectrum of the other. In clinical psychology they use Big 5 Types which basically just tells you what percentage of extroversion you have, as oppose to you being either an extrovert or an introvert.
So that being said, I suppose you can use A as a substitute but then you would also have to find the middle ground for Thinker and Feeler, Judger and Perceiver etc… and you would end up with something like AxYz, in other words; someone who is in the middle of everything and consequently, with no label.
Depression cannot cause introversion. Introversion predominance is a personality trait that you are often born with though it can shift during your life and journey of personal growth.
What can happen however is that when you are depressed, you become more self center (obviously because of the problems your struggling with and are trying to figure out how to overcome them). You stop socializing because you don’t gain the same ‘good feelings” you use to before you were depressed and you feel your friends don’t understand what you’re going through.
So depression brings many symptoms that isolate you, but just like shyness, it has nothing to do with introversion and more to do with underlying psychological issues you must overcome.
I hope this answers your questions, let me know if there’s any other way I can help.
Doesn’t Meyers-Briggs already use X for the 50-50 splits? I took an online version of the test that gave me an X in place of the E or I because I scored 50-50 on that part.
I. BLOODY. WELL. LOVE. THIS. THANK YOU.
I’ve been thinking the same thing about the Myers-Briggs recently–that even if I’m borderline extroverted or extremely extroverted, or somewhat ESFJ-ish vs. STRONGLY ESFJ-ish, I’m still stuck with the same personality profile. Then I stumbled upon this article, and lo and behold, someone else voicing the same opinion (though I’m sure there are many who would agree with that assessment). Still, it felt GREAT to have my thought validated by another party (you, haha).
Recently, I’ve been on a bit of a MBTI-Psychology spree. People display a variety of behaviors that change with a given situation, and most, if not all people fall somewhere on a spectrum of a given trait (thinking/feeling, judging/perceiving, etc…). As a result, I’m frustrated with the Myers-Briggs test in that it doesn’t seem to account for shades of grey in people’s personalities (then again, I don’t think there is a test that does–it is simply not possible, given the complexity of human personality). I also don’t like being put in a box, as I feel that the test embraces some aspects of who I am and ignores others (again, as would be the case for everyone).
Anyhow, it’s always good to find people who openly voice the opinion that these tests can be a bit too (understandably, given the subject matter) black-and-white in their approach. Thank you for sharing your idea!
Also, I can definitely relate to ambiversion–while I lean more towards the extroverted end of the scale, I definitely possess some stereotypical “introvert” traits.
I’ve always been a strong believer that tensions of energy build up within our societies which stimulates many people to have insights and experience very similar ideas at the same time.
Knowing we’re not alone is a deep urge we all experience I think, but in a time where this awareness of the extroverted – introverted dichotomy is so prevalent, to find like-minded individuals can definitely be a relief.
Humans in general can never be put into any boxes, we’re far to complex for that. We can be given ‘general’ labels to somewhat try and capture some aspect of our character, but that’s about it. I understand why we have the urge to do so though; when I first discovered these personality types I also found it exciting to be able to fool myself into feeling as though I could “know” someone by what type they were. It’s not the case.
As humans we are constantly in a flux, an inward flux as well as and external one that is influenced by our surroundings. If the world were so predictable, it would be boring. But our fear of the uncertain craves with great desire to try and find answers and be able to predict aspects of ourselves and others.
I’m a strong supporter of the helpfulness of many of these personality type tests as they allow people to learn a bit more about themselves, or at least raise some curiosity into what else they might find inside if they explore deeper. But that’s where it ends for me.
I’m happy you enjoyed the article so much, and thank you for sharing your opinion on this delicate subject :)
Yes, this is what I think too. Whenever I’m around people, I try to type them but then give up afterwards after overwhelming myself and bombing myself of questions about the person. I also do not want to be put inside a box. In comfortable situations, I can be extroverted and want social stimulation for hours, but I can also be verry, verrrrrry introverted when I am uncomfortable/ unable to express myself for some reason. I tested as INFP and ENFP equal amounts of time (I think) and one time I got INTJ for second possible type. Right now I am very unsure of which type I should be in but considers myself as an ENFP in the mean time.
I don’t know why but it feels kind of wrong to me that MBTI kind of separates people. I really think that we all are the same when you look at our inner core. It just happens that various things happen to us in life and we happen to encounter different outer environment and that makes us kind of ‘different’ from everybody else. Though I also think that they may be some truth to MBTI too.
Hi! I’m just wondering. What do you think about astrology?
Hi April,
I believe in some aspects of astrology, especially the influence of moon signs on people. But I’m wondering, how you connected astrology to Ambiversion? I’m often intrigued but random associations.
I understand that the test doesn’t talk about ambiverts which makes me mad because i am too but in actuality your wrong. Actually if you look in to it and have actually done your research it doesn’t just tell you that your a pure introvert or a pure extrovert.
Hello Sheena,
I believe you might be misreading the article or having the wrong expectations of it. You will see, as many others have in the comments below, my attempt is to actually clarify that there is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert, that we are all both in different degree’s (we must be as it’s a polarity spectrum).
I do not aim at explaining more about Ambiverts because just like Introverts or Extroverts, it would be easy to make another dogmatic identification with the label Ambivert. There is no absolute description of what an ambivert is, because each ambivert has different degrees of extroverts and introversion as well as the sub functions within those two functions, such as gregariousness etc…
Hopefully, like fine wine, this will taste better after a second read :)
I am an Introvert, I know that I have displayed extrovert characteristics. Nevertheless, I am still introverted. I can attest that types are not set in stone; I scored a rather high percentage to introversion. Until I meet my girlfriend, and then I noticed a decline. The test(based on Jung and Briggs) on the human metrics site displays percentages, and for a good reason. Those percentages signify the strength of preference over the other. Also, people also fail to consider the development of other functions from Jung’s theory.
You’re entirely correct Jim, the key is first to realize the percentages and to under Jung’s work in its totality. Jung is the type of abstract thinker than can easily be thin-sliced and end up with parts of his ideas as stand alone concepts out of their wholeness.
although i have not read the entire article the term introvert or introvert is not the entire personality more it is the dominate archetype a more refined simplified personality traits look up why him why her in fact there are many types
That’s exactly it John, It’s a dominant archetype that has been taken as if it were the absolute and whole. My aim in this article is to try and provide a bit of grey area between the black and white way think whole introvert movement is unfolding.
Thank you for commenting!
What a breath of fresh air this is. I have often straddled the intro/extro fence, but never known until recently there was a name for that. I can be chatty with a small group of people for ten minutes, but then I can be in a corner surveying the crowd for another ten and enjoy that almost as much. What a disservice the “how to talk to an introvert” meme is doing to us. What a refreshing thing it is to find evidence that there’s a spectrum for this, though in hindsight it should have made perfect sense to me long ago. Yaaay for ambiverts!
Hi Eric!
I couldn’t agree more, this whole extremism of spectrum identification is reaching a point where soon it will begin to do more harm than good. Awareness of our differences is one thing, but fanatical labelling of ourselves and purposefully separating us into groups is slowly becoming a hindrance, especially now that technology is providing an atmosphere that is very alluring to bury yourself into when you believe that you fit in to a group of people who are meant to be asocial.
It’s great to see the reception this article has had on so many people :), thank you!