11 Things All Introverts Should Know

11. Introverts are not less happy than extraverts, despite what you might have read.

Google “extravert” and “happiness” and you’ll find a ton of articles claiming extraverts are happier than introverts. Cheek thinks it’s because of the way introversion and extraversion are defined in the research.

“Enthusiasm, exuberance, social liveliness are defined to be happy things,” says Cheek. “If you include social liveliness in your measure of extraversion, and then you include social liveliness in your measure of happiness, that’s a guaranteed finding.”

As introverts well know, they can be just as happy as extraverts can – they just might show it in a different way. “Research shows that introverts can have their own contentment and life satisfaction,” says Cheek. “There really are people who, when they say they prefer to stay home on a weekend night with a good book, they really are going to be more happy with that book than they would be if they went out to happy hour.”

Some people have a hard time believing this, because our culture supports the happiness of extraverts more than it does introverts. “Extraverts don’t understand,” says Cheek. “They feel like introverts would be extraverts if only they could, because extraversion is so much fun. Well, it’s fun for extraverts!”

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