The Western world is an extrovert’s world, both for secular society and the Church. The danger is that both realms have gotten so noisy and/or busy that there is hardly any space for reflection and meditation

Tyranny of the Extroverts, In Church and Out

by Howard Kainz

Yung’s theory of extroversion/introversion in his book, Psychological Types, may be the one holdover from the era of “analytic psychology” and classical psychoanalysis which has actually had a practical effect on contemporary psychology and culture. 

 I think especially of the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI) test based on Jung’s book. The test, various versions of which are used in universities and Fortune 100 companies throughout the country, was first published in 1962. The MBTI is not concerned with pathologies, but is geared to revealing basic aptitudes and interests.

According to Jung, extroversion is a primary personality orientation to things, events, and persons external to oneself—a basic attraction which leads extroverts to prize “facts,” social networking, and commonly-held values. This general orientation may make attempts at self-reflection and self-discovery, and the analysis of one’s own motivations, difficult, if not completely uninteresting.

Introversion, on the other hand, is a primary orientation to, and interest in, one’s own conscious insights, feelings, intuitions, and logical conclusions. This inward gravitation may be accompanied with a difficulty in working and conversing with others, a suspicion of commonly-held opinions, and/or fear and awkwardness in expressing oneself. According to Jung’s theory, introversion and extroversion are coordinated in various degrees with four basic functions which can become predominant or subordinate—thinking, sensation, feeling, and intuition.

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