What an intriguing group of individuals you are ...
0:17to a psychologist.
0:18(Laughter)
0:20I've had the opportunity over the last couple of days
0:23of listening in on some of your conversations
0:26and watching you interact with each other.
0:29And I think it's fair to say, already,
0:31that there are 47 people in this audience,
0:37at this moment,
0:39displaying psychological symptoms I would like to discuss today.
0:43(Laughter)
0:44And I thought you might like to know who you are.
0:47(Laughter)
0:49But instead of pointing at you,
0:51which would be gratuitous and intrusive,
0:54I thought I would tell you a few facts and stories,
0:57in which you may catch a glimpse of yourself.
1:02I'm in the field of research known as personality psychology,
1:06which is part of a larger personality science
1:09which spans the full spectrum, from neurons to narratives.
1:15And what we try to do,
1:17in our own way,
1:19is to make sense of how each of us --
1:22each of you --
1:24is, in certain respects,
1:26like all other people,
1:28like some other people
1:31and like no other person.
1:34Now, already you may be saying of yourself,
1:37"I'm not intriguing.
1:41I am the 46th most boring person in the Western Hemisphere."
1:47Or you may say of yourself,
1:50"I am intriguing,
1:53even if I am regarded by most people as a great, thundering twit."
1:57(Laughter)
1:58But it is your self-diagnosed boringness and your inherent "twitiness"
2:04that makes me, as a psychologist, really fascinated by you.
2:09So let me explain why this is so.
2:12One of the most influential approaches in personality science
2:16is known as trait psychology,
2:18and it aligns you along five dimensions which are normally distributed,
2:23and that describe universally held aspects of difference between people.
2:31They spell out the acronym OCEAN.
2:34So, "O" stands for "open to experience,"
2:37versus those who are more closed.
2:39"C" stands for "conscientiousness,"
2:42in contrast to those with a more lackadaisical approach to life.
2:46"E" -- "extroversion," in contrast to more introverted people.
2:51"A" -- "agreeable individuals,"
2:53in contrast to those decidedly not agreeable.
2:57And "N" -- "neurotic individuals,"
3:00in contrast to those who are more stable.
3:04All of these dimensions have implications for our well-being,
3:07for how our life goes.
3:10And so we know that, for example,
3:13openness and conscientiousness are very good predictors of life success,
3:18but the open people achieve that success through being audacious
3:23and, occasionally, odd.
3:26The conscientious people achieve it through sticking to deadlines,
3:30to persevering, as well as having some passion.
3:35Extroversion and agreeableness are both conducive
3:39to working well with people.
3:42Extroverts, for example, I find intriguing.
3:45With my classes, I sometimes give them a basic fact
3:48that might be revealing with respect to their personality:
3:52I tell them that it is virtually impossible for adults
3:57to lick the outside of their own elbow.
4:01(Laughter)
4:02Did you know that?
4:05Already, some of you have tried to lick the outside of your own elbow.
4:09But extroverts amongst you
4:11are probably those who have not only tried,
4:14but they have successfully licked the elbow
4:16of the person sitting next to them.
4:18(Laughter)
4:19Those are the extroverts.
4:21Let me deal in a bit more detail with extroversion,
4:24because it's consequential and it's intriguing,
4:27and it helps us understand what I call our three natures.
4:31First, our biogenic nature -- our neurophysiology.
4:34Second, our sociogenic or second nature,
4:38which has to do with the cultural and social aspects of our lives.
4:42And third, what makes you individually you -- idiosyncratic --
4:50what I call your "idiogenic" nature.
4:53Let me explain.
4:56One of the things that characterizes extroverts is they need stimulation.
5:00And that stimulation can be achieved by finding things that are exciting:
5:05loud noises, parties and social events here at TED --
5:09you see the extroverts forming a magnetic core.
5:13They all gather together.
5:14And I've seen you.
5:16The introverts are more likely to spend time in the quiet spaces
5:19up on the second floor,
5:21where they are able to reduce stimulation --
5:25and may be misconstrued as being antisocial,
5:29but you're not necessarily antisocial.
5:33It may be that you simply realize that you do better
5:37when you have a chance to lower that level of stimulation.
5:42Sometimes it's an internal stimulant, from your body.
5:47Caffeine, for example, works much better with extroverts than it does introverts.
5:52When extroverts come into the office at nine o'clock in the morning
5:55and say, "I really need a cup of coffee,"
5:58they're not kidding --
5:59they really do.
6:01Introverts do not do as well,
6:03particularly if the