I tend to think that people are like atoms and have certain outer binding sites (social valences) which describes the natural reactivity with others. Different people have different arrangements if the outer shell, and exist at quantized energy level based on our interactions with others (moving to higher and lower shells based on our interactions).
There are two qualities to this:
To illustrate the difference imagine two twins who are both hungry, but one is only kinda hungry because they had a snack. The other is familshed from not eating all day. Neither can eat physically more than their stomach allows (the valence). So given they have identical sized stomachs, they are both are similar to aspect 1. When offered food, first person might pass on it, or nibble, person 2 on the other hand will probably happily devour whatever put in front of them, this its reactivity. The same is true in social circumstances:
"One way to think of this is that an atom will react with other atoms if it can fill its valence shell with electrons by doing so. Another way to think of it is that an atom without a full valence shell feels empty and unfulfilled in life, and so tries to fill this void with the electrons of other atoms - whatever works best for you; " from a chemistry site here
a picture of the electron probability cloud for hydrogen.
In the above picture going in the 3rd row from s to p to d shows stable configuration for 3 electrons. In the s3 configuration only one electron is accessible ( the others are sheilded inside), where as p3 two are accessible, and in d3 four are, these are equally probable configurations, and it may shift between them (which may change how it interacts with others, much like how a person might shift in the presence of a new relationship). The brightness indicates the relative energy in the configuration, notice that certain configurations aren't possible e.g. there's just not enough room in the 1st orbital for more than one electron, and other configurations aren't possible without more energy.
On the periodic table of elements Introverts are closer to nobel gases having fewer spots, more stable attachments and even when not filled are mostly happy not interacting/reacting with other elements.
Here's the periodic table in a nutshell. If we were to divide diagonally the table at a 45degree angle we might see the breakdown between introversion and extrovert definitions in social contexts.
| Light Element | Heavy Element | |
|---|---|---|
| Light Reactivity | hermit. | leader |
| Heavy Reactivity | codependence | social butterfly. |
Extroverts are heavier atoms that take up and shed ionic connections rapidly, outer valence shells being at higher energy levels, and having more binding sites, being partially empty they are more unstable, thus constantly seek to fill those spots.
Unlike atoms I think that people have some flexibility in range, over time and over life. Introverts can act like an extrovert for times, and vice versa, it's just not necessarily a stable sustainable arrangment, and there are limits I believe in how much this can be shifted. As an introvert when in extrovert mode, I get tired by people, even those I like, as it's impossible to listen to another and to my inner monologue. Part of it may also be focus, when with another I have to focus on what they are saying/doing, where alone I can typically go off exploring any tangent in intricate detail.
| Strong Introvert | Where most people fit in | Strong Extrovert | |
|---|---|---|---|
| form of entertainment when bored | contemplate silently some thought, or picks up a book. seeks isolation. |
picks up the phone and calls a friend. goes out to where people are. |
|
When alone, duration before getting lonely, or dispondant.
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weeks or longer A hard core introvert may choose to live in the hills or a monastary rarely interacting with society. |
sometimes hours days A hard core extrovert may sometimes only minutes. |
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| When in a group preferred communication style. |
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| When in a single group preferred duration before gettting tired | hours to a day , or broken across days | days to weeks or longer. | |
In relationships. |
few loves few close friends bind deeply and strongly with select few (social molecules resembling say water versus a polymer chain), and thus aren't easily visible or accessible when found. are selective in adding or removing friends (letting people in) |
may have several loves (e.g. polyamory) have a few close friends many friend/acquaintences that on the outer periphery they gain or give up frequently with little thought. |
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| in handling problems | relies on own thoughts, and knowledge reluctantly involves others, and typically primary to ask questions to expand knowledge on a subject. tends to bind strongly to a few people and tends not to gain or release friendships easily |
relies on others easily calls others for help very easy to gain and lose friends. |
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| in handling work that can't be performed | Automation | Delegation |
Relationships can be described as chemical compositions, families and friends and hyper connected molecules (probably not possible in 3space). What's interesting is that the bonds between people are far more complex than just ionic or covalent bonds, but they aren't static like rubber bands, but more like magnets where there is a flow, even if it's not necessarily externally visilbe. It's an exchange of value (usually survival, or replication based) that overall has to net some equal value to be stable over a long period of time (which evolutionarily actually has tuned to be rather unstable to help maximize genetic diversity, and propogation), and these values change over time as our valences are filled with others, and certain binding spots blocked by other inhibitors or they undergo shifts (e.g. having a child or going to full time school, typically changes the stable configurations but it doesn't negate the binding spots...one can still want a kid/love/pet but have no time for one.
I find that cliques of people people run in veins and pockets, much like protein chains. Since they aren't necessarily that reactive except at the ends or hubs, it giving the impression of social dark matter, not really interacting with anything external, and thus are essentially invisible, even if they are standing right next to each other. Depending on how close you get to the primary connectors of the group or sociall more reactive elements.
While not completely accurate, one possible metric of measuring extroversion this might be the time in minutes one spends communicating on the phone, IM, or talking.
Social valences is also really just a subset of the total binding sites we have. Nor is an electron adequate to describe the units of exchange that people have between them..like music, not just any beat will do to get the crowd moving. Of the many typed binding sites, many seem to stably accept other substitutes, e.g. work filling for the intellectual entertainment connections, and pets or volunteering for those more emotionally sites that are usually reserved for parenting.
Because of this, and perhaps the relative infrequency of the traits they bind to, many introverts augment themselves by building tools (run listserves, websites etc) to gain a semblence of extroversion, which undoubtably benefit 'natural' extroverts as well who may not have the focus and time alone to build something.
Thoughts from my journal not integrated yet:
In a discussion with SimonFunk last week, one of the distinctions he was proposing between I and E towards those ends was the question of whether to automation (which Simon uses almost exclusively) or delegation (which BRKVW utilizes almost exclusively), for simon (and I'll admit myself quite often) the effort to convey/teach to augment often is much higher than the effort to teach/delegate, so we end up taking on to many things on our own shoulder. I think this is a function of meta+abstraction, all of us operate on high degrees of abstraction, that are hard to convey to people at lower meta or at equal meta with a different framework. It's an impedance mismatch. So delegating (optimizing) requires in my case a plethora of devices, where simon is a plethora of code libraries, and BRKVW a plethora of people at similar.
and I were discussing the differences between E and I yesterday (he dislikes the terms stronglly) and I talked for a bit about social valences (the number of sites and degree of bond strength/type of connection we form with people), and social reactivity (how whole they are -the difference between a noble gas and a unstable element). During the social reactivity we started talking about actors (which he has been hanging around doing doubles work). I generally dislike purely entertainers (which I'll include social butterflys), purely creative types, and purely dominate leaders as they are so dependent on others evalutations of them or their work to derive their own self value (ego charge maintenance), and thus susceptable to their influence of those people which may complete be unappropriate for them (or blinded by their own need to lead)..and this makes them low social status (in my head) even if they are objectively in high places, and are brilliant at what they do, where as most people I truly like (even if we disagree) can entertain, lead, but they generally have a choice in the matter, since they are relatively whole/nondependant on others for their determination of self worth and happiness. Even if they do the exact same thing, Their motivations and source of happy are different percentage. e.g. most my favorite entertainers/leaders/creators are social scientists, observing, trying new things on the social medium instead of some other substrate, advancing their own theories and frameworks, even if they differ from my own.