| 0:37 | Intro. [Recording date: January 13, 2026.] Russ Roberts: Today is January 13th, 2026, and my guest is author Susan Cain. This is Susan's second appearance on EconTalk. She was last here in October of 2024 discussing her book Bittersweet. Our topic for today is her 2012 book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. Susan, welcome back to EconTalk. Susan Cain: Thank you so much, Russ. It's great to be here. I'm a huge fan. |
| 1:05 | Russ Roberts: I think I'm the last person to read this book. Everyone I know has read it. It made a big splash when it came out. And as I joked with you before we started, I've read it more recently than you have, which gives me a certain advantage, but I'm sure you remember a little bit about it. How did you come to write the book? Susan Cain: Well, I had been living this topic all my life because I am an introvert in an extroverted world, and this is something I'd been thinking about since I was four years old. I didn't have a vocabulary for talking about it or thinking about it when I was a kid, but I think that every introverted kid is hyper-aware of how their preferences of how they like to spend their time and how many people they like to spend their time with is completely different from what is mandated for them by social norms. So, I'd been thinking about it all my life, but I think it was really when--I was a corporate lawyer for about a decade before I became a writer. And, during that time, I again started to think in a new way about how so much of the way that people showed up as lawyers was dictated by whether they're more introverted or extroverted, and yet there was no language for talking about that. We would talk about gender, we would talk about nationality, we would talk about all different things, but no one would ever talk about this most fundamental of personality types that some psychologists call the north and south of human temperament. And, in the last 10 years, it's become pretty commonplace to talk about it, but at that point, the words introvert and extrovert were almost never used. Russ Roberts: In that sense it was, I think, not just an interesting book, a book people learned a lot from, but I think an important book. One of the themes of the book, which--and I don't know what I am. I think I'm a little bit of both; maybe we'll talk about that later. But, one of the themes of the book is that introversion is seen as a character flaw and that extroversion is the ideal. And, I think that's true. I think that those are the cultural norms. But, before we get into that, let's try to talk with some definitions about how you would define an introvert versus an extrovert. Susan Cain: Yeah. So, this is a question that we could spend the whole hour on if we wanted to. Russ Roberts: And, we might, because I think it's very confusing to many people. So, go ahead. Susan Cain: Yeah. There's so much to say here. I'll give you first the kind of pop culture definition, which I actually like and was the definition that first spoke to me when I heard it back when I was in, I guess, my 20s. And, that is the question of: where do you get your energy from? So, do you feel more energetic when you're out and about in the world interacting with a lot of people, or do you feel more energetic when you're alone or in a quieter setting? I often say to people with this one, imagine that you are at a party that you're truly enjoying with company who you truly love, and then think about how you feel after you've been there for about an hour and a half or two hours. So, if you're an extrovert, it's as if the internal battery that you have has been charged up by this experience, and so now you're full of energy and you're looking for more. And, if you're an introvert, no matter how socially skilled you might be, and no matter how much you love all those people at the party, your battery has been drained by this experience, and so now you're wishing that you could just press the button and be immediately whisked home. And, that idea of the internal battery that we all have, I think is an incredibly useful metaphor, but also important to understand that it is just a metaphor for what's happening neurobiologically. And, there's a lot we can get into with that. But, just to give you one crack at it: In general, you could say that introverts have nervous systems that react more to all different kinds of stimulation. So, we tend to think about the stimulation of that party or the stimulation of going to a big meeting at work, but there's also just the day-to-day stimulation. It could be bright lights for some people. It could be a lot of noise from a construction site. It could be anything. And, introverts have nervous systems that tend to react and respond more to that stimulation. So that, for us introverts, we're at our best, most creative, feel in our best state of equilibrium when things are a little more mellow around us. And, for extroverts who have nervous systems that react less to stimulation, the sweet spot there is when there's more happening. Because, if you find yourself in an under-stimulating environment, you start to feel listless and unhappy and checked out. And I think it's really useful to understand these personality types through this lens, because it's just very helpful in thinking, 'Okay, what do I need, and how do I need to structure my day so that I make sure I'm in my sweet spot for as much of the time as possible?' So, what activities leave me feeling under-stimulated and I know I should call my best friend who always makes me laugh at that moment? Or, when do I feel overstimulated so I know I need to take a solo walk around the block? And, if you think about it in those terms, I think you also feel more entitled--for lack of a better word; it's not the word I want--but, better able to make the adjustments that you need so that you're showing up as your best self. |
| 7:35 | Russ Roberts: I think there's a simpler point to make that, it's true of many, many aspects of personality and our nature, but for me, one of the powerful parts of your book and the public conversation that I observed with that, before I read your book and before we had this conversation--and this sounds so trite, but it's quite deep--and it's that: Other people are not just like me. That is very hard for human beings to understand. And, when I see someone who is not like me, of course my first thought, One, is that there's something wrong with them. Two, I just need to explain to them this is the wrong way to be. Don't be so sensitive to that noise. Why are you sensitive to it? Just forget about it. Don't think about it. And, the idea that we have some fundamental differences along those lines is kind of shocking. There was that movie with George Clooney--I want to say it was called Up in the Air--where he was this corporate guy who ran around and fired people. And, he fired people the way he wanted to be fired. Chick-chock, get it over with. I don't want to hear all that fake emotion. You feel bad for me; and just: You're fired. Go clean out your office. You have half an hour. And, I think there are people like that. They don't want any empathy. In fact, they dislike it, and they view it as fake because for them, if they were delivering the message, they'd have to fake it because not particularly empathetic people maybe. The idea that there are people who want that message to be delivered in a different way than they would like to receive it is a shocking realization. And, I don't think it's obvious to most people. And, it's this distinction of stimulus versus--and also where you get your energy. People are different. And, you talk about a couple in the book, one who is extroverted, one who is introverted, and one of them wants to throw a dinner party once a week, and the other one very much doesn't want to be in that setting. It's like, well, what's wrong with you? Why would you not enjoy a--it's a perfectly reasonable thought, but it shows a lack of understanding of the human condition. Susan Cain: Yeah. And, I don't know what it is about us humans that I think it makes it easier for us to understand our differences and be empathetic to someone who is different from us if we know why it is. Especially if we know that it's biologically rooted, there's something about that that makes it easier for us to process it. But, even just giving a name to it makes it easier. And, that is something I see with couples all the time. And, in fact, I will say for my husband and me, because my husband's much more extroverted than I am, we had had for years, just this ongoing--I don't know if the right word is squabble. But, when we're driving in the car long distances, he would always turn the radio dial louder to make the music louder, and I would always turn it back down. And, it was years into my researching this book, and we were talking about the book all the time before we realized that we were just being classic over-stimulation/under-stimulation. And, we still squabble over the radio dial, but there's something about understanding it that makes the whole thing depersonalized. There's nothing fraught about it at that point. It's just purely: where do we compromise it out? |
| 11:14 | Russ Roberts: So, I really like the title of the book. Was that hard to choose? Do you remember that? Because, when I asked you how you came to write the book, you immediately started talking about introverts and extroverts as if people would know: well, if the book is called Quiet, obviously it's about introverts versus extroverts. But, you could have called it 'Introverts versus Extroverts,' or 'Outgoing and--' something else. But you didn't. Susan Cain: Oh. So, are you asking about the title or the subtitle? Russ Roberts: The title. Well, either one. Susan Cain: Yeah. Okay. And, I'll tell you why I asked that question. So, the title, I thought the word 'quiet' was just right, because first of all, it expresses the poetic sense of being more introverted. The sense of quiet, the sense of still waters run deep, I felt all were captured in that word. But, it also captures the pejorative that many introverts hear all their lives. Introverted kids from the time they are very young are told by their teachers: Sally is too quiet and must learn to speak up in class. That word 'quiet' is used in that context all the time. So, that was why I chose that title. And, for the subtitle, which is The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, I owe the credit for that to my glorious agent, Richard Pine, who came up with it when we sent out the book proposal to prospective editors, and it stuck. |
| 12:51 | Russ Roberts: When you said you were going to start with the socially--the pop-culture definition of introvert-versus-extrovert, I actually think that the one you gave, which is where you get your energy from, is actually a subtle, sophisticated version. I think if you ask most people, they would say extroverts are outgoing and introverts are shy. That's the difference. And, that's why shyness, which can be quite charming, but is often considered a handicap in the business world, or that's why a teacher might want to socialize a student to be more verbal or more active. And, obviously we make snap judgments about people based on what they say and how they say it, and quiet people have a little bit of a disadvantage in many, many settings. And you write about visiting the Harvard Business School and quiet people being uneasy and worried that their careers will be hampered by the fact that they aren't this charismatic Tony Robbins figure--someone you also discussed in the book having attended one of his seminars. So, just talk about that in general, just this talking part and how that interacts with these definitions. Susan Cain: Well, it's funny that you mentioned the term 'shyness,' because you may have seen me scribbling something down a minute ago; and the word I wrote was 'shyness,' because I wanted to make sure to talk about that. Because introversion and shyness are not the same thing, but they're both really important to understand. So, introversion is about this preference for quieter, less stimulating environments and modes of interaction. Shyness is much more about the fear of social judgment. So, it happens in situations where you feel like you could be socially evaluated. And it's different for different people. So, one person might feel shy when they have to give a speech. For someone else it might be a job interview or going on a date, or it could be some combination of all those things. Bu, in general, shy people, they're more sensitive to being socially evaluated, and they're also more likely to read in negative evaluation into a neutral facial expression because of that sensitivity. So, first of all, in my book and in my work, I'm talking both about introverted people and shy people, although you could be introverted without being shy, and you could be shy without being introverted. The classic case is Barbra Streisand, who is a very larger-than-life extroverted personality; but she stopped performing for, I think it was decades, because of her stage fright. So, I say the following thing as a constitutionally shy person, which is there isn't that much to recommend shyness itself. It's not a pleasant experience, pretty much ever. However, it goes along with a whole constellation of personality traits that we do value. And, I think that's important to understand. So, shyness and conscientiousness are extremely well-linked, and the reason has to do with so much of the way human beings come to acquire a conscience in the first place. From a very young age they start to understand when they've done something right or wrong. And, shy children just feel that kind of feedback all the more intensely, and so they tend to develop a very strong conscience. Yeah--strong conscience. Shyness is complicated, though, and it's also important to understand there's lots of situations where you could start out as shy in Situation X, but you learn over time how to handle Situation X; and the shyness mostly melts away. So, it's not as much of a fixed state, speaking situationally, but most people who, let's say were shy as children, will tell you that they still retain a kind of core of that sensation that stays with them through their lives. |
| 17:31 | Russ Roberts: Let's talk about solitude and contemplation, which is also embodied in the title, the word 'quiet.' Having the ability to be alone and to be contemplative, I think, are superpowers. They are particularly out of fashion in today's world, of course, with the ubiquitousness of the cell phone and social media. Part of your book is that--I would call it a lawyer's brief. It's an attempt to make the case for the pluses of introversion: not just that it's okay, but rather that it's sometimes quite powerful. So, talk about the role of solitude in general and the ability to work on one's own. Susan Cain: Well, who was it who said--was it Ernest Hemingway? I can't remember who it was who talked about the biggest problem being someone who can't be in a room by themselves. The core of a loving self--of a self that can love itself and love the people around them--is the ability to be comfortable with oneself, which generally starts in a room by yourself. Can you be comfortable with that solitude? Yeah. And I worry a lot that, especially nowadays, kids are not trained in this core art. Which I think is part of why we've seen the explosion over the past decades of practices like yoga and meditation. I think these were a response to the lack of solitude in our lives that everybody craves. Extroverts crave it also. We all need it. And, I think we see this also in all our religious traditions. You almost always see the moment of profound revelation for many of our religious figures, whether it's Moses, or Jesus, or Muhammad, Buddha, they go off into the wilderness, they go off into solitude, and that is the place where they have the revelation that they then bring back to the community. So, there's always a kind of dynamic between going off into solitude and then being together with whoever your community is. But, that piece [?peace?], that solitary piece, is incredibly important. And, this is partly because we're such social beings, we're constructed to be socially porous. So, when there are other people around us, we are kind of incapable of knowing what we truly think and what are the ideas that are truly original to us. So, for example, the designer, Philippe Starck, said that during the time of his year when he would be most creative, he would go off by himself for several months. And during that time, he wouldn't even pick up a magazine, wouldn't turn on the TV, wouldn't do anything because he knew that to take in inputs from other people would be to weaken his own sense of originality. So, solitude is just an incredibly important piece of knowing ourselves and being creative. |
| 20:57 | Russ Roberts: You talk about the obsession in the modern workplace--and it's emphasized in our educational system--of collaboration, of working in groups, the importance of working in groups. And of course, for an introvert that can be unpleasant, alien, and unproductive, and you're critical of it in general. I think the power of solitude in doing great work is crucial. Sometimes it's helpful to brainstorm or share an idea. A one-on-one conversation can be very powerful. But, the idea of all great ideas coming out of teams, say, is implausible to me. But it is something of a modern idol. It seems to be something that the workplace and schools really push. What do you think of that? Susan Cain: Oh, I think it's absolutely maddening. So, as you say, introverts know how ridiculous it is just by virtue of their own experience. But, then you start to look at the research literature on brainstorming, which finds in study after study that people produce more ideas and better ideas when they're on their own. Which is not to say that there isn't a role for people coming together to share those ideas. Of course there is. But we very much need a dynamic between the solitary process and the coming-together process. So, the best ideas are really where you have that kind of dynamic and people can go off by themselves before they come together to share those ideas. One example of that, at Amazon, apparently--is it Jeff Bezos [sounds like bee-zos] or Bezos [sounds like bay-zos]? I always forget how to say his name. Russ Roberts: I don't know. Susan Cain: Okay. However we say his name. He apparently begins every meeting at Amazon by having the person who has called the meeting first write a long memo--I think like a three-page single-spaced memo--outlining that which is going to be talked about at the meeting. And then, everybody sits there in silence for the first half an hour reading this memo and thinking about it quietly before they start talking. And, the idea is that you get thoughts that are a lot less half-baked when you go through that kind of a process. And yet, as you say, in the modern world, that's incredibly unusual. And, one of the things I was most struck by when I was researching the book, I decided that I would start visiting schools. And, this was before I had had kids myself, so I hadn't been in a school in a really long time at that point. And, I didn't even know what I was looking for. I just was popping in to just see what the experience was of introverted and extroverted kids. But, I was shocked to see how much education had changed during the years since I had been a student, which is to say I remember going to school as involving a lot of solitary effort where you would sit and think deeply and write a paper, do your math, or whatever. But, nowadays, so much of school life, it's done in groups. Russ Roberts: It's a pep rally. Susan Cain: It's a pep rally. And, all the desks are smushed together. Even when they're doing math. It's a big group project. You're not allowed to ask the teacher a question until you've asked your peers the question. And, some of that just strikes me as kind of a waste of time. Russ Roberts: That Amazon practice is kind of shocking. I wonder if that's true for every meeting. Half an hour is a very long time. I would want to reserve that for certain kinds of topics. But, it's a fascinating question of one's own productivity. |
| 25:06 | Russ Roberts: I want to tie it into something you write about that I think is really important. I was talking to someone about your book. It turns out I'm not the last person not to have read it. He hasn't read it either. There were two of us. And, he said, 'Well, I'm not an introvert.' 'Because,' he said, 'I like to socialize.' And, I said, 'In what kind of settings?' He goes, 'Well, I don't like a big crowded event where people are holding court and showing off. I like to socialize with one other person.' And I thought, 'You're an introvert.' Russ Roberts: So, you say--and the way you write it in the book is--there's a temptation to call extroverts pro-social and introverts antisocial. And, I have to reference my father, who, until I read your book, I always thought of him as an extrovert. He was not an extrovert at all. He often had a public persona of playing a clown, a jester, a person who amused people, and he was a very charming man. But, he would always tell me when I was growing up that what he liked to do when they would have people over for dinner--and I think he sometimes actually did this--was excuse himself and go upstairs and read a book because he'd had enough. And, I always took that to be a form of not liking people, but that's not what it was. He did like people. He didn't like them in large, loud doses. And I think that's a very important difference I learned from your book. The way you say it in the book is you say, it's not that one's pro-social and one's antisocial: it's that they're differently social. So, explain. Susan Cain: Well, I think you just explained it beautifully. Yeah. I've had the same experience that you just recounted of somebody assuming that they're not an introvert because they actually like people. And, yeah, it has much more to do with a different form of socializing. And, it comes back to what we were saying at the beginning about introverts preferring situations that are less overstimulating. So, therefore you would usually rather go have a glass of wine with a close friend as opposed to being in a loud party full of strangers where not only is it loud, but you're also decoding lots of social signals all at once, which is in and of itself an overstimulating thing to do. So, that's a really important one for understanding oneself and the people around you. Especially for parents or whoever it is, you can look at a child who doesn't love to hang out with a big group of kids after school and think: 'Oh my gosh, there's something wrong with this child. They don't like the other kids in their school, or the other kids don't like them.' And, that might be a complete misreading of what's happening. I'm actually thinking here of a friend of mine who I interviewed for the book, who, she herself is a really, really strong extrovert, hyper-extroverted person, and she had a more introverted daughter. And, her daughter had lots of friends at school, was very happy. But, after school, when the moms would come to pick up, her daughter would be off by herself shooting baskets at the basketball court while all the other girls were in a big gaggle together. And, my friend for a while was really distraught about this. She thought there was something deeply wrong. And, it was only once she understood about introversion, extroversion, and started having frank and open discussions with her daughter about what her daughter was actually feeling, that was when she realized it was okay. But, she said until then, doing pickup was incredibly painful for her. So, it was only once she understood the interior experience of what her daughter was feeling and not feeling that her mom had been misattributing to her, that she started feeling okay. |
| 29:35 | Russ Roberts: I'm curious what you think about intimacy. I always think about a beer ad: There's a group of guys in a bar, they're watching a sports game together. There's five or six of them. It's not three or four. It's a crowd. And, everybody's loud. The place is loud. It could be maybe beer is only marketed to extroverts. But, that kind of scene is--I'll pick up your cudgel for a minute. There's something superficial about it. It can be great fun. And, people might insult each other across the table because they're rooting for different teams or make jokes about their personality traits that they've been making fun of for the last 10 years as old friends and--ribbing each other, would be the verb. And, contrast that--so the friend I was talking about doesn't like that, I don't think. What he likes is a one-on-one conversation, right? And, in a one-on-one conversation, you can banter, and there can be chit-chat, and there can be ribbing, but in general, it has a potential for intimacy--for going deeper, for forming a more profound connection with the other person that you can't have in a group, almost by definition. And, I want to just see how the categories we've been talking about overlay those two differences, if at all. So, the big group: some people are comfortable there, not because they like the banter and the noise and the stimulus, but because they don't like intimacy, it is threatening to them. It's frightening. It's sort of the opposite of being shy, right? These are people who, you see them in this setting in the sports bar, and they're loud and interacting, and there's nothing shy about them; but perhaps they are afraid of intimacy. And, the flip side of that are the two people talking in the corner booths, not watching the game, and having a different kind of connection. Is that an introvert/extrovert thing? Does intimacy and that kind of human connection that comes from that part of this distinction? Susan Cain: You know, that's a tricky one. I don't know that that's introversion or extroversion per se. And, I'm glad you're asking the question to give me the chance to make the broader point that, while on the one hand, I do believe introversion/extroversion are the north and south of human temperament, that they're incredibly profound in terms of how they shape the we show up in the world. That's true on the one hand. And, on the other hand, we're human beings, and we're incredibly complicated. And so, we can't reduce everything to these two albeit gigantic and profound categories. So, having said that: Yeah, I think the way in which we seek intimacy is its own category. And, for introverts who are looking for the less-stimulating form of socializing, that is going to have a way of honing their skill at a more intimate style of socializing. So, they're probably going to get better at it over time. But, I don't know that it comes from the seeking of intimacy per se, if you see what I'm saying. Russ Roberts: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'd never thought about it. I've mentioned it before in the program. In the course of my life--it's embarrassing--I'm 71 years old; I've had only a handful of conversations that in the middle of them and afterwards were exhilarating because of a connection I made. And, I'm not talking about with friends and loved ones or my wife or children, my kids, my parents. I'm talking about an encounter with someone I'm not close to. It could be a total stranger. It could be somebody who makes a confession unexpectedly and is desperate to make a connection, either because they're under duress or trauma of some kind. The aftermath of trauma and those encounters were unforgettable for me. There was a time in my life I would have run away from it. I would have said too much. I can't handle this. The same thing would be true of visiting someone in the hospital or going to a funeral. When I was younger, I found them very difficult. They were too--I ran away from them. Maybe this is just aging. And, now I find them very powerful. They force me to confront things that I want to confront rather than things I want to run away from. And, I agree with you. I don't think this is an introversion/extroversion thing, but there might be something there. Susan Cain: Yeah. And, there's also, of course, a huge gender component. I have two boys, two teenage boys, and I always joke with them about how the way they socialize with their friends is just so completely different from the way I socialize with my friends. They and their friends, they hang out together all the time, but they know so little about details of each other's lives that to me would be, like, of course you would know that. And, my older son has a girlfriend, and I often joke with them that I have to get all the social drama from his girlfriend. She'll come over, and I'll know more about what's going on after seven minutes of sitting down and chatting with her than I had heard all year. Many different factors. Russ Roberts: Let me--living in Jerusalem, we get a lot of visitors. People are passing through, making a trip, often old friends we haven't seen maybe in a year, but it might be you haven't seen them in five years or 10 years. And, I'll come back from a coffee with one of these folks, and my wife will say, 'Well, what's happening with their kids?' And I'll say, 'I have no idea.' Russ Roberts: We didn't talk about that. And, usually that's maybe the first thing that she would talk about if it was the woman-equivalent of that meeting. And, that's just a fascinating thing, that difference. I don't think it has anything to do with introversion and extroversion. But, there is a difference between men and women on this, I think. Susan Cain: Oh yeah. Absolutely. |
| 36:45 | Russ Roberts: So, you said people were complicated. Obviously there are people at the extremes of these personality traits. Do you have any feel for what proportion of us are just a mix or just not identifiably one or the other? Susan Cain: Oh, yeah. And, I wondered about that because you said you weren't sure where you fit in. So, there's a term that psychologists have coined called 'ambivert,' which is for people who really feel they're kind of in the middle of this whole thing. And, I don't know--I haven't seen really good data on how many people are ambiverts. Especially because the word can be so messy. So, some people feel they're almost always a mix. Some people will call themselves an ambivert because they're very introverted in situation A, but very extroverted in situation B, and I'm not sure that's actually true ambiversion, as opposed to maybe an introvert who is super-engaged when they get into situation B because it's their favorite topic or something like that. So, I don't have good data, but I will say plenty--a lot of people will raise their hands when you give them that option of being an ambivert. Russ Roberts: This question of where you get your energy--outside of that, and obviously some introverts can easily handle a social gathering, but maybe not two in a row, lunch and dinner. And, extroverts can go off with a close friend and talk quietly in a corner. Do we have an easy way to self-diagnose ourselves other than that? If I wanted to think about this for my own--I said, I don't know which I am, because I've never taken a Myers-Briggs personality test, which purports to try to identify these things, among a few other traits. How should I think about this? Susan Cain: Well, I gave you at the beginning, the rubric of how do you feel when you're at that party with the people who you truly like? And, I think that's a good question to ask yourself. But, another question you can ask is: if you imagine that you have a weekend or a week where you truly have no social or professional obligations of any kind, how would you choose to spend that time? How many people would be in the picture? How loud or quiet a scene would it be? That question is very helpful for people because--especially for introverts who have all their lives been training themselves to operate in a more extroverted way to the point where they sometimes lose touch with what their true preferences are. But, if you suddenly imagine total freedom, how do you fill that freedom? That can be very telling. Russ Roberts: But isn't part of that just--you know, what else I've been doing lately? And you're asking me, by the way--by myself, not with my wife, say, for example--what's the ideal vacation if I'm off alone; or am I taking my wife with me? Susan Cain: You have to adapt this question to your own life, I would say. But, yeah, if you would choose to be mostly in the company of your wife, let's say, as opposed to, 'Hey, let's go and have all our friends over for dinner. Let's go take a big group vacation.' Those choices that you instinctively make can tell you a lot about what your preferences are. And, I do take your point that a lot of it has to do with: well, what were you just overloaded on the week before? And, what are you just doing as a reaction to that overload? So you can extend it out. Imagine that you've got a year, imagine that you're about to retire. How do you want to fill that time for real? |
| 40:56 | Russ Roberts: There's a really interesting part in the beginning of your book--which is just fascinating to me--about the evolution of self-help books in America. And, I don't remember if you mentioned it or not, but Benjamin Franklin was probably one of the earlier self-help--there was a couple before him who were religious folks, I think. But, Benjamin Franklin in his writings tried to tell people the road to virtue and how to be a better person. Sometimes how to be a more productive person, but also how to be a good person. And, that got replaced--I think you say it comes in the 1920s--with books that emphasized how to give yourself a better personality. Which is an insane transition to start with. Because on the surface, they're not just different. They're almost orthogonal or opposite. Right? You go from: How do I serve my fellow human beings--or my deity if you're a religious person--to: how do I make myself really fantastic? And, it's kind of a shocking thing. And I don't think--I'm going to put a footnote to this in a minute, but I'll let you elaborate on it. So, I think that's a really fascinating insight. It's still here. We haven't changed. Not a lot of books about how to be virtuous. Susan Cain: It's true. And, when I came across that research, to me, the most shocking part was that it had ever been different. I found that fascinating. So, you're talking about research by a guy named Warren Susman, and he literally went--he sat and he compared the self-help books of the 19th century with those of the 20th century and counted the words and counted the attributes that they were trying to teach the reader. In the 19th century, the books were trying to teach the reader how to have integrity, how to have character, how to be resolute. And then, all of a sudden in the 20th century, it changed to: How can you be magnetic? How can you be charismatic? How can you be dominant? And, cultural historians attribute this shift--it's not just the self-help books: it's an entire culture that shifted from one, what they call the culture of character in the 19th century to the culture of personality in the 20th century. And this happened because in the 19th century and before that, we had lived in small, more tribal communities alongside people we had known all our lives, and people would come to know who you really were, and could they rely on you? Were you a stand-up person? But then, all of a sudden in the 20th century, people start leaving those small communities. They're moving out to the city. They now have to make their living not through agriculture, but through sales, effectively. And so, it starts becoming really important: How do you show up at a job interview? Do you seem very likable? Are you charismatic? Can you make that sale? And then, around that same time was when we had the growth of cinema. So, at the very same time that people were showing up thinking, 'Okay, how do I do my best at a job interview?' on the weekends they're going and seeing larger than life images of movie stars who are emblems of being likable and charismatic. So everything became focused on that. And, as you say, we are pretty much still living in that world today. When Quiet first came out, which was 2012, I had been thinking briefly that the age of tech was giving us a bit of a reprieve from that, because it seemed as if you could go online and it was a place where you could interact with people without having to be quite so presentational. But, that was before everything became video. And, I would say now with the age of video and social media and all the rest, we're right back with the culture of personality--on steroids. Russ Roberts: Yeah. I don't know if I wrote this as my own note or whether I got it from your book, but this idea that you're a brand and you have to always be selling. And, your success in life comes from convincing other people to buy what you have, whether it's your talents in a job or your skills, attractiveness as a romantic partner. And, that is the dominant culture of our world. It's certainly the dominant culture of most MBA [Masters of Business Administration] programs: you pick on Harvard but that's easy, in its day, and I suspect it hasn't changed much. It's one of the funny things about living in a culture as a non-native speaker: So, when Israelis speak to me in English, I'm getting a very warped impression of their personalities, often, because their English is something like my Hebrew--it's halting sometimes, or it's they're very quiet because they don't want to expose the fact that their English is not very good. And then, I see them interacting with another Israeli, and I think, 'Oh my gosh, who is this person? This is a totally different human being.' And, this idea that you should have a particular kind of--I'll use outgoing, extroverted--personality to make a good first impression and then succeed, is, I think, very much in our culture and hasn't changed much. I'm not sure it will change. Susan Cain: Yeah. No. I think that's right. And, at the same time, one of the things that I do in the book is give examples and show all the different people who contribute so much to the culture, not despite having quiet personalities, but really because of those quiet personalities. And, I think that's really important to understand: that there is a channel for using your talents and your predilections as a quiet person and really making them sing. I was just talking about technology. You look at the world of technology, so many of the people who have become leaders in tech are people who were just kids who love technology, gained incredible expertise at it, then build networks through shared passions with other people who had the same expertise, and they eventually grow up into leadership positions through that kind of a process. And, you see that in every field. |
| 48:21 | Russ Roberts: Yeah. Something interesting for me about performing: You talk about a Harvard psych professor who is a brilliant performer on stage as a teacher, a lecturer, I would call it, but also is an introvert, it turns out. And he's performing, not just in the sense that he's entertaining his students, but he's putting on a personality that isn't his preferred--whatever you want to call it--his essence. And as you point out in the book, introverts can up their energy level in a social setting even if it makes them uncomfortable. You write very eloquently about your own ability to overcome your fear of public speaking and being an effective presenter. But, it's just interesting to me how much emphasis people put on charisma in those settings, and yet how misleading it can be. I'll just--to pick an example, and it's a bit of an unfair one--but Steve Jobs is a brilliant performer, was a brilliant performer; and his Apple presentations were spectacular. Tim Cook is not a brilliant performer. Tim Cook, his successor, is, I assume, something of an introvert. You can debate--you know, people make lots of silly claims about Apple's performance since then, whether it's good or bad. I'm not going to weigh in on that because it's not relevant for what we're talking about. But, what I think is relevant is that when you see Tim Cook on stage, you just assume he's not going to be a good CEO [Chief Executive Officer] because he's not this flamboyant superstar. And, it is easy to overvalue and overrate those charismatic folks. And, I say that as someone who likes to perform as a speaker. I love to be--I'm not a quiet, calm speaker. In fact, people who come see me in a public talk will say, 'Who is that guy? The host of EconTalk, he's so--he's quiet.' And, I tell them, 'I have to put my quiet hat on when I'm the host, because I have that other side and I try to not use it.' I do occasionally, but in general, I don't. Anyway, it's a fascinating question of how leadership is often correlated, perhaps mistakenly, with charisma. Susan Cain: Yeah. I mean, people have that assumption. And, in fact, as you were saying this, I was thinking of a friend of mine who is in private equity, and one of the things he has to do is go and evaluate early-stage companies. And the CEOs are making presentations. And he says he's always amazed by the extent to which his colleagues will be swayed by somebody who is a razzle dazzle presenter: They're an amazing presenter; they just assume that the company is great. And he tries to really--this is actually the same person who told me to go to Harvard Business School [HBS], which he called the spiritual capital of extroversion. And he felt that going to HBS helped him disaggregate being a great presenter from actually having the solid fundamentals. So, I do think that's an important thing. But, I would also say that, at the same time that we absolutely have a bias that the person who is a great presenter will have an edge as a CEO, we do have many examples of CEOs, like the Tim Cook, who don't fit that model; and data showing that those CEOs will deliver results that are as good as, or better than, in some cases, those of a more extroverted CEO. So, I do want to emphasize: there is another channel there. I do think that as human beings, again, because we're such social creatures, we are unconsciously picking up on signals--thousands of different signals from the people around us in ways that we're not even aware of. And so, we're not only picking up on the signals of charisma and presentation style, we're also picking up on signals of: Is this person trustworthy? Does this person know what they're doing? And, therefore, the leader who is trustworthy and knows what they're doing and has a more introverted style, they have a channel to walk that can be incredibly successful. Russ Roberts: Yeah. I don't want to downplay the importance of, say, communication. I think leadership often involves communication, and communicating in ways that are entertaining or eloquent matter. It's not irrelevant. But, the thing I often think about in leadership as important is decision-making. And, decision-making is not about snap judgments. It's about quiet judgments. It's about contemplation. I often--I'm sure it drives my colleagues crazy, but I'll often say I'm going to sleep on that. And, of course, some of our best thinking takes place while we're asleep. Our brain does things that we don't control, as you point out. And, I don't always make the same decision in the morning, but I often do that--that it was my snap judgment. But I feel much better about it having slept on it. And, I don't know if that's a little way of getting a taste of introversion. I do want to just add-- Susan Cain: Can I just add to that? Yeah. That insight that you just made is making me think of an interview I did with General Stanley McChrystal, who defines himself as an introvert. And he talks about, partly because of being an introvert, when it was time to make important decisions in the field, he said, despite there being a culture of needing to make those decisions incredibly quickly, he would always try to go off by himself to think about what he really thought was right. And, only then would he have the courage of his convictions to come back and act on that decision. And, that's a very introverted way of doing things. Russ Roberts: You don't have to go overnight, of course. You can go away for five minutes. You could just let me chew on that, come back in five minutes, and tell me why I'm wrong. I'm happy to hear why I'm wrong. In fact, I desperately want to hear why I'm wrong. Because if I'm making a mistake, I'd rather not. I'd rather avoid that. So, it's a very interesting question. |
| 55:22 | Russ Roberts: So, this book came out in 2012. There were some subsidiary books that came out. We're not going to talk about them, but there are a lot of practical things in this book about how to cope with your introversion or how to overcome some of the challenges that arise when you are swimming against the cultural stream, as many introverts do. But, I'm curious how this book changed your life: because I'm sure it did. It did make a very large splash. I'm sure writing it helped you think about yourself in many ways. But, I'm also curious about the last 13, 14-now years of having written a book like this. People must tell you things that the book did for them. They must sometimes argue with you about what they disagree. Talk about that whole experience. Susan Cain: Oh my gosh, yeah. It's been quite the journey. There's so much to say. I guess the first thing that happened--the great irony, is--I wrote this book at the same time I gave a TED Talk [Technology, Entertainment, and Design Talk] about it that went very viral. And, as a result, I ever since have been asked to come and speak all over the world at companies and schools and organizations about how to harness the talents of the introverted half of the population. And so, this is a huge irony, because as you alluded to, I used to be incredibly afraid of public speaking. And, when I gave that TED talk, it was by far the hardest thing I have ever done or will ever do in my life because at the time, I was still completely terrified of the stage. But, I did learn over time, and maybe we can talk separately about how to overcome any fear--because I now know, and it's really doable--so, I did overcome that. So, I have spent the last 13 years traveling the world and speaking. So, that alone has been kind of crazy. Never would I would have imagined for myself. Incredibly gratifying to see how many companies and organizations are receptive to these ideas and actually eager to implement them, because why wouldn't you be? If you have half your workforce who you're probably wasting, to some degree, their talents and energies, why wouldn't you want to try to fix that? So, that's incredibly cool. The other thing that you also alluded to that is amazing is: I now attend a lot of conferences, as a speaker or just to see what's going on. And, especially when I attend a conference and I've given a talk at the beginning of it about introversion, the whole rest of the conference I never have to deal with small talk again, because everybody comes up to me and tells me their stories. A lot of times those stories have to do with introversion, but not always. I think there's just something about if you're out there on stage talking about any topic that has to do with psychology or about being vulnerable, other people will then feel safe to come and tell you what's going on for them. And, that's just incredibly moving and gratifying to be able to connect with people on that a level--instantly, without having to wade through any small talk first. We're just right in the deep stuff right away. |
| 59:09 | Russ Roberts: So, I'll let you give your pointers, but I'll tell the story first about my own issues on this. I think I've told my audience that when I was in 7th grade, I was in Midsummer Night's Dream. I played Bottom and Pyramus, same character, which was easy for me. It was easy. And then, in eighth grade, I was Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. I sang, I had memorized a zillion lines. I was never nervous. And, I thought, 'Well, this is a great thing. I'm never--have to worry about this.' And then, somewhere in high school, I think it was 10th grade, I had to recite a poem. The poem was 'Le Lac,' L-A-C, by I think Lamartine, if I remember correctly. And, I got up there. I'm feeling very confident, and as I'm standing there, I realize that my legs are shaking violently. I have two impulses at the same time, neither which work at the same time. One is to look down and see whether anybody else could see them, which is a bad thing because it calls attention to the problem. But, the second thing was to say to my legs: Stop. Obviously, if your legs are shaking, you should just stop shaking them. It's not helpful. But, I couldn't stop them. And, that made me afraid of public speaking for some time. It doesn't scare me anymore. I somehow got over it. And, the standard argument, which you reference in your book, is to imagine the audience in its underwear, which does not help at all for me. Never has. So, tell us some of the things that helped you. Susan Cain: Oh yeah. Well, the key--and this applies to any fear, not just the fear of public speaking--is the miracle of desensitization, which means that you can desensitize yourself to something you're afraid of by exposing yourself to it in very small, manageable doses. So, you can't start off by giving a TED talk. You want to start off exactly the opposite. I went to a seminar for people with public speaking anxiety, and on the first day, all we had--I think I wrote about this in the book--all we had to do was stand up and say our name, and then sit back down. And we were finished and that was the victory for the day. And then, you'd come back the next week and the exercise would just be ever so slightly more challenging. Like stand up and answer some questions about where did you grow up? Where do you go to school? Really easy stuff. Sit back down. You're finished. And, you do that little by little by little, and you're basically retraining your brain. If you're afraid of public speaking or snakes or anything, what's happening is the amygdala in your brain is responding as if this event is just as threatening as a saber-toothed tiger. And, when you have these small, repeated experiences again and again, you are teaching your brain that it's not actually a saber-toothed tiger, and it's actually something pretty manageable. So, the butterflies don't go away a hundred percent, but they can go away up to 97, 98%, which is pretty good. Russ Roberts: Yeah. I would never-- Susan Cain: It's almost miraculous. Russ Roberts: I wouldn't want them to go all the way up to a hundred. I am still nervous before an EconTalk interview, your guest number 1000-and-30-something. I don't know what the count is lately. But I have a modest amount of anxiety before every episode, even though I have a large amount of data that says it's going to be okay. It's not a rational--you can't talk yourself out of it is, I think, the interesting point. Just like you can't tell your knees to quit shaking. Susan Cain: Right. And that's interesting. Does the anxiety ever outweigh the pleasure of doing it? Russ Roberts: With EconTalk? Susan Cain: Yeah. Or other similar things? Russ Roberts: No. I always enjoy it. It's interesting that that's not enough to help me not worry about it. I actually kind of think it's probably okay to worry about it. I've told the story in here before of Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics, maybe the greatest basketball player of all time. He's somewhat forgotten now, but he was an extraordinary performer. And supposedly he threw up before every game. Maybe it's only every playoff game. But, he had nothing to be worried about. But, I think for him, if you had told him, 'I've got a trick for you that you won't have that level of anxiety,' he would say, 'I don't want to know that trick because I need that to pump myself up.' So, I think I'd be worried if I went to give a speech and I didn't have some unease. Sometimes the unease is about the content. It's not about the performance. Susan Cain: Just the fact of being looked at. Russ Roberts: No. I'm saying it's not that. Susan Cain: Right. No. I understand. Russ Roberts: Yeah. That's small. I don't mind that at all. It's that: what if they don't think I'm smart? What if they think I'm an idiot? What if they don't understand what I'm talking about and afterwards they come up to me and say, 'What was that?' I think that's the anxiety. But it's all tied together, of course. Susan Cain: Yeah. And, it has to be at the right levels. The level of anxiety I used to experience was not performance-enhancing. It was detracting. And so, if you're listening to this, excuse me, you know which category you're in. So, if you're in the place where it's detracting, I would say, sign up for your local Toastmasters. Because wherever you are in the world, there is a local Toastmasters near you and they're full of people who usually start out terrified of public speaking, and that's why they're there. So, it's a place where you can practice where the stakes are really low. It doesn't matter if you screw up, and people will be supportive. |
| 1:05:32 | Russ Roberts: Let's close with this. There's many things in the book that you--I would call them suggestions, advice, things to help people cope with their personality that they've been pretty much given. Do you think this changes over time, either because of life experiences or working at it? Do you feel that your personality is relatively fixed, and what we're talking about here are just ways of coping with it? Or do you think you've actually molded yourself in a way that's a little different than, say, you were before you wrote the book, or even 12 years ago, 13 years ago? Susan Cain: No. I think that for most people, your underlying preferences and traits stay the same, more or less. But, we all have so many new experiences all the time and acquire new skills--which is what we were just talking about a minute ago. If we're talking about public speaking, that's acquiring a new skill, and that's a new skill that changes your life in profound ways. But, I don't feel that my underlying self is different or my underlying preferences. It's still the case for me that my favorite day is one where I'm hanging out with my family, maybe a close friend or two. I'm in a cafe with my laptop. I'm playing tennis. It's a pretty quiet day, and I believe that will always be my favorite day, even though I can go out and make speeches on the next Tuesday. Russ Roberts: My guest today has been Susan Cain. Her book is Quiet. Susan, thanks for being part of EconTalk. Susan Cain: Thank you so much for having me, Russ. Always. |
Introverts are underrated. So says Susan Cain in her conversation with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about her book, Quiet. She explains why introversion isn't the same thing as shyness and she speaks of the many benefits of solitude and silent contemplation. They also discuss why modern schools and workplaces' obsession with extroversion is problematic, and the reasons for the shift from a culture of character to our current culture of personality. Cain concludes by sharing how the book has changed her own life and helped other introverts navigate a world that can't seem to stop talking.
READER COMMENTS
Chase Eyster
Mar 2 2026 at 7:17pm
I really enjoyed the conversation between Russ and Susan Cain, and I believe it is particularly important to reflect on the amount of quiet in our lives in this era of constant stimulation. Cain’s book “Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Makes Us Whole” was a life-changing read for me, and I highly recommend it to anyone who feels they are never doing enough to atone for the mistakes they have made in their quest for the modern definition of “success”. A little reflection has made me a better human being. Thank you, Susan Cain.
Geoff Swier
Mar 3 2026 at 2:14am
A very interesting discussion. On the point about education practices, I went to a boarding school in New Zealand in the 70s which was based on the English public school model. At ages 13 to 15 on weekday evenings we had ‘Prep’ (preparation) which involved sitting in a room with say 35 boys and sitting in total silence while we did our homework assignments. There was a one hour session, a 15 minute break and then another 45 minute a session. Prep was supervised by a prefect. If you finished your homework, you were required to stay and do something else, such as reading. For me, in retrospect, and speaking as an introvert, this was fantastic training on how to be focused and disciplined in performing any kind of task. It definitely had a positive impact on my later career. English public schools get a lot of criticism, some of which is valid, but the educators who came up with ‘Prep’ were onto something.
Matt
Mar 3 2026 at 9:14am
This was great. I loved her (sad) insight that in 2012, it seemed the internet might be “good” for introverts, but things have gotten much, much worse with social media.
Luke J
Mar 4 2026 at 10:53pm
I was with AWS for over nine years, so I’ll share my experience around the Amazon meeting memos.
The documents I am most familiar with were one-page narratives, six-page narratives, and PR/FAQs. I authored about 10 one-pagers, and about 5 six-pagers, and the length constraints really force a writer to articulate a point as clearly and succinctly as one can. Multiple pages of appendices and references are allowed. PR/FAQs might be in bullet point format. Any one of these docs can take weeks, months to prepare.
Not every meeting involves or revolves around a document review but they are common enough, especially among the upper management and executive-level.
Yes, the presenter brings and distributes copies of the doc to the meeting attendees (or projects their laptop screen on to the conference TVs) and the first minutes of the meeting pass silently as everyone reads the document to his/herself.
After about 3-5 minutes (or 7-13 for longer docs) the presenter then asks if anyone needs clarification on any point, because “people.”
Then the meat portion begins in which attendees challenge assumptions, recommendations, or simply express their aversion or proclivity, and the writer needs to be prepared to address all of the concerns.
It is not unusual that a presenter will need to go rewrite the doc based on input from the attendees. Bjt ifnyou have a god writer, solid data, and smart people, thrn tbe meeting should conclude with commitment on the path forward and necessary action items.
The goal of Amazon’s writing culture is to empower people to make decisions quickly based on good data. 30 minutes is more than enough for one-page docs. My personal best was finishing a six-page meeting in under 15 minutes with the leadership buy-in I wanted.
No more Powerpoint; no more 90 minute pointless prattle, and as an introvert myself, i really liked how the Amazon writing and meeting formats removed me from the center of attention.
Shalom Freedman
Mar 5 2026 at 6:51am
This was a most enjoyable and interesting conversation- and diversion posted in a week when all my attention has been on the war in Iran. I have many memories of myself especially in high-school years wishing I could be away from the party crowd and alone reading. I would say one of the themes of my own life has been overcoming my own desire to just be left alone, and somehow get out there and meet with and do something with and for others. Overcoming my own introversion, while continuing to be introverted, has been a central theme of my life. Pascal said ‘All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone’ He might more positively if more awkwardly have said ‘Many of humanity’s greatest creations come from those quietly sitting and working alone’
Bruce
Mar 5 2026 at 4:27pm
Good discussion, but doesnt go beyond what Jung came up with when he created the terms introversion and extraversion. This has been popularized (since at least the 1960’s (?) when Jung’s work was translated into English) with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (which is not a test). The Big-5 psychological instrument also tries to measure degree of extraversion.
The Jung verson also addresses the question that came up about remembering details in peoples social life which is not I/E but which decision making function you prefer (MBTI T/F). Presumably most economists prefer logic for making decisions (T), while half of the world prefers values (F).
If interested, Russ can read a lot of books that make this all clear to laymen (or even search for MBTI and read some of the results)
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