In our society, the ideal self is bold, gregarious, and comfortable in the spotlight. We like to think that we value individuality, but mostly we admire the type of individual who's comfortable 'putting himself out there.'

Susan Cain

Susan Cain

Admire Bold Comfortable Gregarious Himself Ideal Individual Individuality Like Mostly Our Out Putting Self Society Spotlight Think Type Value

Related Quotes

A widely held, but rarely articulated, belief in our society is that the ideal self is bold, alpha, gregarious. Introversion is viewed somewhere between disappointment and pathology.

AlphaBeliefBetween

Some introverts are perfectly comfortable with public speaking; I'm not one of them.

ComfortablePerfectlyPublic

To some extent, we've always had an admiration for extroversion in our culture. But the extrovert ideal really came to play at the turn of the 20th century when we had the rise of big business.

20th CenturyAdmirationAlways

Men are more likely to be introverted than women are, but it's really very slight. But the real difference I think is in how it plays out, how it relates to cultural stereotypes.

CulturalDifferenceHow

All personality traits have their good side and their bad side. But for a long time, we've seen introversion only through its negative side and extroversion mostly through its positive side.