Jung’s theory of personality types popularized the terms extraversion & introversion, but we tend to use those terms differently than he did. In this thread I give an overview of these foundational concepts and how they relate to Jung’s central idea of the archetypes. 1/thread

Contemporary psychology and popular usage define extroversion and introversion in terms of behavior or social aptitude: one is seen as extraverted if one is outgoing, energetic and interpersonally skilled, and introverted if one is shy, withdrawn, or socially awkward. 2/23

The NEO-PI, one of the measures of the popular five-factor model of personality, defines extraversion with respect to “sociability, activity, and the tendency to experience positive emotions such as joy and pleasure.” Introverts are thus seen as “reserved and reticent.” 3/23

Unfortunately, this leads to some contorted understandings and confusions. I can’t count how many times someone has tried to make sense of the fact that they prefer to be alone or quiet, yet are socially fluent and outgoing when they need to be. 4/23

The NEO-PI definition betrays a bias toward seeing introverts as less happy, less energetic, and less socially capable than extraverts. Rather than two equal, opposite poles of personality, we get one dimension of preferable traits that extraverts have and introverts lack. 5/23

This is one of the reasons I appreciate Jung’s theory: he makes pains to consider different types as equally valuable, & he makes a general, egalitarian observation and assumption that types are evenly distributed “in all ranks of society…[s]ex makes no difference either.” 6/23

Jung’s original notion of intro/extraversion is not focused on behavior or social skills, however, but rather on the characteristic operations of basic psychological functions: that is, the way we take in the world around us and organize it within our consciousness. 7/23

Jung began by distinguishing two types of people, defined by the direction of their interests. The two attitude-types of extraversion and introversion concern whether a person has a predominantly outward- or inward-oriented approach to objects in the world. 8/23

The word ‘object’ here is in contrast to ‘subject.’ Thus, an object could be an oak tree, a copy of the Picatrix, a housecat, a wine bottle, a person—anything existing outside the conscious subject, to be taken in by the senses and made sense of in thought. 9/23

Jung invites us to notice how “two people see the same object, but they never see it in such a way that the images they receive are identical… there often exists a radical difference, both in kind and in degree, in the psychic assimilation of the perceptual image.” 10/23

The difference is not in *what* is taken in, but *how* the object is taken up by the subject. “Whereas the extravert continually appeals to what comes to him from the object, the introvert relies principally on what the sense impression constellates in the subject.” 11/23

The extraverted type describes people whose “decisions and actions are [habitually] determined not by subjective views but by objective conditions.” The extravert’s “interest and attention are direct to objective happenings, particularly those in his immediate environment.” 12/23

Jung’s definition of introversion in terms of libido helps us understand his unique contribution. He used the term libido to refer not just to sexual energy, as Freud did, but to psychic energy more broadly: “the intensity of a psychic process, its psychological value. 13/23

Extraversion is “an outward-turning of libido…a positive movement of subjective interest towards the object,” whereas introversion “means an inward-turning of libido… [such that i]nterest does not move toward the object but withdraws from it into the subject.” 14/23

Does the introvert just flinch away from the world, or does the libido not just withdraw from the object but toward something in the subject? This is where Jung’s famous notions of the archetypes and the collective unconscious come in. 15/23

“The introverted attitude is normally oriented by the psychic structure, which is in principle hereditary and is inborn in the subject.” This inherited psychic structure is what Jung means by the collective unconscious, or what he sometimes calls the objective psyche. 16/23

Just as you and I, observing a river, have equal access to its sensory qualities—its rushing sound, light glinting off the water, and so forth—so too for its symbolic potentials—analogies between flowing water and time, separation of lands or worlds, and so forth. 17/23

Jung’s theory relies on a third term beyond object and subject: this third term is the archetype, or primordial image: “an inherited organization of psychic energy, an ingrained system, which not only gives expression to the energic process but facilitates its operation.” 18/23

Thus, an experience consists in the psychological act of uniting received objective data with the inborn archetypal images it constellates. This act results in an experience, an inner object alloyed more or less by the external object or its archetypal significance. 19/23

Our attitude-type describes our habitual modes of psychological action involved in perception: energy for extraverts flows toward the external object, while energy for introverts flows toward the primordial image. The subject is the fulcrum on which this balance turns. 20/23

It is worth underscoring that Jung’s theory of personality didn’t stop here. He tended not to think of extraversion and introversion not in terms of people but of functions: that is, the way we take in the world around us and organize it within our consciousness. 21/23

The four functions are familiar to anyone who’s taken the Myers-Briggs: two irrational or perceiving functions—sensing and intuition—and two rational or judging functions—feeling and thinking. I will define and explore the four functions more in future threads. 22/23

Hopefully this gives you a sense of Jung’s notions of extraversion and introversion. He saw personality not as some average concept of our social behavior, but rather as a consequence of our fundamental way of being in and orienting to the external & archetypal worlds. 23/thread

A long-form version of this thread, "Jung's Notions of Extraversion and Introversion," is available on my website here: https://www.rainmasonphd.com/writing/jungs-notions-of-extraversion-and-introversion