I'm realizing a lot of people still seem to believe "Extroverts recharge by being around people, introverts recharge by being alone!"
....there's zero evidence for this, in fact, the evidence pretty heavily debunks this framing!
1) Socializing lifts mood for basically everyone
Experience-sampling studies (Fleeson, Malanos and Achille, 2002) find that people felt better in moments when they were acting extroverted, including introverts
2) Lucas and colleagues (2008) found introverts AND extroverts both reported more happiness in social situations
AKA extroverts’ higher baseline happiness wasn’t explained by their spending more time around people
3) Introverts mispredict how they’ll feel
Zelenski, Santoro and Whelan (2012) found introverts expected acting extraverted to feel worse than it actually did.
4) Social fatigue is universal!
Leikas and Ilmarinen (2017) found extraverted behavior produced an immediate mood boost and then more fatigue about three hours later, regardless of a person’s trait level
Getting tired after a party is normal for everyone, it doesn’t mean you're an introvert
Bottom line is, most people feel better after interacting with people AND most people need some downtime afterwards
Introverts and extroverts mostly just differ in the amount of socialization they each seek and prefer - but this doesn't predict whether they'll enjoy it or whether it will benefit them