A new article on Psychology Today “Seizing New Opportunities When You Are Shy”
invites readers to think about the following passage:
“The Accepted Wisdom of
success says face-to-face social
networking is the best way to find new opportunities. I am bad
at it. In other words, to be successful means I must be someone other than me!”
It goes on to ask the reader if they
have ever thought this way. Have you?
I have, because the world and my
experience within it has not shown me anything else. Like many shy people (and some introverted
people) I have cycled through many jobs because I was perceived as “cold” “not
part of the conversation” “not a gadfly” “not chatty” and so forth, even though
I was good at my actual job duties. My
competencies seemed to matter little compared to my ability to communicate in a
way that makes extroverts more comfortable.
And mind you, I’m no misanthropic crabapple
by any means. I am kind and
personable.
I just don’t talk a lot or
go out of my way to socialize with people at work.
Now, Psychology Today is telling me
that my “logic pattern” is off. Yeah,
you read that right. Here’s the article
for you to make of it what you will:
According to Dr. Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University, 40
percent of American adults would endorse the proposition, "I consider myself
a shy person."
It’s not you; it’s your logic pattern.
Zimbardo found that shy people have a cognitive framework
different from their more extroverted peers.
Not better. Not worse. Different.
For example:
Two-year-old Jennifer goes with her mother to visit one of
mother's friends. Jennifer is hugging mother's skirts and avoiding eye contact
with the friend. Mother says to her friend, "I'm sorry but Jennifer is
shy."
This explanation is an example of generalized logic. It
extrapolates behavior from one situation and then predicts similar behavior in
nearly all situations. For better or worse, many shy people have a cognitive
framework biased in
the direction of this kind of generalized logic.
Now let’s revisit the same situation with Jennifer and her
mother. This time, let’s have mother say the following:
"I'm sorry but Jennifer tends to be shy when first
meeting strangers. I'm sure she will act differently once she gets to know
you."
This cognitive framework is situational. It avoids
generalization and puts a focus on external environmental factors rather than
the daughter’s overall personality.
It explicitly states that a change in conditions would change Jennifer’s
behavior. The first explanation offers no hope of change.
Ok.
Let’s stop right here. It’s not
the shy person who is applying the logic.
It’s the mom, who probably is not shy or an introvert. This is the problem. Extroverts are the one’s generalizing! They are the one’s who generalize that
quietness equals weakness and in competence.
We hear it all our lives. So OUR LOGIC PATTERN IS OFF? By the way, this example makes no goddamn
sense whatsoever. OK, here’s some more
of the article:
How shy people use generalized
logic to justify not taking action
A recruiter tells an outgoing CFO about an opportunity that
would require relocation from Boston to Tulsa, Oklahoma. This CFO might employ
situational logic in the following manner: "the job interview itself is
worth my time, if only for interview practice. I am not interested in moving to
Tulsa. But, who knows? Perhaps the firm will have an opportunity that is too
good to pass up. I’ve never been to Tulsa. I should not judge it until I
see it. I will never know unless give it a try. After all, it is only a job
interview. My family might enjoy a change of scenery or they might not. Let’s
cross that bridge if we need to cross it.”
A shy CFO might react to the same opportunity with the
following pattern of logic:
“If I accept the interview, what happens if I get an offer?
Take the Tulsa job or be unemployed, perhaps forever. My spouse would never
move to Tulsa. My children will be angry at me. I will alienate my children and
my spouse will divorce me.
I will end up living alone in a cheap motel in Tulsa.”
OMG. This article is
just dumb. Don’t you think? You can read
the full text here.
First it sets us up with a completely BOGUS example of how
shy people generalize using a shy child and her mother instead of the more
salient CFO grown up shy person example.
Then it goes on to say shy people don’t take advantage of
opportunities because they generalize. I
don’t think being a generalize has ANYTHING to do specifically with shyness
except for the fact that shy people live in a hostile world that does not
accept them, generalization in social situations makes perfect sense. The society has taught them that they will be
cut down and made to feel uncomfortable so why try?
Very few adults come to the rescue of shy kids either. They are left alone and ignored quite often
or ridiculed and shamed into being more talkative. So it burns me up for this
article to be saying generalization keeps shy people from opportunities, when,
perhaps, I don’t know – maybe it’s a hostile society and its generalizations
about the shy and introverted that just might be to blame.
