Quiet

Susan Cain, a former corporate lawyer who went on to train people in negotiation, published this book in 2012 after years of research and interviews. Her argument is that, depending on the study, a third to a half of Americans are introverts, yet modern Western culture, and American culture above all, holds up the bold, talkative, sociable person as the model to follow, an outlook she calls the Extrovert Ideal. Introverts, she writes, are not shy or antisocial by definition; they simply feel best with less outside stimulation, and they bring strengths such as careful thought, persistence and listening that schools, offices and leaders often overlook.

The book has four parts. The Extrovert Ideal traces how America came to prize personality over character, and questions the cult of the charismatic leader and of group work. Your Biology, Your Self? looks at the science of temperament: inborn sensitivity, how far we can change, and how introverts and extroverts respond differently to reward and risk. Do All Cultures Have an Extrovert Ideal? compares American and East Asian attitudes to talk and silence. How to Love, How to Work gives advice on acting out of character, on couples of opposite types, and on raising quiet children.

Notes. Cain says she uses the word introvert more broadly than most personality researchers: for her it also covers traits such as sensitivity, a rich inner life and some kinds of anxiety, which psychologists usually place under other headings. Some people in the book, including the couple Greg and Emily and her first evening in a public speaking class, are composites, as Cain says in her author's note. The book also reports single-gene findings, such as those on the serotonin-transporter gene, from a kind of research that has not held up well: a 2019 study of very large samples found no reliable link between that gene, alone or together with stressful life events, and depression. Some critics, for example a review in Hyphen magazine, faulted the chapter on Asian-American students for generalizing too much about Asian cultures and for blurring Asians and Asian Americans; Cain herself warns against national and ethnic stereotyping in that chapter.