The Secret Lives of Introverts: Inside Our Hidden World

by Jenn Granneman

You don’t get “high” off your environment. There’s a reason why crowds, parties, and networking events aren’t your thing: introverts and extroverts differ in how their brains process experiences through reward centers. Neurobiologists Yu Fu and Richard Depue demonstrated this phenomenon by giving Ritalin to introverted and extroverted college students (Ritalin is a drug used to treat ADHD that stimulates the production of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain). They found that extroverts were more likely to connect their feelings of bliss with the environment they were in. However, introverts did not associate the feeling of reward with their surroundings. This suggests that introverts have a basic difference in how strongly they process rewards from their environment (more about introverts and rewards later). According to the researchers, the brains of introverts may weigh internal cues more strongly than external ones. In other words, introverts don’t feel “high” from their surroundings; instead, we’re paying more attention to what’s going on inwardly.