One of AFS’s guiding frameworks is the pyramid of Educational Objectives. This pyramid shows how the intercultural experience that AFS provides is based on the development of personal awareness.

In an entry featured here in July on the power of introverts, we summarized the findings of Susan Cain, author of Quiet, a book publishing research on the characteristics of introverts and the impact that a culture and society tending to favor characteristics of extroverts in professional and educational settings can have.

Personalities as well as the societies we are raised in both influence our identities and cultural make-up and while introverts and extroverts exist everywhere, their characteristics in work and learning environments may be valued differently depending on cultural values. This analysis is pertinent to many of the curricular aspects on which AFS, the Intercultural Link Learning Program, and the greater Intercultural Learning department focus. Becoming aware of these traits can help enrich our interpersonal and intercultural experiences in our roles at AFS and in our lives.

So, where do the concepts of introvert and extrovert come from? Psychological type is a theory developed by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, which proposes that although people use their minds in different ways, they do tend to follow certain patterns of behavior. Jung defined eight patterns of normal behavior, which he called types. The introverted and the extroverted pattern reveals where individuals like to focus their energy or how they are energized by either the internal world of ideas, memories and emotions, or by the external world of people, experience and activities. Especially relevant to our AFS work is the notion that, while an introvert, for example, can operate in the external world, this individual will likely prefer or be more comfortable focusing their attention inward. An extrovert may be successful in solo projects, but then may require stimulation from a group setting to regain energy. These personality traits have been observed across cultures and are not determined by our cultural background, gender or age, although, as Susan Cain suggests, the learned values may imply that a culture or society prefers or rewards behavior that is characteristic of an introvert or an extrovert.