STACEY VANEK SMITH, HOST:
Hey, everyone. It's Stacey and Cardiff. This is THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY. So recently a listener named Sean (ph) asked this really great question that we wanted to answer during the show, but he declined to send us a voice recording of the question. We asked him if he could send a voice memo to us, and he said no. So Cardiff is going to read the question instead.
CARDIFF GARCIA, HOST:
Sean writes, quote, "I am a classic introvert. I was wondering if anyone has ever done an income comparison between introverts and extroverts. Is my introvertedness costing me money," unquote.
VANEK SMITH: Oh, he didn't want to send a voice memo in 'cause he's an introvert.
GARCIA: (Laughter) Yeah.
VANEK SMITH: We love you, Sean.
GARCIA: It's kind of appropriate - right? - an introvert asking a question about his introvertedness.
VANEK SMITH: (Laughter).
GARCIA: So yeah, it makes sense he didn't want to ask it out loud.
VANEK SMITH: Yes, it does. But it's a really good question. So today on the show, we take a look at the research about this. Who makes more money, and why - introverts or extroverts?
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VANEK SMITH: So the question we got was from Sean, our listener, who wrote in to ask about whether introverts get paid more or less at their jobs than extroverts. So to answer this, we called an economist who studies this very topic - the relationship between personality traits and economic outcomes.
MIRIAM GENSOWSKI: Hi. My name is Miriam Gensowski. I'm assistant professor of economics at the University of Copenhagen.
GARCIA: And we got right to the point. We asked professor Gensowski what we can tell our introverted listener Sean about whether introverts or extroverts make more money.
GENSOWSKI: We can tell him unfortunately because he characterizes himself as an introvert, that extroverts earn clearly more than introverts do. And that difference in earnings is actually quite large.
VANEK SMITH: No, no.
GARCIA: Boo - yeah, bad news for us.
VANEK SMITH: No, extroverts.
GARCIA: (Laughter).
VANEK SMITH: Well, anyway (laughter), professor Gensowski arrived at this conclusion in a recent paper in which she looked at data collected in a very famous study done between the years 1921 and 1991. And in the study, the people being studied were roughly 11 or 12 years old, and their parents and teachers rated them on how introverted or extroverted they were. For example, if a kid was, like, really popular and showed a fondness for big crowds, the kid was rated as more extroverted.
GARCIA: And then every five or 10 years after that as the kids grew up into adults, the study would collect data on how much money they were making. And there was better data available about the men in the study than the women because of course throughout those years in the 20th century, career opportunities were limited for women. So professor Gensowski discusses the findings for men when it comes to lifetime earnings.
VANEK SMITH: So, you know, at first, Cardiff, we were looking at the study, and we were kind of picking it apart a little bit. And as it turned out, it was a group of men in California who had really high IQs. And we're like, aha - loophole, right?
GARCIA: Yeah, loophole, yeah. We're good.
VANEK SMITH: This is just a very particular case of, you know, California dudes with high IQs who are extroverted and happen to make a lot of money. So maybe it's different for people who live elsewhere. Or, you know, maybe things have changed since the early '90s. You know, industries have changed. Trends have changed. Tech is really big. So maybe now introverts get paid more or the same as extroverts. Maybe the study led us astray.
GARCIA: Yeah, professor Gensowski says sorry, probably not.
VANEK SMITH: Oh, no.
GARCIA: She even emailed us a bunch of other studies confirming the same thing for people without high IQs who don't live in California and who have done this during more recent time periods.
GENSOWSKI: This has been replicated in, you know, the recent years and in many different countries. So we have data on the Netherlands and the U.K. and Germany and places like that where you find very similar effects that the extroverts earn more.
VANEK SMITH: So, you know, the data shows the more extroverted you are, the more you get paid. How much more? Here is kind of a simplified explanation of what professor Gensowski found. So if you take one person who is right in the middle of, you know, the spectrum of introversion and extroversion - so, you know, it's not that easy to say if the person is an introvert or an extrovert; they're just kind of in the middle somewhere - and then, say, you take another person who is clearly an introvert, the introvert will make about half a million dollars less throughout the course of their career.
GARCIA: Yeah, that's the normal person's explanation, by the way. If you do want the jargony explanation with talk of, like, standard deviations and whatnot...
VANEK SMITH: (Laughter).
GARCIA: ...We'll include a link to the study at npr.org/money, and you can dig in there. But by the way, as Stacey hinted earlier, something our listeners might be surprised to learn is that the two of us...
VANEK SMITH: Yes.
GARCIA: ...Stacey and I - we are kind of introverted.
VANEK SMITH: Hugely, yes.
GARCIA: (Laughter) Yeah. And so we asked professor Gensowski if she had at least some good news for the two of us. But honestly her first response kind of backfired.
GENSOWSKI: I would say there is hope because, you know, being introverted doesn't mean that one cannot try to mimic some of the behaviors that the extroverts have.
VANEK SMITH: Oh.
GARCIA: Yeah, she means things like being more outgoing, speaking up at meetings, trying to meet more new people even when it's uncomfortable. But still this answer was a bit of a bummer...
VANEK SMITH: I know.
GARCIA: ...Because it means that, you know, either we get paid less, or we have to pretend that we're someone we're not. I don't know.
VANEK SMITH: Rock and a hard place...
GARCIA: Yeah.
VANEK SMITH: ...For introverts.
GARCIA: Yeah, though there were some other reasons that professor Gensowski says introverts should not lose hope.
VANEK SMITH: For one thing, it is not clear why extroverts make more money than introverts. So it is not necessarily the case that being extroverted will make someone better at their job. It could be that extroverts are just better at getting the attention of their bosses, and that gets them bigger raises and bonuses than introverts get. And if so, that is something that employers could fix if they, you know, realize it, identified it and, you know, wanted to pay people more.
GARCIA: And bothered.
VANEK SMITH: And bothered.
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VANEK SMITH: Poor introverts.
GENSOWSKI: In my research, I also find that this effect of extroverts earning more than the introverts - that doesn't appear early on in these men's careers. So at age 25, for example, there are no significant differences between earnings of introverts and extroverts. But, you know, after 35, 40, then you start really big - a big gap opening up. So it could be that this is working through the promotions mechanism.
GARCIA: Could be - she says it's not really clear and that a lot of this is just speculation. Plus there are a bunch of other complications. For example, there is no one agreed upon definition of introversion and extroversion. So, like, one example is a definition that says introverts are more oriented towards their inner-thoughts whereas extroverts are more oriented towards what's happening, like, in the world around them outside their heads.
VANEK SMITH: Another definition is that introverts prefer environments that don't have too much stimulation like other people talking or music or, you know, just a lot of things happening.
GARCIA: Open-plan offices.
VANEK SMITH: (Laughter) I know, Cardiff. I'm sorry.
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VANEK SMITH: This is basically the Cardiff Garcia definition of introverts.
GARCIA: Right.
VANEK SMITH: Introverts apparently prefer quieter, more peaceful, less crowded environments. And they often need some alone time to regain their energy after they've been around people a lot.
GARCIA: Yeah, and without having a set definition, an agreed-upon definition, it's just hard to know how introversion will affect any one person's earning situation. But the story that Stacey and I are running with is just that past is not prologue.
VANEK SMITH: Absolutely not. Introverts of the world unite.
GARCIA: It's coming.
VANEK SMITH: Except...
GARCIA: The revolution is coming.
VANEK SMITH: Except we'll never want to have a meeting.
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GARCIA: Right. But it is the case that the workplace is constantly changing, and it's impossible to predict what it will look like in the future. So just because the extroverts have been paid more until now doesn't mean that their advantage will last forever.
VANEK SMITH: Because maybe, just maybe as more research like professor Gensowski's is brought to light, companies themselves will adjust. And then they'll finally realize that, you know, the loudest person in the room should not necessarily get paid more. Squeaky wheels should not always get more oil. Instead, you know, maybe the people sitting around can stop talking and let people get work done.
GARCIA: Yeah. The loudest person should just...
VANEK SMITH: Cardiff...
GARCIA: ...Shut up, right?
VANEK SMITH: (Laughter) I know.
GARCIA: The loudest person should just shut up.
VANEK SMITH: One day, one day.
GARCIA: Anyway, Sean, that's it. We hope that helped and didn't bum you out too much.
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GARCIA: This episode of THE INDICATOR was produced by Darius Rafieyan and edited by Paddy Hirsch. Our intern is Willa Rubin, and THE INDICATOR is a production of NPR.
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