Let’s get the numbers right!  Perhaps my all time favorite book empowering introverts to be who we are without apology is Introvert Power by Laurie Helgoe, Ph.D.  One of her biggest contributions to our understanding of introversion is to set the record straight on the numbers! 

She does some excellent detective word to uncover that the often quoted “one-fourth to one-third of people are introverts” comes from a study conducted by Myers (from Myers-Briggs) with college males back in 1957.  More recent and large scale populations based studies show quite a different picture.  A 1998 population based study, the largest one to date, showed that introverts comprised 50.7% of the representative sample and extroverts 49.3%.  The most recent sample in 2001 showed that 57% of the sample were introverts and 43% extroverts (as reported in the MBTI Step II Manual, 2001).

If introverts are not a numerical minority how is it that we all think we are?  How does popular culture perpetuate and benefit from this misconception?  What happens if we expose this folklore?  How do introverts benefit when we are recognized as consisting of half the population?  Half! That is one out of two of us!