How Did Introverts Survive The Process of Evolution

If the low-reactives–the bold and the aggressive–always prevail, as do always the extroverts since the beginning of time, then how come do introverts managed to survive? Why were the meek, the sensitive, the risk-averted introverts not filtered out by the process of evolution in a harsh environment?

“There is no single best . . . personality, but rather a diversity of personalities maintained by natural selection,” writes David Sloan Wilson, an evolutionary biologist, as he describe “fast” and “slow” types. Fast being the quick-to-adapt, impulsive, and headstrong type who rushes toward danger, ambivalent of their surroundings. Slow, being the sensitive, careful, and analytical type who are slow to warm-up.

Elaine Aron, clinical research psychologist and author, believes that high-sensitivity were not particularly selected, but rather the vigilance and reflective traits that helped introverts survived were cherry picked by natural selection. Surely, if evolution permitted these traits to survive, it must be advantageous, if not superior, to other #personality traits that didn’t. In fact, as Aron speculates, sensitivity is a by-product of the survival of the fittest. It is the words of Aron that make these clearer:

    The type that is "sensitive" or "reactive" would reflect a strategy of
    observing carefully before acting, thus avoiding dangers, failures and
    wasted energy, which would require a nervous system specially designed to
    observe and detect subtle differences. It is a strategy of "betting on
    a sure thing" or "looking before you leap." In contrast, the active strategy
    of the [other type] is to be first, without, complete information and with
    the attendant risks--the strategy of "taking a long shot" because the "early
    bird catches the work" and "opportunity only knocks once."

As Susan Cain wrote, “There’s a great deal of evidence for Aron’s point of view. Evolutionary biologists once believed that every animal species evolved to fit an ecological niche, that there was one ideal set of behaviors for that niche, and that species members whose behavior deviated from that ideal would eventually die off. But it turns out that it’s not only humans that divide into those who ‘watch and wait’ and others who ‘just do it.’ More than a hundred species in the animal kingdom are organized in roughly this way.”¹

As tempting as it is for us to claim that one personality trait is superior to the other, as we all know, everything comes at a price, and the trade-off theory best explain that there are always limitations and drawbacks to anything that lives, had live, and will live in the world as we know it.

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