Extraversion

Extraversion is the attitude of consciousness — in Jung‘s technical use of the word — in which psychic energy flows primarily toward the object: toward the world, the other person, the concrete situation, the external fact. It stands as the polar opposite of introversion, in which energy flows primarily toward the subject, the inner image, the form-giving pattern of the psyche itself.

Jung introduced the distinction in [[jung-psychological-types|Psychological Types]] (1921) as the first of the two axes that classify the psychological types, the second axis being that of the four functions — thinking, feeling, sensation, intuition. Neither attitude is more developed than the other; each has its own pathology (extraverted identification with the object, introverted withdrawal from it) and its own mature form. The cultural-psychological point of Jung’s typology is that the one-sided valuation of extraversion in modern Western society has left the introverted type systematically misread by the extraverted majority — one of the many forms of what Jung called the collective one-sidedness of modern consciousness. See introversion and jung-psychological-types.

Relationships

• introversion
• jung-psychological-types
• psychological-functions