I don't know if it's scientific. It may have value. I'm not inclined to read it at the moment. I am an introvert. I used to be painfully shy and I stuttered when I was very young, mostly because I was living up north and was trying to get rid of a southern accent. However, I have forced myself over the years into speaking. At first it was absolutely horrible, but then I got into it. The thing is I still suck as a speaker, but I'm pretty good as a teacher.
I am a reflective person, but I have also tried over the years to stop over-analyzing things, especially as regards personal relationships.
There is another idea from psychology that was in common use decades ago - the idea of people who were alphas, betas, and gammas. I have always been a consummate gamma. I'm not a leader or a follower. I mostly just go off and do my own thing. I don't know how scientific that is either, but it's fairly useful for helping to understand the people around me.
I recall in my youth I felt an overwhelming sense of alienation and I thought the people around me held me in extreme contempt for unfathomable reasons. Probably at one time this was true, but certainly by middle school things had begun to change and by my senior year of HS I was quite aware that many of my fellow students held me in high regard and treated me as they did not because they considered me beneath them, but because they didn't want to interfere with my thinking (during which time I can often be found arguing with myself).
I now have two daughters, the oldest of whom is also a strong gamma, and I have been able to help her over the years by explaining to her that her stubbornness and her insistence that people deal with her on her own terms might isolate her, but would earn her respect in the long run - a prediction which has borne out (call me Nostradamus).
