Mind & behavior · 2019
How did well-being change when people acted extraverted or introverted for a week?
Participants’ well-being rose when they were instructed to act extraverted and fell when they were instructed to act introverted. In this human behavioral experiment, the same participants tried both conditions, each for one week. The abstract does not report how large the changes were or whether they lasted afterward.
Details
Earlier research mainly linked extraversion with positive feelings through observations. A few experiments also found increases in positive feelings over short periods. This study tested a longer period by asking participants to engage in extraverted behavior for one week and introverted behavior for one week.
Well-being increased during the assigned extraverted condition and decreased during the assigned introverted condition. The findings suggest that changing behavior associated with personality can affect well-being; they do not establish that participants’ underlying personalities changed.
The abstract does not describe the specific behaviors requested or how well-being was measured. It also does not report participants’ usual personality traits, so it cannot establish whether usually introverted people benefited in the same way. The size and persistence of the changes remain unclear.
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