Shyness is inherently uncomfortable; introversion is not. The traits do overlap, though psychologists debate to what degree.

Women were also urged to work on a mysterious quality called 'fascination.' Coming of age in the 1920's was a competitive business.

I've wanted to be a writer since I was four years old!

Psychologists usually offer three explanations for the failure of group brainstorming. The first is social loafing: in a group, some individuals tend to sit back and let others do the work. The second is production blocking: only one person can talk or produce an idea at once, while the other group members are forced to sit passively. And the third is evaluation apprehension, meaning the fear of looking stupid in front of one's peers.

But when the group is literally capable of changing our perceptions, and when to stand alone is to activate primitive, powerful, and unconscious feelings of rejection, then the health of these institutions seems far more vulnerable than we think.

Introversion - along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness - is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology.

Shyness is inherently uncomfortable; introversion is not. The traits do overlap, though psychologists debate to what degree.