Extraversion

1. Etymology

Extraversion names a mode of psychological orientation in which the movement of energy is toward the outer world. Compare introversion; related: object vs subject; typology; collective ethics.

2. Plain summary

Extraversion means interest runs to the external object—ready responsiveness, desire to influence and be influenced, comfort in bustle, cultivation of acquaintances, concern for the figure one cuts. When outer factors primarily motivate judgment and action, the attitude is extraverted.

Jung saw type differentiation early: the extraverted child adapts quickly, attends to objects, plays freely among them. Ethics and conscience often lean collective, with a strong altruistic streak. Related to consciousness style and to compensation by unconscious introversion when the outer pole is one-sided.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common extraversion-related figures and motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
energy toward outer world; interest in external object; responsiveness / join in / endure bustle; friends not too carefully selected; importance of the figure one cuts; collective ethics / altruism / public opinion; early childhood quick adaptation to environment; low fear of objects; complementary to introversion; one attitude dominant; pairs with superior function; compensation by unconscious introversion; persona emphasis; inflation via collective identification; individuation needing both poles.

3. Academic elucidation

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Extraversion. A mode of psychological orientation where the movement of energy is toward the outer world. … interest in the external object, responsiveness, and a ready acceptance of external happenings… Jung believed that introversion and extraversion were present in everyone, but that one attitude-type is invariably dominant…

(Sharp, 1991, p. [provisional — unverified])

typology … Some individuals are more excited or energised by the internal world and others by the external world; these are introverts and extraverts respectively…

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

EXTRAVERSION is an outward-turning of libido. I use this concept to denote a manifest relation of subject to object, a positive movement of subjective interest towards the object. Everyone in the extraverted state thinks, feels, and acts in relation to the object…

I have called these two fundamentally different attitudes extraversion and introversion. Extraversion is characterized by interest in the external object, responsiveness, and a ready acceptance of external happenings, a desire to influence and be influenced by events, a need to join in and get “with it,” the capacity to endure bustle and noise of every kind, and actually find them enjoyable…

The actual subject, the extravert as a subjective entity, is, so far as possible, shrouded in darkness. He hides it from himself under veils of unconsciousness. The disinclination to submit his own motives to critical examination is very pronounced.

See also: introversion; consciousness; libido; persona; compensation; collective unconscious; inflation; individuation; opposites. (Queued — typology.)

References

Jung, C. G. (1971). Psychological types. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (Vol. 6, pp. 593, 747–748, ¶¶710, 972–973). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1921)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.