Social Construction of Personality: An Assessment on the Perceptions of Introversion and Extroversion among Undergraduates of Colombo, Sri Lanka

Abstract

This study explored the ways in which undergraduates of Colombo, Sri Lanka perceive introverted and extroverted personalities, with the main objective being to understand how the participants viewed introversion and extroversion and the possible contribution that can be made by these perceptions to form systems that are designed to facilitate only one personality type and the consequent problems caused by them. The data was collected by conducting 21 semistructured interviews with undergraduates from public universities coming under the University Grants Commission (UGC), public universities not coming under the UGC and private universities in Colombo, Sri Lanka. In the interviews, the participants were asked open-ended questions about their perceptions of introversion and extroversion. Gathered qualitative data was analyzed using the thematic analysis method. The findings of this study show that among many other things, introverts are perceived mostly as less social people, who are more suited for individual work than group work, and extroverts are perceived mostly as social people who are capable of group work. This study is significant because by exploring the ways in which the participants perceive personality, it creates awareness of oppressing effects of social constructions of personality, and lay a foundation for the ultimate transformation of systems geared towards one personality type, be it extroversion or introversion.