| dc.description.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. | en_US |
