Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can\'t Stop Talking pdfdrive com

part, is an ancient part of the brain—so old that primitive mammals
have their own versions of this system. But as mammals became more
complex, an area of the brain called the neocortex developed around the
limbic system. The neocortex, and particularly the frontal cortex in
humans, performs an astonishing array of functions, from deciding
which brand of toothpaste to buy, to planning a meeting, to pondering
the nature of reality. One of these functions is to soothe unwarranted
fears.
If you were a high-reactive baby, then your amygdala may, for the rest
of your life, go a bit wild every time you introduce yourself to a stranger
at a cocktail party. But if you feel relatively skilled in company, that’s
partly because your frontal cortex is there to tell you to calm down,
extend a handshake, and smile. In fact, a recent fMRI study shows that
when people use self-talk to reassess upsetting situations, activity in
their prefrontal cortex increases in an amount correlated with a decrease
of activity in their amygdala.
But the frontal cortex isn’t all-powerful; it doesn’t switch the amygdala
off altogether. In one study, scientists conditioned a rat to associate a
certain sound with an electrical shock. Then they played that sound over
and over again 
without
administering the shock, until the rats lost their
fear.
But it turned out that this “unlearning” was not as complete as the
scientists first thought. When they severed the neural connections

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between the rats’ cortex and amygdala, the rats became afraid of the
sound again. This was because the fear conditioning had been
suppressed by the activity of the cortex, but was still present in the
amygdala. In humans with unwarranted fears, like batophobia, or fear of
heights, the same thing happens. Repeated trips to the top of the Empire
State Building seem to extinguish the fear, but it may come roaring back
during times of stress—when the cortex has other things to do than
soothe an excitable amygdala.
This helps explain why many high-reactive kids retain some of the
fearful aspects of their temperament all the way into adulthood, no
matter how much social experience they acquire or free will they
exercise. My colleague Sally is a good example of this phenomenon.
Sally is a thoughtful and talented book editor, a self-described shy
introvert, and one of the most charming and articulate people I know. If
you invite her to a party, and later ask your other guests whom they
most enjoyed meeting, chances are they’ll mention Sally. She’s so
sparkly, they’ll tell you. So witty! So adorable!
Sally is conscious of how well she comes across—you can’t be as
appealing as she is without being aware of it. But that doesn’t mean her
amygdala knows it. When she arrives at a party, Sally often wishes she
could hide behind the nearest couch—until her prefrontal cortex takes
over and she remembers what a good conversationalist she is. Even so,
her amygdala, with its lifetime of stored associations between strangers
and anxiety, sometimes prevails. Sally admits that sometimes she drives
an hour to a party and then leaves five minutes after arriving.
When I think of my own experiences in light of Schwartz’s findings, I
realize it’s not true that I’m no longer shy; I’ve just learned to talk myself
down from the ledge (thank you, prefrontal cortex!). By now I do it so
automatically that I’m hardly aware it’s happening. When I talk with a
stranger or a group of people, my smile is bright and my manner direct,
but there’s a split second that feels like I’m stepping onto a high wire. By
now I’ve had so many thousands of social experiences that I’ve learned
that the high wire is a figment of my imagination, or that I won’t die if I
fall. I reassure myself so instantaneously that I’m barely aware I’m doing
it. But the reassurance process is still happening—and occasionally it
doesn’t work. The word that Kagan first used to describe high-reactive
people was