Extroversion as a Factor Conditioning AchieveMent in the Fifth and Sixth Grades of the Elementary School

Abstract

Several studies have indicated that the introvert succeeds better academically in high school and college than does the extrovert.1 Exag geration of the thought processes at the expense of overt social behavior, which is the major characteristic of the typical introvert, according to Freyd,2 seems rather naturally to go with relatively high success in the pursuit of book knowledge. However, the theoretical literature on in troversion-extroversion does not favor the introvert above the extrovert from the standpoint of generally desirable personality, and in fact is inclined to give preference to the extrovert or to the so-called ambivert. The major problem of the present investigation is to determine whether the relationship between introversion-extroversion and school success, as found for secondary and higher education, holds for fifthand sixth grade elementary school children. Minor problems are to determine a satisfactory method of measuring extroversion (this term will be used hereafter in place of the double term, introversion-extroversion) for in termediate grade pupils; to study sex differences in extroversion, at this school level ; to determine in detail the relationships, for fifthand sixth-grade pupils, between age, intelligence, extroversion, and achieve ment; and to study sex differences in the relationships between these factors.