My husband — a brooding Recent Yorker, polite and tolerant of much — broke on the seventh day of our family vacation.
“She doesn’t stop talking,” he said.
The “she“ is my mother — a bubbly Midwesterner — who can hold court in a room of strangers with the deftness of a small-town politician at a church picnic. Awkward silences don’t stand a likelihood — even in a jam-packed elevator.
But some people like silence. They thrive on it, said John Hackston, head of thought leadership at The Myers-Briggs Company.
That is considered one of many areas that may pose problems for travel companions on opposite ends of the introversion-extroversion spectrum, he said. Be it spouses, best friends or acquaintances, travelers enduring long stretches of time together often struggle to seek out a middle ground.
Greater than a decade of introversion advocacy — jumpstarted by the publication of Susan Cain’s “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Cannot Stop Talking” — has helped many introverts accept and publicly champion what makes them tick.
But the identical level of reflection hasn’t happened with extroverts, said Hackston.
“There’s been less of an emphasis on extroverts understanding of selves,” said Hackston, because “Western society, specifically, tends to see extroversion as the precise method to do things.”
Consequently, many remain in the dead of night as to how they will affect those around them.
Missed cues
Relating to vacations, personality-based problems can start on the starting stage, said Hackston.
Since extroverts are likely to get energy from the skin world, many are interested in certain varieties of vacations, like cruises or traveling with friends to an island with vibrant nightlife, he said.
The issue, said Hackston, is that extroverts often assume others think and feel as they do. This may manifest in every little thing from an excessive amount of small talk at breakfast to packing too many plans — and too little downtime — right into a vacation schedule.
“They could need to carry on going and carry on partying when other people don’t need to,” he said, which in turn can result in introverts feeling that they need to join.
The result’s a “spiral of dysfunction,” he said.
Misplaced assumptions may also cause extroverts to miss social cues, reminiscent of hints dropped by a not-so-chatty airplane seatmate.
Conversely, extroverts are also known to misread introverts’ slower response times as either lack of interest in a conversation, or an invite to speak more.
“You discuss with introverts, you get this pause. They must go inside and take into consideration what the reply is before it comes out again,” said Hackston. “Whereas extroverts, it tends to return straight back.”
Failing to comprehend this, extroverts often proceed talking, repeating their questions and speaking louder to maneuver the conversation forward, without knowing that introverts never had a likelihood to reply, he said.
Cultural layers
Some cultures are perceived as being more outgoing, which might further complicate interactions while traveling, said Hackston.
“In the USA, there’s generally the belief that when you discuss with anyone, they will talk back. That is not the case in all cultures. It’s not likely the case in the UK … it’s even less the case in cultures like, perhaps, Japan.”
Americans “are likely to be relatively extroverted of their behavior – people from the U.K. a bit less,” said John Hackston, head of thought leadership at The Myers-Briggs Company.
Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Though he cautioned against stereotypes, he noted that southern Italians are viewed as being more extroverted, while Northern Europeans, especially some Scandinavian countries, are considered more introverted.
Travelers can have difficulty differentiating personality traits amongst foreigners, but “Finns would recognize Finnish extroverts,” he said, even when “to you, they’ll all appear like introverts.”
Developing self-awareness
Hackston recommends that travelers and their families take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment to know one another higher.
“It opens people’s eyes to the indisputable fact that — that is all the time a very silly thing to say, however it’s true — persons are different and are coming from a unique place,” he said.
Simply because you are good friends, it doesn’t suggest that you’re going to be good travelers.
Emma Morrell
travel blogger
“It’s that recognition that in case your spouse, or partner, or your relations need to do … things a unique way you’re, they are not doing it to bother you,” he said. “They’re doing it because that is genuinely where they’re coming from.”
The Myers-Brigg Type Indicator also examines other facets of individuals’s personalities. For instance, the “judging” and “perceiving” framework evaluates how organized people prefer to be, said Hackston.
A “judging” extrovert will prefer a day stuffed with organized plans, while a “perceiving” extrovert will want an action-packed day that happens spontaneously — a difference which might result in big disagreements on holiday, he said.
“So it is not just extroverts in comparison with introverts. Sometimes it’s extroverts together,” he said.
Travelers like these could learn to structure future trips with set plans punctuated by gaps of free time.
“It starts with realizing who you’re, realizing who they’re, and understanding a way you possibly can work together,” he said.
Family travel blogger Emma Morrell said she’s managed to avoid most of the personality pitfalls that spoil others’ trips by being careful about who she travels with.
“You do must know yourself, and the folks that you are traveling with,” she said.
“I even have some excellent friends who I really like dearly, but we might never go away with,” she said. “Simply because you are good friends, it doesn’t suggest that you’re going to be good travelers.”
