The New Groupthink

"Solitude is out of fashion.  Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious workplace...Lone geniuses are out.  Collaboration is in."  This is the message of alarm that Susan Cain promoted in New York Times (January 15, 2012).  She continues...

"But there's a problem with this view.  Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption.  And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted...They're extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic.  They're not joiners by nature.

"One explanation for these findings is that introverts are comfortable working alone -- and solitude is a catalyst to innovation.  As the influential psychologist Hans Eysenck observed, introversion fosters creativity by 'concentrating the mind on the tasks in hand and preventing the dissipation of energy on social and sexual matters unrelated to work.'"

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