If we think of humans, or any life form, as systems that take input from their surroundings and produce an output, we have an interesting thought experiment waiting for us.

Social interactions offer a unique input on a conscious and unconscious level. How one processes this input determines the unique characteristics of an individual. An ideal independent human has the unique ability and acumen to understand various aspects of the interaction, which could be a unilateral or bilateral conversation, to produce a map of the society he/she interacts with. However, it is a continuous developmental process, every new person behaves in a similar manner but does have idiosyncratic countenance or intonations often. Thus, not only is the system processing these inputs different, but the detection and sensory sensitivity is also different. In other words, we all sense a different extent of things in interactions.

However, I think what commonality is the processing power or capacity of each individual, which is more or less the same due to the same time each has in a whole day or in a conversation. Extroverts, in this way of understanding, are people who take fewer non-verbal or verbal inputs in cognition and thrive on the volume. Introverts, on the other hand, take much less input and thrive on the depth of all cues they got from the brief interactions they participated in.

The thing that regulates this is the output, which is the final outcome of this individual system. The output is and ought to be fixed due to the etiquettes imposed by a society. Society artificially deselects the divergent and isolates them, therefore only the conforming outputs survive. Therefore, the resulting classification comes solely on the basis of the extent of input and how it is processed. I believe this stands at the heart of one’s personality.