Tag: neoteny
Translated from Italian by me (WTFPL).
Luigi Anepeta, psychoanalyst, at LIDI (Italian League for the Protection of Introverts’ Rights)’s official forum
https://lidi.forumfree.it/?t=51672617&st=30#entry625292054[🡕]
The percentage of introverts varies depending on the statistics: in the absence of a clear definition of what it means to be introverted, estimates range from 5% to 25% – the latter figure being supported by American researchers. The 5-7% estimate proposed in my book “Timido, docile, ardente…” wasn’t based on formal studies, but rather on my own observations in elementary schools, where the introverted child – easily recognizable at a glance – tends to be, on average, 1 in every 15 to 20 students. Today, I would be inclined to widen that range to 5-10%.
That introversion has a genetic basis – whose positive or negative developments depend on environmental influences – seems to me beyond doubt, given not only the behavioral traits observable early on, but especially the inner experiences (empathy, sense of justice, aesthetic sensitivity, etc.): these – both the traits and the experiences – are consequences of neoteny, which is, in absolute terms, the most defining feature of introversion.
Genetics is an extremely complex science and susceptible to ideological “aberrations”. With regard to introversion, what seems certain is that there is no single introversion gene, but rather a constellation of genes – dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands – present in the parental genetic makeup and “extracted” as a result of their combination. In parents, these genes may be evident as personality traits or masked by the dominance of extroverted genes. Once extracted and variously combined, they give rise to the introverted mode of being.
Beyond the Pleasure Principle – Sigmund Freud
Such memory-traces, then, have nothing to do with the fact of becoming conscious; indeed they are often most powerful and most enduring when the process which left them behind was one which never entered consciousness. Read the full page