Causal Happiness: The Power of Acting Extraverted
Science confirms: Changing your social behavior for just one week creates a 'marked growth' in positive affect and social connection.
What This Study Is About
A comprehensive experimental study demonstrating that acting extraverted significantly boosts well-being, connectedness, and flow, while acting introverted leads to a substantial decline in mood.
💡 Mindeln Tip
Don't wait to 'feel' like an extravert. Start acting like one today. If the behavior feels 'meaningful and natural' (Actual Fit), your well-being boost will be even stronger. Pro tip: Focus on increasing 'Flow' and 'Connectedness' through spontaneity.
Key Insights
Participants successfully shifted their behavior for a full week, proving personality-relevant behavior is malleable.
Acting extraverted caused 'marked growth' in positive affect, connectedness, and flow.
Acting introverted caused a 'marked decline' in positive affect and overall well-being.
Baseline personality did NOT moderate the results; introverts benefitted from extraverted behavior just as much as extraverts.
Subjective 'Actual Fit' (how natural it feels) and a 'Desire for Extraversion' predict larger well-being gains.
Self-reported trait extraversion scores increased after the extraverted week, suggesting behavioral changes can influence personality perception.
The effects were most consistent for positive affect and social connectedness, rather than stable life satisfaction.
The Full Story
This experiment provides definitive causal evidence: social behavior is a primary engine of well-being. By instructing participants to be talkative and spontaneous, the study observed moderate to large effect sizes in positive affect and 'Flow' the state of energized focus. Crucially, the research debunked the myth that introverts find acting extraverted 'draining' in a way that negates happiness; instead, the hedonic benefits were universal across trait levels. However, the study also warns that 'acting introverted' (being quiet and reserved) is not a neutral state but one that actively diminishes well-being in Western contexts.
Original Research Source
View the original research paper to dive deeper into the methodology, data, and findings.
View Original Paper