Week 4: "Accounting for Taste"

We all know the extroverts – you know those friends that are always the life of the party. We all know a couple of introverts too – you know those friends that don’t really say much but you love them anyway…probably because they don’t say much. And most of us think we can identify whether we are extroverts and introverts and most of the time, we’re probably right. But are we right most of the time and how do we account for the differences in everyone’s taste? In “Accounting for Taste,” Eric Gardner attempts to spot the important cues that determine people’s tastes by categorizing people into three different groups: the thrill seekers, the taste hunters and the self-medicators.

However, I found that I did not agree entirely with Gardner’s piece. Although I certainly believe that there are “thrill seekers” and “taste hunters,” I am a little hesitant to group them into one group or the other. And not only did I think he was over generalizing what an extrovert or introvert’s personality was like, but I also felt that many of his observations were conditional. For example, Gardner writes that extroverts usually like going to the movie theatres or like having the TV on. But is it really unlikely for some introverts to enjoy a night at the movie theatre or enjoy a TV show to wind down at night? I believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I believe that most of us have both extrovert and introvert qualities and that’s nothing to be ashamed or confused about.