introversion

plural introversions

1. uncountableusuallyA turning inward, particularly

   This disease is sometimes produced by the introversion of the edge of the lower eyelid.

   1796, Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, volume II, page 186

2. A turning inward
   1. uncountableusuallyThe action of turning one's thoughts upon internal or spiritual matters.

      ...their... Fastings, Prayings,... Introversions,... Humiliations, Mortifications...

      1654, Thomas Gataker, A Discours Apologetical, page 68

      2 more examples

      The attending to the voice of Christ within you is what [mystics] term Introversion.

      1788, John Wesley, Works, volume VI, page 451

      ... Hamlet, who so perfectly typifies the introversion and complexity of modern thought as compared with ancient...

      1870, James Russell Lowell, My Study Windows, page 214

   2. uncountableusuallyhuman sciencesA personality orientation towards the self and mental abstraction; behavior expressing such orientation.

      I called the hysterical type the extraversion type and the psychasthénic type the introversion type.

      1915, Carl Jung, “On Psychological Understanding”, in Journal of Abnormal Psychology, number 9, page 396

      4 more examples

      ...so that when in later life there occurs an introversion (in the sense of Jung), it consists of a harking back to regressive, reminiscent, infantile material.

      1912, Trigant Burrow, "Conscious and Unconscious Mentation from the Psychoanalytic Viewpoint", Psychological Bulletin, No. 9, p. 159

      Patients with this disease are at times completely withdrawn from the world around them and give the picture of the very extreme of introversion.

      1955 March 19, Science News-Letter, page 185

      Eysenck has suggested the three dimensions of neuroticism, psychoticism and introversion-extraversion.

      1964, John Michael Argyle, Psychology & Social Problems, page 75

      The roots of what are popularly taken to be introversion and extroversion show up in infancy: positive emotionality, or extroversion, and negative emotionality, or neuroticism.

      2016 November 1, Drake Baer, “Are you an introvert or an extrovert? It’s more complicated than that”, in CNN, archived from the original on 06 Oct 2022

   3. uncountableusuallycommunicationsArrangement of two similar words, lines, etc. to form the middle part of a structure.

      Such introversion is merely a matter of form.

      1896, Richard Green Moulton, The Literary Study of the Bible, page 50