extroversion

Noun

1. The state or quality of being extroverted or an extrovert, particularly:
   • in mystical Divinity... a scattering or distracting ones thoughts upon exterior objects. - 1656, Thomas Blount, Glossographia, s.v. "Extroversion"
   • The turning of the eye of the mind from [Christ] to outward things [mystics] call Extroversion. - 1788, John Wesley, Works, volume VI, page 451:

   1. (religion, obsolete) Consideration of the material world as an aid to spiritual insight.

   2. (medicine) The condition of being inside out, especially in relation to the bladder.

      • In extroversion of the bladder the anterior part of this organ is more or less completely wanting. - 1835, Robert Bentley Todd, editor, The Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, volume I, page 391:

   3. (informal psychology) A personality orientation towards others and things outside oneself; behavior expressing such orientation.

      • Extroversion is the thrusting out of the mind on to life, the use of the mind in practical affairs, the pouring out of the libido on external objects. - 1920, Arthur George Tansley, The New Psychology and Its Relation...
      • In a genre characterized by brassy extroversion, The Dead is a quiet revolutionary: a musical that dares to be diffident. - 1999 October 29, Ben Brantley, “‘The Dead’: a Musical That Dares to be Quiet”, in The New York...
      • 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...