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I think the whole "ambivert" thing makes sense for those who claim this trait.

  • Alice, when invited to a party, immediately claims she has to rearrange her sock drawer

  • Bob, when invited to a party, gladly goes unless he has an interesting book to read

  • Carol, upon finding a new book, will eagerly read it unless she has a cool party to attend

  • Dave will rather go to the park to hang around with retirees than read the new bestseller alone

Bob and Carol have much more in common with each other than they have with Alice or Dave. If Alice and Bob are matched with each other on some simplified MBTI or HEXACO or Big Five matchmaking app, they will find out they are not really compatible: Bob actually wants to have guests around, while Alice complains she just wants to sit next to him in peace and quiet. It's easier if Bob and Carol can indicate they are neither introverts nor extraverts and get preferentially matched with each other. Complaining that it's a new identity is like complaining "cis-het" is an identity to me. It's not really an identity people claim, there's an empty spot on a map and it needs a name because other spots around it do. If you have a B-cup that's just what you have, it's not what defines you, but when shopping for bras it's easier to say you're a B than explain you're not well-endowed but not flat-chested either.

It's not really an identity people claim

My experience of dating apps in the past few years would beg to differ.

I don't know, it just seems so laborious to have a specific label for nigh-every point on the spectrum of this trait. And why don't we do this with any other psychological trait (e.g. "ambi-trusting", "ambi-agreeable" etc.)?

Are other traits as well-known as intro/extraversion?

Well, looking at the Big Five personality traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

Neuroticism has been in the common parlance for at least as long as I've been alive. I remember seeing sitcoms in the 90s that used the term casually and without explaining what it meant.

In this category I think you could also include things like narcissism or megalomania. Moving from psychological traits to the realm of mental illness, people have been using "OCD" as a sort of intensified form of "extremely neat" for at least a decade and a half. And of course "autism", which is used casually and pejoratively on the internet all the time. And in a non-pejorative context it's not uncommon to hear people say that such and such a person has "aspie" tendencies.