For persons with higher cognitive ability, frequent socializing may be associated with lower satisfaction.

Mind-wandering is not absence of thinking but a kind of thinking associated with valuable cognitive outcomes.

For a mind wired toward pattern recognition and complexity, small talk leaves very little to engage with.

Imagine that a party is winding down, and while everyone else is migrating toward the kitchen for one last drink, one person quietly slips out the door. They’re not upset, and they didn’t have a bad time; they simply chose to leave. Similarly, consider the colleague who never makes a habit of lingering at the water cooler, or who responds to “We should grab drinks sometime” with an enthusiastic “definitely” that never materializes into plans.

We tend to read these behaviors as unfriendliness. At best, we assume it to be aloofness. And at its worst, we label it arrogance. But psychology tells a more interesting story.

A growing body of research suggests that some of the habits we’re quickest to label as antisocial are, in fact, signatures of a particular kind of mind: one that processes deeply, seeks stimulation above a certain threshold, and is quietly optimizing its environment in ways that look, from the outside, like disengagement. Here are three of those habits, and what science actually says about them.

1. Choosing Solitude Over Socializing

There is perhaps no habit more reliably misread as a personality flaw than choosing to be alone, especially when the alternative is being with other people. Solitude, in popular imagination, is what you settle for. It is the consolation prize of the socially unsuccessful.

But a landmark 2016 study........

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