I definitely agree that you can't -just- tell a person what you're doing, you need to pick the right person, and cultivate the right attitude (From my observation of myself, it succeeds when I am in the mindset where I can take plenty of teasing equitably, accepting any pokes as potential observations about reality without -stressing- about that.). ..

What rationalization of Rowe's? It's a summary of what they themselves report when 'laddered' (a process which basically consists of asking them what the most terrible thing that could possibly happen to them is, followed by iterative 'why?' until they can no longer go to the next lowest level).

For extroverts, being utterly abandoned == total personal disintegration; For introverts, utter loss of self-control == total personal disintegration. (I do paraphrase here; read The Successful Self for the whole picture.)

If anything, any rationalization is mine: I observe that introverts I know are reliably better at moving long term projects forward than I, or any extravert I know, seems to be. Not that they are not weak in this way -- they just seem to be less weak as a consequence of the difference in their focus. (my inference bolded.)

I'm neutral to your statement of introversion, basically because my prior for people being hilariously terrible at assessing this stuff is quite high.

No empirical sources as far as I know. Nobody even really manages to agree on the definition of introvert and extrovert, so far. Dorothy Rowe is just the only writer I've found on the subject who manages to describe a system that is relateable, consistent, and can be applied in the real world.