The Psychological Wisdom of Serena Williams

After 4-time Grand Slam tennis champion Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open, 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams spoke out in support. “I feel for Naomi,” she said. “Not everyone is the same. I’m thick. Other people are thin. Everyone is different and everyone handles things differently.”

Williams went on to say that, while doing press conferences can be “very difficult,” they have “made me stronger.” Osaka had cited the challenge of meeting with the press – a requirement of being on the tour – as adding to her stress and aggravating her latent anxiety and depression.

The sports and entertainment world has generally responded with support for Osaka, emphasizing that mental and emotional health are just as important as physical health. NBA player Kevin Love tweeted “Love, respect, and positive energy your way.” Model Naomi Campbell urged Osaka to “be kind and easy on yourself, your health comes first.” Coco Gauff, up-and-coming on the tennis tour, tweeted “Stay strong. I admire your vulnerability.”

Strength and vulnerability: Are these understood to be the attributes of “thick” and “thin” people, respectively? Are they mutually exclusive? In the nearly two weeks since Williams’ comments, I’ve found not a single article that homed in on what it might mean, generally speaking, to be thick-skinned vs. thin-skinned. Perhaps everyone intuitively knows the difference. But there’s actually a lot to unpack that’s enlightening about personality differences.

The Boundary Spectrum

In the 1990s, Tufts University psychiatrist Ernest Hartmann wrote extensively about a dimension of personality he called Boundaries. Each of us, he theorized, can be placed along a spectrum ranging from extremely “thick boundary” on one end to extremely “thin boundary” on the other. The thickest-boundary people, he found, are “close-minded,” “rigid,” “impassive,” and “stoic.” They’re also highly organized, see things as exclusively “black or white,” and tend not to be conversant with feelings – even their own. The thinnest-boundary people, on the other hand, are “open,” “sensitive,” “excitable,” and “vulnerable.” They’re fluid – even messy – in their affairs, easily discern “shades of grey,” and are highly conversant – even preoccupied – with feelings.

Hartmann and his colleagues found a strong relationship between boundary type and Openness to Experience, one of the so-called Big Five personality characteristics. Thick boundary people, as you might expect, are not terribly open to new experience, while thin boundary people thrive on it. Importantly, no link was identified between either boundary type and Introversion or Extraversion. So a sensitive, intuitive thin boundary person is just as apt to be outgoing as an unemotional, “get-‘er-done” thick boundary person is to be reticent.

Since the 1980s, at least 5,000 people have taken Hartmann’s Boundary Questionnaire (BQ) and more than 100 published papers have referenced it. The scores on the BQ are distributed across the spectrum of boundaries in a Bell-shaped curve. Women tend to score significantly thinner than men, and older people tend to score somewhat thicker than younger individuals. Hartmann and his colleagues also found marked differences among people in certain professions. In the “thin” category are actors, artists, fashion models, and (wait for it) diplomats. In the “thick” category are salespeople, accountants, military officers, and (hmm) lawyers. The above are not hard-and-fast rules, however: Your mileage may vary.

As one might expect, people tend to consider their own boundary type desirable and may disparage qualities associated with the other type. Thin boundary people, for example, see themselves as “exciting,” “creative,” and “innovative” but can look upon those with thick boundaries as “dull,” “wooden,” and “unimaginative.” Thick boundary people, on the other hand, view themselves as “solid,” “reliable,” and “persevering,” while sometimes considering those with thin boundaries as “flaky,” “far out,” and “unreliable.” Need I point out that we’re all very human.

The Interplay in Society

Serena Williams’ observation that “I’m thick…other people are thin…everyone is different” has wider ramifications than the personal. The variance is evident throughout society. We see the fault lines every day, in fields as disparate as politics, religion, science, art, music, language, ethics, law, and entertainment. Whether it’s fierce disagreement over how to handle illegal immigrants (“build a wall” is the thickest boundary response), whether to add seats to the Supreme Court, in what manner to recognize and accommodate transgender people, or whether “edgy” humor or “boundary-pushing” fashions are appropriate, we continuously grapple with where to draw the line. What’s considered right or wrong, moral or immoral, understandable or outrageous isn’t defined as much by external authorities as by each one of us based on what innately feels right. And what feels right stems from where we are on the Boundary spectrum.

To me, the concept of a continuum – ranging from extremely thick to extremely thin – gives us an invaluable framework from which to make sense of these issues. Boundaries offer far more than a measure of introversion or extroversion, openness or closed-mindedness, agreeableness or hostility, or any other personality trait. Boundaries allow for an assessment of the characteristic way anyone operates in the world. To what extent are stimuli kept out or let in? To what degree is a person rigid vs. flexible, impassive vs. excitable, self-contained vs. sensitive, closed vs. open? These are remarkably important matters – far more than what a star tennis player decides to do or not to do.

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Boundaries play out in every aspect of our lives, affecting perceptions of what is legal, just, worthwhile, artistic, funny, desirable, etc. People hardly ever realize the tremendous influence exerted by their own underlying sense of self. In that, most of us wear blinders. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is a bit of wisdom that comes with maturity, as expressed by that keen observer of people and relationships, Billy Joel:

Shades of grey wherever I go
The more I find out the less that I know
Aint no rainbows shining on me
Shades of grey are the colors I see