Are you an otrovert?

Growing up, Dr Rami Kaminski felt like a 'perpetual outsider'. After meeting many others who shared his experience, the New York psychiatrist discovered that a set of personality traits was at play.

To describe this psychological profile, Kaminski coined the term 'otroversion', created a free online test and spent years writing the new book The Gift of Not Belonging: How Outsiders Thrive in a World of Joiners.

"I think [otroversion] is a wonderful way to be," he tells Nine to Noon.

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There’s nothing wrong with being an otrovert, Kaminski says. In fact, we're all born this way.

At around five, when cultural conditioning kicks in, many people make the transition to a shared group identity, he says. Otroverts, however, can't get with that.

"Basically, there is something in that particular person that sort of rebelled against the notion of conditioning or indoctrination, and they are unable to move to association and joining or belonging to a group.

"We are not team players in that way."

After first using the term 'otherness' to describe this personality style, Kaminski developed the term otroversion - otro is Spanish for 'other' - using Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung's concepts of introversion and extroversion as a template.

"[Otroverts] are not looking inside themselves or inside the group, but looking elsewhere."

Such people are emotionally independent and enjoy spending time alone but tend not to be lonely, he says.

"They're not really loners or, quote, unquote weird, for lack of a better word. They just are not members of a group."

Otroversion doesn't relate to an inability to connect with other people, though.

"You're not outside of the group per se. You just are emotionally non-belonging, which is a very different and much more personal thing."

As they tend to be observant, empathetic and very considerate people, Kaminski says otroverts can forge very deep and less "diluted" one-on-one relationships.

If you have a child who's an otrovert, it's important to understand how the traits relate to their parenting needs, he says.

"They'll thrive without any pressure or direction other than on the basic stuff].

Teamwork is essential for progress, but because an individual's thinking tends to be influenced by other members of a group, otroverts - who often work solitarily and "untethered" - can help spark fresh ideas.

Because they value authenticity over belonging, Kaminski says these people can help counter the dangers of 'groupthink' - a psychological phenomenon where a desire for conformity leads to dysfunctional decision-making.

"Otroverts are usually good at deciding things for themselves. There's no one that can tell them what is good for them or what they should think. "

In the realm of politics, groupthink can be highly destructive, Kaminski says, and the free-thinking perspective of otroverts can act "almost an antidote".

"They can illuminate from the outside something that the group sometimes forgets to even stop and think about."