Patrick king

Read People Like a Book: How to Analyze, Understand, and

Predict People’s Emotions, Thoughts, Intentions, and Behaviors

Table of Contents

Read People Like a Book: How to Analyze Understand, and

Predict People’s Emotions, Thoughts, Intentions, and Behaviors
Table of Contents
Introduction
Why You’re Probably Doing it Wrong
The Problem of Objectivity
Chapter 1. Motivation as a Behavioral Predictor
Motivation as an Expression of the Shadow
Our Inner Child Still Lives
The Motivation Factor—Pleasure or Pain
The Pyramid of Needs
Defense of the Ego
Chapter 2. The Body, the Face, and Clusters
Look at my Face
Body Talk
Putting it All Together
The Human Body is a Whole—Read It that Way
Thinking in Terms of Message Clusters
Chapter 3. Personality Science and Typology
Test Your Personality
The Big Five
Jung and the MBTI
Keirsey’s Temperaments
The Enneagram
Chapter 4. Lie Detection 101 (and Caveats)
The Problem: Uncertainty
It’s All About the Conversation
Use the Element of Surprise

How to Increase Cognitive Load

General Tips for Better-than-Average Lie-Detecting
Chapter 5. Using the Power of Observation
How to Use “Thin Slicing”
Making Smart Observations
Read People like Sherlock Holmes Reads a Crime Scene
Observation can be Active: How to Use Questions
Indirect Questions; Direct Information
Summary Guide
 Introduction

Have you ever met someone who seemed to just have a natural
gift for getting other people? They appear to be blessed with an
instinctive understanding of how other people tick and why they
behave as they do, to such an extent that they can often predict
what they’ll say or feel.
These are the people who know how to talk so that others really
hear them, or the people who can quickly detect when someone is
lying or trying to manipulate them. Sometimes, such a person
may perceive someone else’s emotions and understand their
motivations to a degree that even exceeds that person’s insight into
themselves.
It can seem like a superpower. How do they do it?
The truth is that this ability is not really anything mystical, but a
skill like any other that can actually be learned and mastered.
While some might call it emotional intelligence or simple social
awareness, others may see it as more akin to what a clinical
psychologist or psychiatrist may do when they conduct an intake
interview with a new patient. On the other hand, you may see
this skill as something that a seasoned FBI agent, private detective,
or police officer may develop with experience.
In this book, we’re going to be looking closely at all the ways we
can develop these skills in ourselves, without needing a psychology
degree or any experience as a trained CIA interrogator.

Reading and analyzing people is no doubt a valuable skill to

have. We encounter and interact with other people constantly and
need to cooperate with them if we hope to have successful,
harmonious lives. When we know how to quickly and accurately
analyze someone’s character, behavior, and unspoken intentions, we
can communicate more effectively and, to put it bluntly, get what
we want.
We can adjust the way we communicate to make sure we’re really
reaching our intended audience; we can spot when we are being
deceived or influenced. We can also more easily comprehend even
those people who are very different from us, and who work from
very different values. Whether you’re trying to learn a little more
about a person you’ve just met by snooping in their social media
history, or interviewing a new employee, or trying to understand
whether the mechanic is telling the truth about your car, reading
people well is a priceless skill to have.
It’s crazy when you really think about it: every person you ever
meet is essentially a mystery to you. How can we really know
what is going on inside their minds? What they’re thinking, feeling,
planning? How can we ever really understand what their behavior
means, why they are motivated as they are, and even how they
see and understand
Another person’s world is like a black box to us. All we have to
go on are things outside of that black box—the words they say,
their facial expressions and body language, their actions, our past
history with them, their physical appearance, the tone and quality
of their voice, and so on.
Before we go much further in our book, it’s worth acknowledging
this undeniable fact—human beings are complex, living, changing
organisms whose inner experience is essentially closed off inside of
them. Though some might make claims otherwise, nobody can
really state with any certainty that they know who somebody is
completely.

That said, we can certainly become better at reading the

observable signs. “Theory of mind” is the term we use to describe
the ability to think about other people’s cognitive and emotional
realities. It’s the (perfectly human) desire to make a model about
someone else’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. And like any model,
it’s a simplification of the depth and complexity of the real person
in front of us. Like any model, it has limitations and doesn’t
always perfectly explain reality.
Our goal in learning to fine-tune our capacity to analyze people is
to make best guesses.
What we learn to do is gather as much high-quality data about a
person as we can, and analyze it intelligently. If we can input
these small pieces of data into a robust and accurate model of
human nature (or more than one model) the output we can
obtain is a deeper understanding of the person. In the same way
as an engineer can look at a complicated machine and infer its
operation and intended function, we can learn to look at living,
breathing human beings and analyze them to better understand the
what, why, and how of their behavior.
In the chapters that follow, we’ll be looking at many different
models—these are not competing theories, but rather different ways
of looking at a human being. When used all together, we gain a
fresh understanding of the people around us.

What we do with this understanding is up to us. We could use it

to foster a richer and more compassionate attitude to those we
care about. We could take our knowledge and apply it in the
workspace or anywhere we need to cooperate and collaborate with
a wide variety of different individuals. We can use it to become
better parents or better romantic partners. We can use it to
improve our small talk, to spot liars or those with an agenda, or
to reconcile effectively with people during conflicts.
The moment we encounter someone new for the very first time is
the moment we most need to have well-honed powers of
perception and analysis. Even the least emotionally and socially
intelligent people can learn something about other people if they
engage with them long enough. But what we’re focused on in this
book is primarily those skills that can allow you to gather
genuinely useful information about near-strangers, preferably after
just a single conversation.
We’ll dig a little deeper into mastering the art of a snap decision
that is actually accurate, how to make appraisals of people’s
personalities and values from their speech, their behavior, and even
their personal possessions, how to read body language, and even
how to detect a lie as it’s happening.
Another caveat before we dive in: analyzing and reading people is
about much, much more than simply having hunches or knee-jerk
emotional reactions about them. Though instinct and gut feeling
may play a role, we are focused here on methods and models
that have sound theoretical evidence and seek to go beyond simple
bias or prejudice. After all, we actually want our analyses to be
accurate if they’re to be any use to us!
When we analyze others, we take a methodical, logical approach.
What are the origins or causes of what we see in front of us, i.e.,
what is the historical element?
What are the psychological, social, and physiological mechanisms
that sustain the behavior you’re witnessing?
What is the outcome or effect of this phenomenon in front of
you? In other words, how does what you’re seeing play out in the
rest of the environment?

How is the behavior you’re witnessing triggered by particular events,

the behavior of others, or even as a response to you yourself?
In the chapters that follow, we’ll look at smart ways to structure
your rational, data-driven analysis of the complex and fascinating
people who cross your path. You may start to appreciate how this
kind of analysis is at the root of so many other competencies. For
example, knowing how to read people may improve your capacity
for compassion, boost your communication skills, improve your
negotiation abilities, help you set better boundaries, and the
unexpected side effect: help you understand yourself better.
 Why You’re Probably Doing it Wrong

Many people believe they’re “good with people.”

It’s very easy to boldly claim that you understand another person’s
motivations, without ever really stopping to check if you’re correct.
Confirmation bias, unfortunately, is a more likely explanation—i.e.,
you remember all those times your assessments were correct and
ignore or downplay the times you clearly got it wrong. That, or
you simply never ask if you’re right in the first place. How many
times have you heard, “I used to think so-and-so was such-and-
such kind of person, but once I got to know them, I realized I
was completely wrong about them”?
The fact is that people are often far less accurate judges of
character than they like to believe. If you are reading this book,
chances are you know that there are a few things you could
probably learn. It never hurts to start a new endeavor on a blank
slate. After all, nothing can get in the way of learning truly
effective techniques like the conviction that you know everything
already and don’t need to learn!
So, with that in mind, what are the obstacles to becoming
brilliant at reading people?
Firstly, the biggest thing to remember is the effect of Maybe you’ve
seen a listicle online to the effect of “5 Telltale Signs Someone is
Lying,” and went on to see if you could spot any in real life. The
trouble with this is obvious: is the person looking up and to the
left because they’re telling a lie, or has their attention simply been
caught by something on the roof?

In the same way, a person making an interesting “Freudian slip”

in conversation could be telling you a juicy secret about themselves
—or they could simply be sleep deprived and literally just made a
mistake. Context matters.
In the same vein, we cannot take a single statement, facial
expression, behavior, or moment to tell us something definitive
about the whole person. Have you not already done something
today that, if analyzed alone, would lead to some completely
nonsensical conclusions about your character? Analysis can only
happen with data—not a single datum—and it can only happen
when we are able to see broader trends.
These broader trends also need to be situated in the cultural
context that the person you’re analyzing comes from. Some signs
are universal, whereas others can vary. For example, talking while
your hands are in your pockets is looked down upon in most
cultures. Eye contact, on the other hand, can be a tricky affair. In
America, eye contact is generally encouraged because it is
considered a sign of honesty and intelligence. However, in places
like Japan, eye contact is discouraged because it’s thought to be
disrespectful. Similarly, a set of cues may mean one thing in your
own culture, and something entirely different in another. It can be
slightly difficult to remember these different models of interpretation
initially, but as you practice the art, it’ll start coming to you
naturally.
If a person does the same unusual thing five times in a single
short conversation, then that’s something to pay attention to. If
someone simply claims, “I know that woman. She’s an introvert. I
saw her reading a book once,” you wouldn’t exactly call them a
master at unraveling the human psyche! So, it’s worth
remembering another important principle: in our analysis, we look
for

Another way that smart people can come to not-so-smart

conclusions about others is if they fail to establish a baseline. The
guy in front of you may be making lots of eye contact, smiling
often, complimenting you, nodding, even touching your arm
occasionally. You could conclude that this guy must really like you,
until you realize that this is how he is with every person he
meets. He in fact is showing you no interest above his normal
baseline, so all your observations don’t quite lead where they
ordinarily would.
Finally, there’s something to consider when you’re studying other
human beings, and it’s often a real bind spot: yourself. You might
decide that someone is trying to deceive you, but completely fail
to take into account your own paranoid and cautious nature, and
the fact that you were recently lied to and are not quite over it
yet.
This final point may ironically be the real key to unlocking other
people—making sure we understand ourselves at a bare minimum
before we turn our analytical gaze outward. If you’re unaware of
how you may be projecting your own needs, fears, assumptions,
and biases onto others, your observations and conclusions about
others will not amount to much. In fact, you may have simply
discovered a roundabout way of learning about yourself and the
cognitive and emotional baggage you’re bringing to the table.
Let’s see some of these principles in action.

Let’s say you’re interviewing someone your company intends to hire.

You have only a short time to determine whether she’d fit in with
the rest of the team. You notice that she’s talking quite quickly
and occasionally stumbling on her words. She’s sitting literally on
the edge of her seat, hands clasped tightly together. Could she be
a very nervous and insecure person? You suspend judgment,
knowing that everyone is nervous in interviews (i.e., you respect
context).
You notice the candidate mention more than once about how her
previous employer was very demanding with time, whereas she
prefers to work independently and manage her time herself. You
wonder if this means she’s poor at taking direction from
management, or if she genuinely is a more independent and
proactive type. You have no baseline, so you ask her about her
university days and what she studied. She tells you about research
projects she conducted independently, and how closely she worked
with her old supervisor. This tells you that she can work under
management . . . if the project is something she cares about.
If you had only focused on her nervousness, you wouldn’t have
gotten very far. Many recruiters will tell you that speaking ill of a
previous employer is hands down a red flag, but in the interview,
you look for not single events. You may even consider that she
may be acting nervously because you are making her nervous. You