Read People Like a Book: How to Analyze, Understand, and Predict People’s Emotions, Thoughts, Intentions, and Behaviors

by Patrick King

These days, our world is very abstract and the things that threaten us are more verbal and conceptual—but the old machinery for expression, fear, aggression, curiosity, etc. is all still there, only perhaps expressed a little more subtly.

“hand steepling.”

Busy feet

We’re not much like gorillas in the forest, beating our chests during heated arguments—but if you look closely, you may still see faint clues to this more primal behavior anyway.

constricting

So given all this, is it worth learning to read body language? Absolutely. Adding this extra dimension to your interactions with others will only enrich your relationships and give you extra insight into your interpersonal conflicts and tensions. Knowing what’s going on with another person allows you to be a better communicator and speak to what people are actually feeling rather than what they’re merely saying.

You don’t need to be an expert, and you don’t need to be perfect. You just need to pay attention and be curious about your fellow human beings in a way you might not have before.

One or two gestures in a conversation don’t mean much. They could be accidental or purely physiological.

This is why it’s important to never interpret a gesture alone. Always consider clusters of clues.

Take your time to really analyze the whole of what’s in front of you.

a family may have the father as the official “leader,” and he may gesture and talk loudly to cement this perception. But pay attention and you may see that it’s his wife who is constantly deferred to, and every member of the family may show with their body language that it is in fact their mother’s needs that take precedence, despite what’s claimed verbally.

reading facial expressions and body language is a skill that takes time and patience to master. There are no quick and easy tricks to understanding people’s deeper motivations.

What really is the distinction between the words and the lips that say them? The body and the gesture that the body makes?

hand gestures and facial expressions can help us better understand what is being communicated—in fact at times a gesture can be fundamental to us understanding the message.

We cover two primary aspects: facial expressions and body language. It’s important to note that though many aspects have been scientifically proven (with physiological origins), we can’t say that simple observations are foolproof. It can never be definitive because there are too many external factors to take into account. But we can better understand what typical things to look for and what we can glean from them.

Introverts aren’t shy; they simply prefer solitude to socializing or calm to chaos.

Some agreeable people may be acting that way because they are petrified of social confrontation. Whatever the case, research has shown that agreeable people are rarely cruel, ruthless, or selfish

judging versus perceiving, is how someone will implement the information he has processed. Organizing life events is how someone would judge and later use it, as a rule, to stick to the plan. These people like to have order and structure. Their sense of self-control comes from being able to control their environments as much as possible. Judging types will normally use previous experiences as a catalyst to either continue or avoid certain behaviors later. They also like to see things settled and done with.

Results from their MBTIs can change in a span of either days or weeks depending on their moods or influences from their external and internal environments. These factors will say nothing about their actual personality types.

Being a good judge of character

powerful self-defense strategy.

people-reading, there are no guarantees. There are observations, theories, and best guesses, but no technique is one hundred percent guaranteed to work for everyone, since we all have different mannerisms, personalities, backgrounds,

fifty in twenty thousand people are able to spot a liar more than eighty of the time—a

The trouble is that the things we typically rely on to help us read people—facial expressions, body language, word choice—can always show a degree of variability.

“thin slices” of the phenomenon you’re trying to observe—in our case,

The idea is to use very few clues to arrive at accurate predictions of future behavior.

“intuition”

snap judgments) were in many cases better than chance at identifying bias or deception in others.

The Power of Thinking without Thinking,

The first few moments you meet someone, allow your brain to do what it does naturally—make

People who tend to be more neurotic use much more evocative phraseology when saying something negative.

politician, motivational speaker or marketing expert will tell you that the words you use make a massive difference. But what they do consciously and with intention is something many of us do unconsciously. Our word choice simply emerges from our deeper values, our personalities, our biases, expectations, beliefs, and attitudes.

if you notice that someone is unnecessarily speaking in jargon when they don’t need to, this reflects desperation to be perceived as someone who is smart and knowledgeable. This is useful to know when you’re analyzing someone who is in a position of authority, such as a politician, a financial adviser, a boss, etc. If they overuse jargon, you’ll know not to trust them, or if they’re your boss, to use it to your advantage.

Read People like Sherlock Holmes Reads a Crime Scene

best!

researchers caught up with the women in the photographs many years later and found out that those with genuine smiles in their pictures were more likely to be married, to be generally happier, and to enjoy better health than those who had the forced smiles.

context matters!).

neuroticism.

a excessive

liberal spaces scream openness and creativity because their occupants do not like being boxed into routine and order.

small hours,

night owl.

Research by Michael Breus has suggested that those who are early risers but fade before 10 p.m. are more likely to be extroverted, ambitious and socially oriented. Those who are night owls have been found to have slightly higher rates of what are called the “dark triad” personality traits—narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy.

It doesn’t mean that the person who texts you late on a Saturday night is a psychopath—rather, that if you have some evidence of a pattern of them being a night-owl, they might be more introverted, anxious, and creative.

conscientiousness

Extroversion

there is some evidence to suggest it may actually be an accurate method—not just for assessing personality, but also for seeing how someone might perform on the job.

these studies tell us something important: that some of the most promising sources of insightful information into the people we work with is not where you’d conventionally expect to find it.

Greek philosopher Aristotle once stated, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom,” and founding father of the United States of America Benjamin Franklin seemed to espouse similar thoughts: “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”

independence, resilience, and determination,

the answer about her career accomplishments is actually a story about the positive traits she utilized in reaching that point—her self-identity.