"The Art of Seeing People"

It can be said that knowing people's hearts over time is the best knowledge in interpersonal communication. However, in real life, there are too many times when you need to judge strangers. Think about it, you have to judge strangers at work. No matter how many contracts you sign, the chance to judge whether the other party is reliable or not may only be a few negotiations; choosing who to be friends with will also test your vision of people. You can't wait until you are deceived in the end to comfort yourself. Just say "I'll just assume that I recognize this person", right? Whether it is getting married, buying a house, or applying for a job or recruiting, almost all activities are inseparable from dealing with people. Simply relying on seeing people's hearts over time is obviously not enough to cope with so many demands. What should I do? This book can help you today. By learning the art of observation, you may gain the ability to see people quickly.

Speaking of being good at observation, you can definitely think of detectives. When Holmes met Watson for the first time, he said: "Are you from Afghanistan?" Watson was shocked: "How do you know?" Behind this keen judgment is the observation of a large number of details. You might say that the characters in the novel are all fictitious, so how could there be a real Sherlock Holmes in reality? Don't tell me, it really does. The great economist Altchin once revealed in advance which raw material the hydrogen bomb was made of by tracking stock prices. He could deduce this kind of state secret using only publicly available data. The same goes for a lot of spies' jobs. In your impression, do spies look like Tom Cruise or 007? In fact, much of the real espionage work is to deduce the confidential information behind it through observation and integration of various public information and details.

There is another profession that is closer to what we are going to talk about today, called criminal profiler. The name sounds a bit strange, but the work of these people can be said to be the modern version of Sherlock Holmes. They are familiar with criminal psychology and are responsible for observing crime scenes. They can describe the mentality and personality of criminals through the environmental layout and crime methods of the scene.

Having said so much, in fact, the core method used by these powerful people is the same, that is, observation. Next, I will take you to learn this powerful observation technique. First of all, let’s talk about it. When you face a stranger and you know nothing about him, where should you start to understand him? Second, assuming you have the opportunity to enter the other party's room or visit the other party's personal website, what can you do to collect more clues? Third, what factors may mislead your observations, and how to avoid them?

Part One

Have you ever thought about the difference between strangers and your good friends? You might say, of course the level of understanding is different. So how do we understand each other? You might say that if you have known each other for long enough, you will naturally understand them better. Is this really the case? Have you known your elementary school classmates long enough? But how many people can you say you know well? You might also say that if we meet and talk often, we will understand each other better. This is not necessarily true. You and the owner of the vegetable shop downstairs meet and talk every day, but your understanding is probably limited to how much you need to buy before he is willing to give you a discount. Then you have to ask, according to what you said, understanding a person is neither determined by the length of time you have known him nor by talking too much, so what is the most critical reason?

A professional study proves that the highest level of understanding a person lies in understanding the person's identity. This "identity" is not the same thing as what we often say "this is a person with an identity." Psychologists explain the identity here as the "inner story of the self." What does it mean? Simply put, it is a person’s explanation of himself. This encompasses the person’s values ??and rich character traits. To complete the task of understanding others, you have to find a way to know how the other person sees you. How does it work? Of course to observe his belongings. The author classifies items with observational value into identity labels, emotion modifiers, and behavioral traces.

As we just said, identity is the core of a person's character and represents the way he views himself. Then items that can display identity can be called the person's identity label, such as posters and certificates of honor. , photos, trinkets, t-shirts and more. How to use identity tags? Let’s take a picture as an example. The pictures mentioned here generally refer to photos, posters, decorative paintings or computer wallpapers, etc. Extroverts are easily attracted to other people, so they prefer pictures of people, especially pictures with more lively and open expressions and movements; introverts rarely display pictures of people, and they usually choose some landscape paintings. Or still life paintings, even if they include figures, the subject of the portrait is usually calm and calm.

The second type of items that deserve special attention are emotional regulators, which are things that evoke memories, such as commemorative photos, wedding rings, or letters. According to a survey, 8% of adults in the United States keep photos or souvenirs of loved ones on their office desk or in their wallets. In a psychology experiment about photos, researchers asked one group of participants to prepare a photo of a friend, and another group of participants to prepare a photo of their favorite celebrity. Participants were asked to look at the photos and vividly describe to the researchers a time when they were rejected by others. People who looked at photos of celebrities felt just as depressed as the average person, but those who looked at photos of friends were not affected. After a series of more in-depth studies, psychologists concluded that mood regulators can curb loneliness, benefit health and increase productivity.

So when you observe these objects, you can know where this person's emotions rely, what his interpersonal relationships are like, who can bring him spiritual comfort, and his views on these relationships.

The third category worth observing is behavioral traces. Behavioral traces are one of the best objects to observe. They are the traces left after people do certain things. For example, oil stains in the kitchen and worn tire marks are all traces of use. An experienced car mechanic once discovered that people who are prone to anxiety and fear are more likely to wear out brake pads than calm and relaxed people, because anxious people can't help but step on the brakes when encountering the slightest situation. Where can I get a lot of behavioral traces? You may not think that it is in the garbage. Crumpled shopping lists and store receipts can let you know a person's preferences and consumption; empty medicine bottles can show whether a person is suffering from certain diseases; a few pieces of scrapped letter paper can tell you Learn about his relationships or what he's thinking. Garbage proves that it has been used in the past, and because it is garbage, the person who throws it away does not care too much, so there is no motive for pretending. You see, if you want to be a great detective, you might want to consider becoming a "rag collector" first.

At this point, let’s review the previous content. If you want to understand a person deeply, you need to know the way that person views himself, including his personality, values, etc. Where can I find these clues? The author gives three major categories of items worth observing, namely identity tags, emotion modifiers, and behavioral traces. By observing and analyzing these three categories of items, we can even have a certain understanding of strangers we have never met.

Part 2

Simply observing objects has given you a certain understanding of the target. If you get an opportunity to walk into the other person’s home or office, where else can you go? What about getting more information?

First, of course, observe the overall atmosphere of the room.

I wonder if you have ever thought about why we spend so much time decorating our personal space? In a survey on employee comfort and engagement, researchers found that employees who work in a comfortable environment are more engaged and contribute more to a company's bottom line. The "comfort" here does not only refer to material conditions. The artificially created psychological environment is more important than practicality. For example, an employee who spends more time on the office environment puts a bouquet of flowers or a few decorations in his office. These things may not be directly related to work, but they can make him love his work more than ordinary employees, and also More able to engage in work. What does this mean? Those decorations that seem to have no practical function, or items that we think are placed randomly, are a reflection of our inner being. The interaction between objects and space forms the overall atmosphere of a room, which can reflect a person's psychological aspirations and express the personality of the owner.

Speaking of this, I thought of the concept that is particularly famous in room tidying-"breaking away from home", which is a life philosophy of getting to know yourself and cleaning up your mood by tidying up your room. By tidying up your room, you can learn about yourself and your relationship with objects, and between yourself and others. The theory of separation can also explain the reliability of room observation. For example, conservative people generally have more items that reflect order, such as stamps, calendars, and various schedules. Their rooms are also relatively neat and tidy. When you enter their space, you will feel orderly and fresh. For open people, there are usually many more extroverted items in their rooms, such as travel-related books, various music CDs or artworks, world maps, movie tickets, etc. When entering their rooms, the overall feeling will be more relaxed. , there are many novelties waiting to be discovered.

In addition to the overall atmosphere of the environment, the placement of objects can also be a huge help in understanding a person, which is the second focus of room observation.

The author tells a story. He went to his friend Lisa's house as a guest. The furnishings and items in the room showed that Lisa was a typical literary young woman. But the author discovered that Lisa obviously had many books, but only one was placed on a small platform alone. This book was Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast", which probably recorded Hemingway's life when he was a reporter in Paris. It can be seen that it was not left there, but was placed there intentionally. This solemn feeling shows that this book is very important to Lisa and must have some special meaning. By asking the author, she learned that this book was recommended to her by Lisa's ex-boyfriend. Lisa read this book and liked it very much. When she learned that Hemingway was just an unknown journalist when he was living in Paris, She felt that this book was very meaningful: a great writer who would achieve world-renowned achievements in literature in the future had also experienced a time of obscurity. This was what she found most inspiring. This is an important message. The author dug out the deeper values ????of the artistic young woman from beneath her appearance. In our words, "gold always shines." Lisa was encouraged by Hemingway's books and realized that outstanding achievements, even if they are not recognized in the early stages, will eventually be praised and rewarded by the world. Even if the author has died, everything he has done is meaningful. meaningful. You can imagine that Lisa will continue to move forward in accordance with such values ??when doing other things.

At this point, you may ask, if I have no chance to walk into a person's room, will the room observation technique be useless? Don’t worry, observation is not only effective in physical environments, but also in virtual environments. Moreover, today, when the Internet has covered most people, if you want to observe a person, cyberspace can even provide more information than physical space. It can be as small as a screen name, a personalized signature, a signature in an email, or a few words of personal introduction on Weibo, or as large as WeChat Moments, blogs and other social platforms where we can publish our thoughts and articles. Our lives and thoughts are almost everywhere on the Internet. Can be seen at a glance.

Take Lisa just mentioned as an example. Through the different placement of the book "A Moveable Feast", the author discovered her deeper values. But if you had not been to Lisa's room, wouldn't you be able to discover her character in this aspect? When the author later communicated with Lisa via email, she discovered that Lisa quoted a famous quote from Einstein in her signature at the end of the email, which is “Great spirits are always strongly resisted by mediocrity. The latter is incomprehensible when men no longer believe lightly in worldly prejudices, but use their wisdom honestly and courageously." This quote echoes the admiration for Hemingway. Moreover, the author of Lisa's personal homepage also saw that her space name is not just "Lisa", but "Lisa is a very important person". All these performances echo Lisa's values: she is very important. Care about the value you create in the world, and know that in a certain period of time, evaluation of success or failure in a secular sense cannot accurately determine future value. Even if you are unknown now, you will definitely achieve extraordinary achievements in the future.

Of course, whether you’re looking at the overall atmosphere of a room, placement of objects, or cyberspace, there’s something worth noting. For example, some uniforms or items distributed uniformly cannot reflect the personality of the owner; the office space is open to the outside world and may be restricted by work requirements; weird online names are unlikely to be used in formal work emails, etc. To obtain more accurate character information in a scene, similar limitations must first be eliminated. In Japan, in addition to regular email accounts, many people also have dedicated email addresses on their mobile phones. This is to distinguish between occasions. For example, the email address for sending papers to professors and the email address for private chats and appointments are not the same. A mailbox better reflects the personality of the owner.

Let’s summarize the scene observation part. As mentioned just now, observation requires putting items into specific scenes. We have introduced them from two aspects: reality and the Internet. You can observe the overall environment, Check the placement of items and the specific usage scenarios of items to make a more accurate judgment on a person's personality.

Part Three

Having said this, you may ask, if there are observations, there will be counter-observations. Will someone deliberately use the key points of the observations just mentioned to create false information? , will it adversely affect other people’s judgments of him? The answer is, it is possible. Among the three categories of items mentioned earlier, identity tags have the greatest potential for deception. For example, in order to meet important customers, some people will rent a luxury car in advance and wear brand-name clothes. This will make it easier for customers to believe that they have financial strength and it will be easier to reach cooperation. There are also some people who want to make their guests feel that they love cleanliness and have noble character. They can also make a house that does not even have a place to stay instantly clean through temporary cleaning.

So how can we see through these disguises? For example, if someone wants to pretend to be clean, surprise cleaning can at most show a tidy room. When he opens his closet, there may be so many clothes that they fall off. When you go to someone else's office as a guest, if you just sit in front of the table without moving, of course you will only see a clean desktop, but if you look down a little, you may find the messy charging cables and various dust under the table. courier box.

You can also observe the other party’s behavioral traces in addition to the identity label. Behavioral traces are difficult to disguise. For example, it takes several years to collect and organize a large number of books; for another example, if you want to hang a wall full of social honors, you must first get the award; also, whether the sports equipment has been used can also be reflected through traces of use. . These traces that cannot be prepared temporarily or require a lot of cost can provide you with strong evidence.

Of course, you also need to remember to integrate information from multiple parties. When you want to determine whether someone is into sports, you need to collect a lot of information to support this idea. For example, he has an annual gym membership and a record of continuous use; there are books on scientific exercise on his bookshelf; his sports equipment shows signs of use and maintenance; his WeChat signature is "Exercise makes life better." ”, in short, information must support each other.

In addition, knee-jerk reactions are also a great opportunity to observe a person, because true personal information and personality are often uncontrolled and will appear automatically. We can do a simple little experiment and play the name exchange game with your friends. This experiment will be more effective if there are several of you and all the names are arranged randomly. Now, you can call each other's new name. At the beginning, everyone can basically handle it, but as time goes by, or after you go shopping, eat, or do other things together, someone suddenly calls you. His real name, you will definitely agree to him immediately like a conditioned reflex.

You see, it is of course possible for people to pretend under conscious control, but the disguise requires attention to support it, and once it is relaxed even a little bit, the subconscious reaction will reveal the true situation.

You might say that even if it is difficult to disguise in the real world, the cost of pretending in cyberspace is very low and it is also very easy, right? It seems reasonable to say this, but the fact is that most people show their true personalities on the Internet.

Moreover, even if someone wants to disguise themselves as an ideal state on the Internet, it is actually very difficult. The reason is the same as observing a room in the real world. To take the simplest example, if you want to show that you like classical music online, you need to continuously output blog posts related to classical music, classical music recommendations, or photos of attending classical concerts. If it is just to disguise, then this series It is difficult for traces of behavior to be continuously displayed on your personal website. In addition, it is difficult to show what a person pays attention to and cares about through deliberate disguise. The authors studied photos on Facebook and found that people had no idea what personality cues their photos conveyed. Although we all manage our own image to a greater or lesser extent, what content to post and how to post it are almost all determined by personal values ??and interests and preferences. In other words, you may have posted content with personalized characteristics online without even realizing it.

Having said that, others may use disguises to confuse you, so you have to be careful, as sometimes your own common sense will go against you. Imagine you are walking in the jungle and suddenly you hear a tiger roaring. You turn around and hide in the nearby bushes. Then you see the tiger's tail. What would you do? Of course I should look for an opportunity and run away quickly! But if you think about it carefully, have you really seen a tiger? You just heard the roar and saw the tiger's tail. How can you tell that you have met a tiger? This is because your knowledge of tigers is filled in by your inherent common sense. When we encounter a lack of information, common sense will help us make up for the information we have not obtained.

Common sense is very useful. It provides convenience and helps you process information faster. For example, we all hate the map cannon, which is the practice of criticizing a group of people based on their region. Isn't it completely unreasonable? Does location have an impact on a person's personality? Of course there is. In a survey on the pace of life of people in 31 countries and regions, Switzerland ranked first and Mexico ranked last. There are many other characteristics related to the pace of life. For example, the faster the pace of life, the higher the smoking rate of people in this country. If you have two colleagues from Switzerland and Mexico, you certainly have reason to believe that the two people have different concepts of time, and you can even judge that the Swiss are more likely to be smokers. But when you judge individuals, you will find that the Swiss colleague does not smoke, but the Mexican colleague is a heavy smoker. You see, the reason why map cannons are annoying is because they judge everyone with their inherent common sense.

Is common sense wrong? Of course not, common sense is also a conclusion drawn from countless experiences and individual characteristics, but it cannot cover all individuals. You should regard common sense as a conclusion with a high probability, but even if the probability is more than 90%, there are always special circumstances of 10%. The key to successfully using common sense is to treat it as a valid assumption that can be discarded once additional information becomes available.

To recap, this section talks about how to spot disguises. During the observation process, others are likely to use various methods to confuse you into making wrong judgments. Your secret is to observe more behavioral traces, observe the other party's subconscious reactions, and connect the collected clues into mutually supporting evidence. chain. In addition to others, you must also be careful about yourself, because people are easily confused by inherent thinking. The solution is to treat common sense as a valid assumption. When the evidence collected overturns this assumption, you must judge according to the actual situation. .