Are you any good at 'reading people?'

[TrenterPercenter]

It's interesting that every single post (I think, cmiiw) from someone saying they're good at reading people have cited examples of being able to tell when someone is dodgy or unpleasant.

Survival isn't it; our biology is highly attuned to seeking out threats rather than safe situations.

[Blue Jam]

Survival isn't it; our biology is highly attuned to seeking out threats rather than safe situations.

Isn't this also how certain prejudices arise? We're more likely to judge a group of people on a the minority among them who have harmed or upset us in some way. When I rent a flat I think about the two dodgy landlords I've had, not the majority who were perfectly decent, because I don't want to get shafted again. Other prejudices are more problematic and are indefensible but also understandable when you think about how prone we are to confirmation bias etc.

Been keeping out of this but from a professional perspective most people that think they are good at reading people are actually just very good at projecting their interpretations and internal states on to other people i.e. they pick on things other people do that they do.

"Takes one to know one" and all that.

Good thread this. I'm wondering about the extent to which it is possible to be a good judge of character. Is it dependent on the degree to which the observer is perceptive, or the degree to which the observed is good at bluffing, or a bit of both?

I guess everyone likes to think they're a good judge of character. Nobody likes to think of themselves as naive or trusting or easily duped do they? Yet I have to wonder if the more confident ones are also the ones more likely to be duped because of their overconfidence. I'd be interested to see if there's any correlation between a person's judgement of their own ability to read people, and their actual ability to read people. Or a correlation between a person's judgement of their skills at deception, and other people's ability to see through that deception.

Personally I like to think I'm good at spotting a devil in plain sight, but I do wonder if that's because everyone else sees them too and just finds it easier to ignore them or humour them for the sake of a quiet life. More recently a friend of mine got divorced from someone who had been a mutual friend of ours for years, and had me thinking "Awww, after being cheated on so many times she's finally found a nice one, good for her". Nope- this right-on, card-carrying feminist man was just like the rest. He fooled his wife, he fooled me, he fooled everyone.

On this subject, some of the coverage of the Sarah Everard case has made me feel uneasy. The interviews with Wayne Couzens' classmates who described him as a "porn and gun obsessed weirdo" and how they're not surprised he turned out the way he did, then the interview with his poor wife who was asked if she saw any "warning signs" and had to admit she hadn't and that she felt very guilty about it. I know the tabloid always do this kind of analysis with high-profile cases but I wish they wouldn't put the onus on other people to spot offenders before they offend, and the "I always knew he was a wrong 'un"-type commentary (which may or may not just be arrogant bullshitting) does nothing but heap guilt and shame on the people who "should" have known better.

Also remember the ex-girlfriends of Ian Watkins who went to the police to report their suspicions about him and were ignored- even if people do "know better" their concerns can still be dismissed as baseless speculation until it's too late. There isn't much that can be done without cold hard evidence.

It's the same sort of thing as asking "Why do women go for bad boys?" and expecting women to have a sixth sense to spot potential abusers, ignoring the possibility that an abuser may initially be very charming and very good at hiding their true nature, and the fact that many abusers only start to abuse when they feel they've got their victim "trapped" (ie, pregnant, isolated from their friends and family, in a new country where they don't speak the language etc). Also when you hear about people offending in the workplace despite passing CBS checks, and people ask "Why did they allow this to happen?", forgetting that a CBS check won't turn up anything on someone who has never been charged with a crime. Or social workers who are castigated for "ignoring the warning signs" when a vulnerable person dies on their watch, but also of being "too heavy-handed" when they act on "warning signs" that turn out to be a red herring.

The whole Minority Report concept might be appealing to many but people just aren't that clever.

[Zetetic]

forgetting that a [DBS] check won't turn up anything on someone who has never been charged with a crime

For better or worse, this isn't true.

Enhanced checks can include anything that the local police "consider relevant to the role". This can include their involvement in your mental health crisis for example. Importantly, you can challenge this before it goes a prospective employee.

(Other DBS checks can still include stuff like cautions and warnings.)

Edit: Should say that I don't when this was brought in, and if it was true of CRB checks before they became DBS checks.

[djtrees]

I don't think I'm great at it as I kind of tend to not really like people I don't know, but I give them the benefit of the doubt. So it usually other people telling me that so and so is a massive pervert/racist/cool dude that sways my opinion of said pervert/racist/cool dude. I think that it has something to do with being a privileged middle aged middle class white man. No one is really a threat to me now, so I can afford to be blasé about people being cunts or not. When I was a long haired wet youngster I felt my spidey senses had to be heightened so as to avoid a battering. However my partner still uses her spidey sense and other women have told me the same. Probably due to having to constantly fend off arseholes. My arsehole fending off days are way behind me.

I have had one spectacularly good "read" a while ago. Played a gig and was hanging out in the yard at the back of the pub and some older feller 55ish turned up dressed as a butcher. He may or may not have been an actually butcher, but I'm not that good. He seemed to be one of those knows everyone types who shakes people hands and pats backs and all that. Being the exact opposite I kept my distance. Until we both ended up back at the house I was meant to be crashing at with a gang of people I didn't know. He had exhausted everyone else at the party, I'm guessing so trundled over to me and began all his handshaking, being nice and friendly bollocks (what a cunt!) I exchanged pleasantries until I realised I had the exact question to flummox him. So I asked him what his CB Radio handle was. He hadn't mentioned CB radioing, and I know very little about it apart from the cultural osmosis surrounding it. He was hilariously take aback and stammered for a bit until he told me what it was, then went into a long ramble about the good old days of CB radioing. I Switched off after about 10 seconds glad. I don't think he ever murdered someone. Or anything else bad. Just a CB cunt.
1-0 to me.

[TrenterPercenter]

Ahhhhh BlueJam I'm trying to get some work done ; )

Isn't this also how certain prejudices arise?

Yup, we are primed to remember negative experiences due to cortisol stimulation and release. I think this is better way of thinking of this rather than saying "to avoid future dangers" that might be outcome and that might improve survival but we also know trauma can distort memories due to high-levels of cortisol; though this can be conscious memory; people with PTSD often relive trauma due to environmental trigger or in dreams despite not being able to recall consciously what happened to them.  Cortisol messes you up and it massively intertwined with emotions and memory.

Personally I like to think I'm good at spotting a devil in plain sight, but I do wonder if that's because everyone else sees them too and just finds it easier to ignore them or humour them for the sake of a quiet life. More recently a friend of mine got divorced from someone who had been a mutual friend of ours for years, and had me thinking "Awww, after being cheated on so many times she's finally found a nice one, good for her". Nope- this right-on, card-carrying feminist man was just like the rest. He fooled his wife, he fooled me, he fooled everyone.

So this is what I was getting at originally; you have bad experience with someone and meet another person with similar characteristics and mannerisms; you think because these are similar to what you have seen before that this person is the same but they are not (your prejudice point); we all create our own biases and blindspots.  Psychopaths (though this is debatable whether this is a useful term anymore) are generally quite good at playing the roles of people that others don't feel threatened by; disarming people; they are generally people that have a good sense of "what people want" more than anything else.

It's the same sort of thing as asking "Why do women go for bad boys?" and expecting women to have a sixth sense to spot potential abusers, ignoring the possibility that an abuser may initially be very charming and very good at hiding their true nature, and the fact that many abusers only start to abuse when they feel they've got their victim "trapped" (ie, pregnant, isolated from their friends and family, in a new country where they don't speak the language etc).

Hmmm but this is a bit simplistic; some women obviously just lie; they stood to gain from their other halves shitty behaviour and therefore underwrote it until it spilled out on them and their children - it is important to note here that absolutely they are still victims imo (I don't see anyone as ever deserving of abuse or violence - its just tragic all the way round), I'm not suggesting otherwise, just when asking someone "why did you support this terrible person for so many years" an easy answer to give is "I didn't know" isn't it.  That is not to detract from those partners (Richard Kulinski comes to mind) that were very good at being deceptive.

I've never really thought women going for bad boys in this manner btw; they go for bad boys because they are sexy right? and I've had countless female friends tell me so (ha I remember one heartthrob telling me how see really fancied Phill Mitchell and had fantasies of being "thrown over a car bonnet" - her words); they don't want their partners murdering or assaulting them but they are attracted to the stereotypical excitement that comes with someone that is unpredictable/spontaneous/plays by his own/able to hold his own etc..standard male (often violent) hero/antihero trope (also think it is worth pointing out that people rarely share personal desires that they feel will not conform to expectations of social groups).

I don't think this is because some women are born evil danger seekers, they are just exposed to these common male tropes throughout their life.  I mean we need Linsey Ellis to actually bother to do a critique of male representation in films if she did she may find that invariably they are characters that murder and beat up other people whilst showing their ripped torsos and ravaging women like they've just eaten a giant plate of elephant tusks.  My mum is really into Tahir Rahim at the moment because of that BBC series The Serpent[nb]about a highly succesful murderer[/nb] "it's not because of the character he is playing! it is just he is a very handsome man!"  I believe her, he is a very handsome man; but what impact does this have on people when they see violent murderers portrayed as glamorous desirable sexy individuals doing glamorous desirable sexy things (I'm not calling to ban this it's just the way it is). Charles Sobhrai might have horribly murdered some innocent young people who thought they were having the experience of a lifetime but he is also an incredible fuck!, so you know swings and roundabouts.  For men, these characters are of course always adorned with sexy women; it's evidence to them that living up to these stereotypes gets you laid - there is something for everyone and rather than this being some conspiracy to embolden the violent male protagonist it's more just that about how our brains our wired with sex and violence occupying highly intertwined hardware in the brain - there is no difference is this respect for men or women.  Of course the reality for people that try to emulate this is usually misery, jail and abuse - but in all my time working in the community there has always been a healthy amount of women that have gone for aggressive men (many aggressive themselves); I don't think this is a feature of gender but one of poverty (though interestingly I've known quite a few affluent women that are really into thugs - my old boss for example quite a respected individual in her field used to be one of those women that carries the card around between boxing matches bouts which she took as job as young rich woman because she was attracted to the violence of it all).

[touchingcloth]

A load of bald men fighting over a toupée fallacy.

[TrenterPercenter]

A load of bald men fighting over a toupée fallacy.

Comb-over to my place I'm a very considerate lover.....

[bgmnts]

Just trust fucking nobody, beyond maybe very close family. That's it at the end of the day.

[colacentral]

Alright, Fox Mulder!

[paruses]

Just trust fucking nobody, beyond maybe very close family. That's it at the end of the day.

Aren't close family most likely to murder you?

[All Surrogate]

I think I'm slowly getting better at it. It took me years to realise that that security guard was coming on to me, and to this day it annoys me I missed it.

[timebug]

I am now elderly and a miserable bugger, but all my life I have had faith in my own 'first impressions' of people. I have decided when meeting someone, that they are either dodgy or not my sort of folk; without exception, my first impression turned out to be true, for me! A couple of folk were outwardly nice and obliging,and wanted to be everyones friend;they turned into right shitbags over the years,who no one liked. Trust your instincts, it's what kept the human race going!

[jamiefairlie]

Regarding the 'survival instinct' point, it does perfect sense. Trusting too much can get you killed, distrusting too much won't. You can argue that distrusting too much maybe makes you unhappy but unhappy is better than dead.

I might not have been fair for Native Americans to distrust all white folks but it would certainly have been better for them in the long run.

[Zetetic]

distrusting too much won't [get you killed]

That's not really true, it's just a bit less acutely dramatic usually.

[Kankurette]

Never found violent men attractive in real life or fiction, tbh.

Blue, my mum still beats herself up about marrying my last stepdad, who turned out to be an evil abusive arsehole. I've told her several times that it wasn't her fault and she wasn't to know he'd turn out like that. None of us did. I loved him at first and I have very complicated feelings about him because of how he treated my mum and brother. There were signs, but we just thought he was very strict. I didn't start putting two and two together until Mum told me about other things he'd done that I didn't know about.

[MoreauVasz]

I would say that my ability to correctly read people is somewhat moot.

I mean... I've sussed people out before and noticed how they react to things but that's just getting to know someone. I also know when someone is trying to blow smoke up my arse. I say that my ability to read people is moot as I am extremely comfortable not giving people a chance. I am quite happy to spend five minutes in someone's company and then conclude that they're dull, unpleasant, insincere... Whatever. Quite comfortable trusting that initial read and never letting people get anywhere near me so whether or not I am 'reading' people correctly doesn't really factor. I might be 100% accurate or a complete dunce, either way I am happy leaping to the conclusion that people are not worthy of my time.

Isn't the 'women like bad boys' thing just a function of people prone to social transgression being interesting? Most men are doughy pricks in stupid trousers and star wars Christmas jumpers, why wouldn't you ignore them in favour of the guy who breaks the rules?

[jamiefairlie]

Because the exciting bad-boy who breaks the rules is also more likely to break your nose and scream 'nah look wot yoo bleedin well made me dooo nah yoo cah!'?

[MoreauVasz]

Because the exciting bad-boy who breaks the rules is also more likely to break your nose and scream 'nah look wot yoo bleedin well made me dooo nah yoo cah!'?

Maybe if you live in a comic.

[Joe Oakes]

I think I'm slowly getting better at it. It took me years to realise that that security guard was coming on to me, and to this day it annoys me I missed it.

It's your own fault for being too preoccupied with shoplifting.

[peanutbutter]

I'd say I'm pretty good but I'm also probably prone to being a bit of a sucker because I've pretty high empathy levels (albeit in a rather guarded manner) and waste a lot of energy trying to relate to _everyone_. I wouldn't even have to be buying their bullshit directly, I'd just be caught up by the sense of desperation motivating it; people with BPD can be tricky to navigate sometimes even if I'm fully aware of it.

Seem to be able to eye out sociopaths and the like quite well, it'll just be like "I can't think of any kind of reasonable explanation for this" for both nice and shitty actions.





On the other side of this, I'm generally a bit surprised how bad people seem to be at reading me. I'm an extremely guarded person who dissociates like wild but even still it's rare I hear anyone mention anything especially insightful. Got one friend who's quite good at it, one of my teachers in secondary school had a solid read of me too... that might be it?

[Chedney Honks]

I used to know an American guy in China who was an interrogator for intelligence services in Iraq. Not a joke or bullshit. I remember going for food and drinks before I knew this and I could feel his eyes bore into me whenever we made eye contact. An outwardly nice and polite guy, not much humour but quite fun once he'd had a few drinks. I just felt very unnerved around him. I actually felt better once I found out what he'd done, in a way, because it explained why his stare made me uncomfortable. A very intelligent man who must have done some unspeakable things. I saw his wedding photos on social media and while everyone else looks genuinely happy and carefree, he's smiling but can clearly never again operate on that plane of reality.

[Replies From View]

'Reading people' is just 'making assumptions without enough information'.  People who think they are doing it can fuck off.

[Pauline Walnuts]

Not really, and I'm especially wary of people who think they are, if they're in any position of power anyway.

[Icehaven]

I think working in a clink has messed with my thoughts about "reading" people. I've worked with so many people who if I'd met them outside I'd probably never have thought they were capable of doing the things they've done, but I already know they are, and I look past it, as we have to, which does mean you get used to downplaying any negative vibes you get about anyone. On the other hand I can be overly suspicious of everyone for the exact same reason, while simultaneously being aware of this and trying not to be, so it's all a bit warped.

[TrenterPercenter]

'Reading people' is just 'making assumptions without enough information'.  People who think they are doing it can fuck off.

It does seem that talking to people and not prejudging them is the morally right thing to do rather than any of this Cracker stuff.

[Replies From View]

I have the sort of face that makes certain people assume I am bored, or judging them, or all manner of negative things when all I'm doing is sitting pretty much relaxed and paying attention.  The better skill isn't thinking you have some kind of magical wizard 'reading' powers, but having the will and patience to not make assumptions and actually let people show themselves over time.

[TrenterPercenter]

I think working in a clink has messed with my thoughts about "reading" people. I've worked with so many people who if I'd met them outside I'd probably never have thought they were capable of doing the things they've done, but I already know they are, and I look past it, as we have to, which does mean you get used to downplaying any negative vibes you get about anyone. On the other hand I can be overly suspicious of everyone for the exact same reason, while simultaneously being aware of this and trying not to be, so it's all a bit warped.

I imagine this is common experience for prison staff; do you get any support or guidance around this? (hmmm not sure why I'm asking as I think I know the answer).

[TrenterPercenter]

I have the sort of face that makes certain people assume I am bored, or judging them, or all manner of negative things when all I'm doing is sitting pretty much relaxed and paying attention.  The better skill isn't thinking you have some kind of magical wizard 'reading' powers, but having the will and patience to not make assumptions and actually let people actually show themselves over time.

Well exactly; basically the two most important skills for anyone working in psychological services.

[Icehaven]

I imagine this is common experience for prison staff; do you get any support or guidance around this? (hmmm not sure why I'm asking as I think I know the answer).

Not that I've experienced myself, although I don't know if there's anything in the officer training or if the general support arrangements cover it or anything, they may well do, but yes I wouldn't be too surprised if not. There's regular anti-corruption training sessions to prevent conditioning and manipulation, but that's a different thing. I think it's preferred for staff to be as suspicious of prisoners as possible, but unchecked over time that would and does seriously affect your general view of humanity, so you try and counter it (well I do anyway) but it does still bugger it up a bit.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Bet all youse gaydar is pretty good too eh