I picked up this book six months ago, and noted that the paradigm was quite rational. For example, she did talk about spending a lot of time practicing how you read people and then testing your hypotheses. The author chose people for a jury, so she needed to objective about whether she was reading people correctly to be successful.
I just skimmed it, but one idea stood out that I carried away with me: she wrote that there are many questions you can ask a person for which the response will depend upon their socioeconomic background and other factors. However, there was one characteristic that she found to be robust: whether they were compassionate or not (or something akin). Apparently, this is one personality trait people don’t falsely signal.
(Later edit: I’m sure that the book said it was straightforward to identify if someone was compassionate, as I may have mis-remembered. Instead it seems the main message was that IF someone is compassionate, that is a good predictor of their behavior. Thanks to wedifred for motivating me to double-check.)
However, there was one characteristic that she found to be robust: whether they were compassionate or not (or something akin). Apparently, this is one personality trait people don’t signal falsely.
Really? I’ve dealt with sociopaths who signaled that falsely.
I’ve dealt with sociopaths who signaled that falsely.
I’d be interested in hearing more about this, as I am highly skeptical of the existence of sociopaths (in the popular, overdramatized sense of people constantly manipulating others). There are people who have conduct disorders with no self-control, and who can’t stop themselves from impulsively committing crimes and acts of violence, but that’s a far cry from the stereotype of always lying, being devious and cunning, and signaling falsely.
Here are some personal impressions from my own experience and that of friends (which should be taken with a grain of salt.)
*Sociopaths occupy 1-2% of the population, so a good majority of people who one meets are not sociopaths.
*Of those sociopaths who one does meet, most conceal their sociopathy.
*Combining the two factors above, it’s quite possible to go through life without ever seeing evidence of sociopaths first hand. Thus, just because you’ve never seen firsthand evidence doesn’t mean that you should rule out their existence.
*Many sociopaths do constantly manipulate others, but sometimes this is not a conscious choice. It can happen that (at least locally) when they tell lies they believe them. What’s so sad about their situation is that they’re often as much victims of their condition as they are perpetrators.
*If you want stories of people’s experiences with sociopaths, check out emotional abuse forums online. Of course, in principle the people there could be deluded as to the nature of their experiences, but by going to such forums you can at least get some idea of the sort of sociopath that people report on encountering in real life as opposed to Hollywood’s version.
I read an older, very different version of the book, but in this version she writes,
If I peg someone as either very compassionate or unusually cold and harsh, I already know more about them and how they are likely to behave than their age, educational background, employment, physical appearance and sex combined could ever tell me.
Earlier on the same page she wrote,
I am not alone in my belief that an individual’s level of compassion is a very good predictor of how he will think and act.
So the main difference in what I remembered and what she wrote is that while I had taken away that compassion is a good predictor of behavior, it’s not necessarily easy to measure, just reliable information about a person once you have measured it.
For the record, in the most recent version she also mentions socio-economic background and satisfaction with life as predictors that are nearly as powerful as compassion.
I picked up this book six months ago, and noted that the paradigm was quite rational. For example, she did talk about spending a lot of time practicing how you read people and then testing your hypotheses. The author chose people for a jury, so she needed to objective about whether she was reading people correctly to be successful.
I just skimmed it, but one idea stood out that I carried away with me: she wrote that there are many questions you can ask a person for which the response will depend upon their socioeconomic background and other factors. However, there was one characteristic that she found to be robust: whether they were compassionate or not (or something akin). Apparently, this is one personality trait people don’t falsely signal.
(Later edit: I’m sure that the book said it was straightforward to identify if someone was compassionate, as I may have mis-remembered. Instead it seems the main message was that IF someone is compassionate, that is a good predictor of their behavior. Thanks to wedifred for motivating me to double-check.)
Really? I’ve dealt with sociopaths who signaled that falsely.
I’d be interested in hearing more about this, as I am highly skeptical of the existence of sociopaths (in the popular, overdramatized sense of people constantly manipulating others). There are people who have conduct disorders with no self-control, and who can’t stop themselves from impulsively committing crimes and acts of violence, but that’s a far cry from the stereotype of always lying, being devious and cunning, and signaling falsely.
Here are some personal impressions from my own experience and that of friends (which should be taken with a grain of salt.)
*Sociopaths occupy 1-2% of the population, so a good majority of people who one meets are not sociopaths.
*Of those sociopaths who one does meet, most conceal their sociopathy.
*Combining the two factors above, it’s quite possible to go through life without ever seeing evidence of sociopaths first hand. Thus, just because you’ve never seen firsthand evidence doesn’t mean that you should rule out their existence.
*Many sociopaths do constantly manipulate others, but sometimes this is not a conscious choice. It can happen that (at least locally) when they tell lies they believe them. What’s so sad about their situation is that they’re often as much victims of their condition as they are perpetrators.
*If you want stories of people’s experiences with sociopaths, check out emotional abuse forums online. Of course, in principle the people there could be deluded as to the nature of their experiences, but by going to such forums you can at least get some idea of the sort of sociopath that people report on encountering in real life as opposed to Hollywood’s version.
She might have been more specific. I’ll look it up..
I’ll be interested to hear. I’m getting the impression that there is an underlying insight to what she is saying that does match my observations.
I read an older, very different version of the book, but in this version she writes,
Earlier on the same page she wrote,
So the main difference in what I remembered and what she wrote is that while I had taken away that compassion is a good predictor of behavior, it’s not necessarily easy to measure, just reliable information about a person once you have measured it.
For the record, in the most recent version she also mentions socio-economic background and satisfaction with life as predictors that are nearly as powerful as compassion.