Speaking of observation, you can definitely think of detectives. When Holmes first met Watson, he said, "Are you Afghan?" Watson was surprised. "How do you know?" Behind this keen judgment is the observation of a large number of details. You may say that all the characters in the novel are fictional, so how can there be a real Sherlock Holmes in reality? Don't tell me, there is. A Qin, a great economist, once revealed in advance what kind of raw materials hydrogen bombs were made of by tracking stock prices. This kind of state secret can only be inferred from public information. So do many spies. In your impression, are spies all like Tom Cruise or 007? In fact, many real espionage work infers The Secret Behind information by observing and synthesizing various public information and details.
There is another occupation that is closer to what we are going to talk about today, called criminal profiler. The name sounds strange, but these people's works can be said to be the modern version of Sherlock Holmes. They are familiar with criminal psychology and are responsible for observing the crime scene. They can describe the criminal's mentality and character through the scene environment layout and modus operandi.
Having said that, 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. First of all, let's talk about how to meet a stranger without knowing anything. Second, suppose you have the opportunity to enter the other person's room or visit the other person's personal website, what can you do to collect more clues? 3. What factors will mislead your observation and how to avoid it?
first part
I don't know if you have ever thought about the difference between a stranger and your good friend. You may say, of course, the degree of understanding is different. So how did you meet? You might say that if you know each other long enough, you will naturally know more. Is that really the case? Have your primary school classmates known you long enough? But how many people do you know? You may also say that you will know more about it if you meet and talk often. This is not necessarily true. You can meet and chat with the owner of the vegetable shop downstairs every day, but your understanding probably only stays at how much you buy before he will 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 nor by too much decision. What is the most critical reason?
A professional study has proved that the highest level of understanding a person lies in knowing his identity. This "identity" is not the same as what we often say "this is a person with identity". Psychologists interpret the identity here as "the inner story of self". What do you mean? Simply put, it is a person's explanation of himself. This includes this person's values and rich personality characteristics. In order to get to know others, you should try to understand what they think of you. How to operate specifically? Observe his belongings, of course. The author classifies the objects with observation value, namely, identity tags, mood regulators and behavioral traces.
As we said just now, identity is the core of a person's personality and represents the way he sees himself. Then everything that can show his identity can be called his identity tag, such as posters, honorary certificates, photos, trinkets, T-shirts and so on. How to use the identity tag? Let's take pictures as an example. The pictures mentioned here generally refer to photos, posters, decorative paintings or computer wallpaper. Extroverts are easily attracted to others, so they prefer pictures of people, especially those with lively and open gestures. Introverts rarely put portraits. They usually choose some landscape paintings or still life paintings. Even if they can put a portrait, the protagonist in the portrait is usually calm.
The second item that deserves special attention is the mood regulator, that is, something that reminds people, such as commemorative photos, wedding rings or letters. According to a survey, 8% adults in the United States leave photos or souvenirs of their loved ones on their desks or wallets in the office. In a psychological experiment about photos, the researchers asked one group of participants to prepare a photo of their friends, and another group of participants to prepare a photo of their favorite star. Participants should look at the photos and vividly describe to the researchers their experiences of being rejected by others. People who look at photos of celebrities are as depressed as the average person, but people who look at photos of friends are not affected. After a series of in-depth studies, psychologists have come to the conclusion that mood regulators can inhibit loneliness, benefit health and improve production efficiency. So when you observe these objects, you can know where this person's emotions depend, what his interpersonal relationships are, who can bring him spiritual comfort, and his views on these relationships.
The third category worthy of special observation is behavior traces. Behavior trace is one of the best observation objects, which is the trace left by people after doing something, such as oil stains in the kitchen, worn tire traces and so on. An experienced car mechanic once found that people who are anxious and afraid are more likely to wear brake pads than those who are calm and relaxed, because anxious people can't help stepping on the brakes when they encounter any situation. Where can I get a lot of traces of behavior? You may not think it, but it's in the trash can. Pinch shopping lists and store receipts can let you know a person's preferences and consumption; Empty medicine bottles can tell whether a person has some diseases; A few pieces of waste paper can let you know his interpersonal relationship or what he is thinking. Garbage proves that it has been used in the past, and because it is garbage, people who throw garbage will not care too much, so there is no motive to pretend. You see, if you want to be a big detective, you can consider being a garbage collector first.
Here, let's review the previous content. If you want to know a person deeply, you must know the way this person views himself, including his personality, values and so on. Where can I find these clues? The author gives three objects worthy of observation, namely, identity tag, mood regulator and behavior trace. Through the observation and analysis of these three kinds of objects, we can even have a certain understanding of strangers who have never met at all.
the second part
Simply observing things has given you a certain understanding of the target audience. Where can you get more information if you have the opportunity to walk into each other's home or office?
First of all, of course, observe the overall atmosphere of the room.
I wonder if you have ever wondered why we spend a lot of time decorating our private space. In a survey on employees' comfort and engagement, researchers found that employees who work in a comfortable environment will be more engaged and contribute more to the company's profits. "Comfort" here refers not only to material conditions, but also to man-made psychological environment, which is more important than practicality. For example, an employee who stays in an office environment for a long time puts a bunch of flowers or several decorations in the office. These things may not be directly related to his job, but they can make him love his job more and be more competent than ordinary employees. What does this mean? Ornaments that seem to have no practical function, or items that we think are randomly placed, are a reflection of our hearts. The interaction between objects and space forms the overall atmosphere of a room, which can reflect a person's psychological demands and express the owner's personality characteristics.
Having said that, I thought of a particularly famous concept in room decoration-"breaking up", which is a philosophy of life to get to know yourself and tidy up your mood by decorating your room. By cleaning your room, you can know yourself and your relationship with things and others. The separation theory can also explain the reliability of room observation. For example, conservative people generally have more items that can reflect order, such as stamps, calendars, various schedules, and the rooms are relatively clean. When you enter their space, you will feel organized and the air is fresh. However, open people usually have many more extroverted items in their rooms, such as travel-related books, various music CDs or artworks, world maps, movie tickets and so on. When they enter their rooms, they will feel more relaxed on the whole, and there are many novel things waiting to be discovered.
In addition to the overall atmosphere of the environment, the placement of objects is also very helpful to understand a person, which is the second focus of room observation.
The author told a story. He went to visit his friend Lisa's home. The furnishings and objects in the room show that Lisa is a typical young woman in literature and art, but the author found that Lisa obviously has many books, but only one book is placed on a small platform alone. This book is Hemingway's The Flowing Feast, which probably records Hemingway's life when he was a reporter in Paris. It can be seen that it was not put there, but deliberately put there. This solemn feeling shows that this book is very important to Lisa and must have some special significance. By asking the author, I learned that this book was originally recommended by Lisa's ex-boyfriend. Lisa liked it very much after reading it. When she learned that Hemingway was only an unknown reporter when he lived in Paris, she felt that this book was very meaningful: a great writer who made outstanding achievements in literature in the future also experienced the time of obscurity, which she felt most encouraged. This is an important message. The author digs out her deeper values from the appearance of a young woman in literature and art, which is, in our words, "gold always shines." Inspired by Hemingway's book, Lisa realized that even if outstanding achievements were not recognized in the early days, they would eventually be praised and rewarded by the world. Even if the author dies, everything he has done is meaningful. As you can imagine, Lisa will continue to advance according to such values when doing other things.
At this point, you may ask, if I don't have a chance to walk into a person's room at all, is it useless to observe the room? Don't worry, observation is effective not only for the physical environment, but also for the virtual environment. Moreover, with the Internet covering most people today, if you want to observe a person, cyberspace can even provide more information than physical space. From the screen name, personalized signature, autograph under email, Weibo's personal introduction, to various social platforms where thoughts and articles can be posted, such as WeChat friends circle and blog, our life and thoughts can be almost clear at a glance on the Internet.
Take Lisa as an example. Through the different arrangement of The Flowing Feast, the author discovered her deeper values, but if you haven't been to Lisa's room, can't you find her character in this respect? When the author sent an email to Lisa later, she found that Lisa quoted Einstein's famous saying at the end of the email, which said, "Great spirit is always strongly resisted by mediocre people." When people no longer rashly believe in secular prejudice, but honestly and bravely use their wisdom, the latter is incomprehensible. "This quotation echoes the admiration for Hemingway. Moreover, on Lisa's personal homepage, the author 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 cares about the value she has created for the world and knows that for a period of time, the evaluation of success or failure in the secular sense cannot accurately locate the future value. Even if she is unknown now, she will certainly achieve extraordinary achievements in the future.
Of course, whether observing the overall atmosphere of the room, the placement of goods or cyberspace, there are some noteworthy places. For example, some uniformly distributed uniforms or articles cannot reflect the personality of the owner; The office space is outdoors, which may be restricted due to work needs; Weird screen names are unlikely to be used in formal work emails. In order to get more accurate information about people in the scene, we must first remove similar restrictions. In Japan, in addition to regular email accounts, many people have special email addresses on their mobile phones, which is to distinguish occasions. For example, the email address for sending papers to professors is not the same as the email address for private chat and appointment, and the private email address can better reflect the personality of the host.
Let's summarize the part of on-site observation. As we said just now, the observation should put the objects into specific scenes. We introduced it from two aspects: reality and network. You can make a more accurate judgment of a person's personality by observing the overall environment, checking the placement of items and the specific use scenarios of items.
the third part
Speaking of this, you may ask, if there is observation, there will be anti-observation. Will someone deliberately use the observation focus just mentioned to create false information, which will adversely affect others' judgment on him? The answer is possible. Among the three types of goods mentioned above, identity tags have the greatest cheating potential. For example, in order to meet important customers, some people will rent a luxury car in advance and wear famous brands, so it is easy for customers to believe that they have economic strength and it is easier to reach cooperation. Others want to make guests feel clean and noble, or they can make a room that doesn't even have a place to stay clean instantly by temporary cleaning.
So how can we see through these disguises? For example, if you want to pretend to be clean, a surprise cleaning can show at most one cleaned room. If you open his closet, maybe there will be so many clothes that they will fall straight down. When visiting other people's offices, if you just sit at your desk and don't move, of course, you can only see a neat desktop, but if you look down a little, you may find messy charging cables and various dusty express boxes under the desk.
You can also observe each other's behavior traces outside the identity tag, which is 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 social honor on the wall, you must first get this award; Also, whether sports equipment has been used can also be reflected by the traces of use. These traces that cannot be prepared temporarily or cost a lot of money can provide you with strong evidence.
Of course, you should also remember to integrate multiple information. When you want to judge whether a person loves sports, you should collect a lot of information to support this view. For example, he has a gym annual card and a record of continuous use; There are books related to the scientific movement on his bookshelf; His sports equipment has traces of use and maintenance; His signature on WeChat is "Exercise makes life better". In short, information must support each other.
In addition, the subconscious reaction is also an excellent opportunity to observe a person, because the real personal information and personality often get out of control and will be displayed automatically. We can do a simple little experiment and play a game of exchanging names with your friends. If your names are all mixed up, this experiment will be better. Now, you can call each other by their new names. At first, everyone can basically cope, but after a long time, or after you go out shopping, eating and doing other things together, suddenly someone calls your real name, and you will definitely say yes to him immediately. You see, under conscious control, people can of course pretend, but camouflage needs attention to support. Once you relax a little, your subconscious reaction will reveal the real situation.
You may say that even if it is difficult to disguise in the real world, the cost of camouflage in cyberspace is very low and easy. It seems reasonable to say so, but the fact is that most people show their true personalities on the Internet.
Moreover, even if someone wants to pretend to be an ideal state on the internet, it is actually very difficult, and the reason is the same as observing a room in the real world. For 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's just for camouflage, it's hard to keep showing these traces of behavior on your personal website. In addition, it is difficult for a person to show what he cares about and what he cares about through deliberate disguise. After studying Facebook photos, the author found that people don't know what kind of personality clues their photos will convey. Although we all manage our own image more or less, what content and how to send it are almost determined by personal values and interest preferences. In other words, you may have posted personalized content on the Internet without realizing it.
After that, others may confuse you with camouflage, so be careful. Sometimes your own common sense will work against you. Imagine that you are walking in the jungle and suddenly you hear the roar of a tiger. You turned and hid in the nearby bushes, and then you saw the tiger's tail. What will you do at this time? Sure, get out if you get the chance! But think about it, did you really see the tiger? You just heard the roar and saw the tiger's tail. Why can you see that you met a tiger? This is because your knowledge of tigers is filled with your inherent common sense. When we lack information, common sense will help us make up for all the information we didn't get.
Common sense is very useful. It provides convenience and can help you process information faster. For example, the map gun that we all hate now is to criticize a group of people by region. Is it completely unreasonable? Does geography affect a person's character? Of course there is. In a survey on the life rhythm of people in 3 1 countries and regions, Switzerland ranks first and Mexico ranks 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 your two colleagues are from Switzerland and Mexico, of course, you have reason to believe that these two people have different views on time, and you can even judge that Swiss people are more likely to be smokers. But when you judge individuals, you will find that Swiss colleagues don't smoke, while Mexican colleagues are smokers. You see, map guns are annoying because they judge everyone with their common sense.
Is this common sense wrong? Of course not. Common sense is also a conclusion summed up through countless experiences and individual characteristics, but it cannot cover all individuals. You should take common sense as a conclusion with high probability, but even if the probability exceeds 90%, there is always a special case of 10%. The key to the successful application of common sense is to regard common sense as a valid hypothesis, and once other information is obtained, these traditional views can be abandoned.
Looking back, this part is about how to see through camouflage. In the process of observation, others are likely to confuse you to make wrong judgments through various methods. Your secret is to observe more traces of behavior, observe the subconscious reaction of the other party, and connect the collected clues into a mutually supportive chain of evidence. Besides others, you should also be careful of yourself, because people are easily confused by inherent thinking. The solution is to take common sense as a valid hypothesis. When the collected evidence overturns this hypothesis, we should judge it according to the actual situation.