I am my own psychologist. Chapter 1. How to analyze people. What is your idea about this? (Patrick King, 2019)

How often have you been told lies? How many cases have there been when you never found out that you were lied to? Has it ever happened that because you did not understand the state of your interlocutor, your negotiations (or just communication) were not successful? How much in our lives depends on our ability to analyze people. How to recognize a lie? What are the signs of manipulation? How to avoid being scammed? How to avoid falling under human pressure? In fact, this is a whole science, and it is called “profiling.” With this collection we will help you understand its basics and take the first steps in the ability to analyze a person.

Profiling: definition, directions, training

The concepts included in the term “profiling” are often diametrically opposed, so the uninitiated person often does not understand what it means. In general, the term profiling comes from the English word profile (“profile”) and can be translated as “profiling.” In fact, this means that a person identifies signs of behavior, emotional response, speech and appearance in others. In this article we will try to dot all the i's in this matter: we will understand the definition, talk a little about its history, types and areas of application, and also talk about how to learn it. Read more…

The Pros of Critical Thinking

Let us immediately note that critical thinking has only positive aspects and no negative ones (unless, of course, you resort to arguments in the style of “The less you think, the easier your life”). The ability to think critically gives a person such advantages as:

constant training of cognitive abilities, development of logical thinking and observation;
the ability to quickly navigate a large amount of information, discarding the unnecessary and focusing on the main thing;
independence, the ability to independently form one’s point of view and defend one’s opinion without resorting to someone else’s authority;
the ability to debate convincingly , earning the respect of others;
constant acquisition of new knowledge of high quality.

In fact, a well-developed ability to think critically gives its owner many more advantages. It is hardly possible to find a person who would argue with the statement that it is useful to be able to quickly analyze information, assessing its adequacy and reliability.

HR profiling

Recruiting and retaining both individual candidates and teams is invaluable to any business. Employees who reflect and adhere to the organization's values provide a high level of cohesion, which leads to company prosperity and revenue growth. Everyone wins. Today, most businesses know that their success is tied to the people who work for them, but many don't understand how to retain them, develop them, or what it takes to hire the best people. The answer to these questions is provided by HR profiling - the use of profiling methods to recruit and understand whether candidates or employees are suitable for a particular job. Read more…

We develop opportunities

Who needs an analytical mind, you ask? It is useful for sellers, artists, and physicists, at the ready for bloggers. And all because with its help you can see the success and effectiveness of the tasks being performed.

Oddly enough, it is not difficult to develop the skill of thinking analytically in children. To do this, they will need to systematically attend lectures on mathematics and simply attend classes. Plus, pay attention to the technical fundamentals and directions.

But with adults things are much more complicated. Now I want to present to you several effective ways to develop the necessary superpowers.

Workout or food for thought

Chess and mathematics

Analytical games are an excellent workout for the mind. So, chess and mahjong are excellent. During the lesson, you will be able to feel pleasure and a real pumping of gray matter.

You have to independently develop a strategy, monitor the enemy and calculate your moves in advance. Since the development of logic is directly related to analytical thinking, I strongly recommend that you carry out all kinds of computational operations in your mind.

Computer games

But here computer games are more useful than ever. Of course, this type of activity is designed for very lazy people, but nevertheless, quests and strategies perfectly develop analytical skills.

You will have to quickly react to situations, calculate risks and opportunities, and also be patient for an in-depth analysis of the situation.

Own program

In this type of training, everyone is their own boss. You can personally choose the topic and flow of information to compare arguments and facts. Perhaps you will like studying scientific programs or magazines, familiarizing yourself with complex literature to thoroughly build a logical chain.

Analytical articles on politics, economics and cybernetics may be suitable. Also, you can improve the skill of determining the main from the secondary. I mean, that's right.

Constructive criticism

To become comfortable with analytical thinking, you need to get used to challenging any news that comes your way. Doubt everything! I encourage you to act as an avid debater. This will help you learn to ask logical and reasoned questions, first to yourself, and then to the state, society and the framework.

I will suggest paying attention to a detailed consideration of absolutely opposing points of view. When you begin to try to connect them into one continuous layer of material, simultaneously developing each of the hypotheses, you will be able to increase your level of tolerance.

Train yourself to plan

Be sure to plan your life ahead. Create a calendar that clearly differentiates long-term from short-term goals and objectives. After completing each of the completed stages, analyze the results to make general adjustments.

It is worth highlighting key events and important dates in bright colors. Thanks to this way of life planning, you develop and improve not only analytical thinking, but also your activities as a whole.

Communication and organicity

Be sure to remember to train your ability to think analytically when communicating with people. Before speaking, try to mentally calculate the possible answers of the interlocutor or the course of his thoughts.

This perfectly trains attentiveness and involvement in conversation. The technique is also very useful when a heated dispute arises.

And at the same time, do not focus on the development of one of the hemispheres. Man is a multifaceted and harmonious being. And its success depends only on the diversified development of professional and personal skills, level of intelligence, communication abilities and the symbiosis of types of thinking. Just!

That's it!

Subscribe to updates, a lot of amazing topics and discoveries await you! In the comments, share games to develop analytical thinking or interesting logic problems!

See you on the blog, bye-bye!

The analysis of articles when writing their own scientific works is carried out incorrectly not only by graduate students and students, but also by reputable scientists, often infuriating editors and forcing the latter to undo the submitted works. For this reason, it is worth separately examining how scientific literature is analyzed correctly.

Books on profiling

Profiling is a set of methods and methods for analyzing, assessing and predicting human behavior. Everyone who works with people needs knowledge on this topic. The article contains 5 books that can be called basic and essential, mandatory for a beginning profiler. Among the authors of these works are such masters of their craft as Joe Navarro, Paul Ekman, Desmond Morris. To learn something well, you need to learn from the best, because they are the only way to fully transfer knowledge and skills, as well as protect you from common mistakes. Read more…

Selection of literature for analysis: how to find a suitable topic and save the collected material?

Any scientific article is written based on an analysis of sources, problems and opinions. However, in most cases, the entire analysis is carried out as follows:

The author familiarizes himself with the selected scientific literature;
Makes comparisons with one’s own point of view;
If opinions converge, the material is added to the lists of references; if they diverge, a mental debate is held with the author of the work, and the text is sent to a distant drawer as useless;
Writes a scientific article.

The main mistake in this situation is the third point, since it is here that more than half of all important and useful information is lost, without which it is impossible to give reasoned counterexamples. For this reason, in order to avoid a devastating review of their own article, many authors analyze scientific literature according to a different scheme:

Carefully familiarize themselves with all points of view that differ from their personal opinions. Constantly focusing intently in one direction can lead to a “blurred” mind and vision, which can cause you to miss truly important information. As an option, you can refer in the article to other opinions and views regarding the selected problem and justify the advantage of personal decisions and conclusions;
Issues that are touched upon in passing in the literature require no less careful study: often the author does not cover them due to lack of time, opportunities, or the need for additional research. You can always study such nuances when writing a scientific article;
All information is checked for uniqueness. If the analyzed literature is based on data from 20-30 years ago, then it can be refreshed and a new study published on its basis;
Unfamiliar terms and parts of the text are not skipped, but are carefully studied - work that is not fully understood can negatively affect the evidence base and destroy the entire logic of a scientific article;
Most of the works that need to be analyzed do not end with full conclusions, but with new questions.

A careful analysis of the scientific literature used will not only increase the volume of the prepared scientific article, but also improve its quality.

Mentalism

Human thoughts are not just some kind of immaterial substance, but real energy flows that can influence reality and even take on material form. And one confirmation of this is mental magic or, as it is increasingly called today, mentalism. But don’t let this introduction confuse you – there is nothing occult in this topic. Mental magicians, mediums and fortune tellers often use a set of techniques that have long been known and described in the literature. In the generally accepted understanding, mentalism is a special type of performing art that involves a person demonstrating various psychological experiments and experiments, as well as extrasensory abilities. We invite you to take a closer look at this phenomenon. Read more…

How to recognize a lie: by gestures, facial expressions, in communication

Sometimes ignorance is bliss. The world is based on lies. To admit that in modern society the boundaries of the moral dilemma “lie-truth” are very blurred does not mean to be a cynic. This means being a realist, despite all the cynicism of such a judgment. Everyone lies: the media in pursuit of ratings, politicians to increase the number of followers, advertising to increase sales, strangers to gain some benefit. From time to time the goal is to obtain some preferences, and sometimes this happens involuntarily. In this article we will talk about the most striking signs by which you can determine that a person is telling a lie. Read more…

The Brokaw Trap and Lie Detection

People have one, for the most part, not very pleasant feature that each of us has to deal with quite often. It lies in the fact that a person often lies in pursuit of his goals, and regardless of whether these goals are good (for example, when they lie to us to reassure us or protect us from something) or bad (they are more often), our task is to be able to recognize lies. However, in doing this, we fall into the Brokaw trap with enviable frequency. In the article we will tell you what it is, and also talk about the ability to distinguish truth from lies and determine the degree of truthfulness of other people's words. Read more…

How to communicate with toxic people

There is a certain category of negative personalities with whom you need to be as careful as possible:

“Energy vampires”, after communicating with whom a person feels broken and empty. Try to promptly identify such people in your environment and not succumb to manipulation.
Parasites who try to use others for their own selfish purposes. You can communicate with them, but you should not help, because there is no gratitude or payment for their work.
People with an unbalanced psyche. Constant disruptions that no one expects should raise alarm bells. Talk to the person about his behavior. If such conversations do not lead to the desired results, only a doctor can help.
Aggressive personalities. It is better to stay away from such people, because they are prone to fights and physical violence.
Manipulators. It is better to immediately tell the manipulator that you know about his character trait or try not to succumb to manipulation.
Immoral individuals for whom there are no social and legal norms. Try to minimize communication with them.
Weak personalities are characterized by shyness, touchiness, vulnerability, timidity, and anxiety. You should not indulge their weaknesses, so as not to become a “wish granter.” You need to compensate for your refusals by helping a person solve his problems independently.
Egoists love only their own person. You can communicate with them in two ways: tell the truth or constantly flatter.

Read more: 20 tips on how to develop grit and strength of character

The main thing is to know that there are people in your environment who pose a certain danger. Then it becomes possible to minimize their negative impact.

Ability to understand emotional state

Emotions control a person more than it seems at first glance. Even the absence of emotions is an emotion, or rather a whole state, which is characterized by its own characteristics in human behavior. Emotional states are mental states that arise in the process of a subject’s life and determine not only the level of information and energy exchange, but also the direction of behavior. Why is it so important to recognize your emotional state and that of others? It’s simple: the direction of thoughts, thinking capabilities, behavior, level of aggression, motivation, and sociability depend on it. In this article we will tell you how to become proficient in this difficult skill. Read more…

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is a type of thinking based on the logical comprehension of all information received. It is always focused not on proving certain ideas and theses, but on the search for truth. Within the framework of critical thinking, all facts are carefully analyzed and comprehended using the methods of rational cognition.

A key aspect of critical thinking is the ability to evaluate the credibility of incoming information and draw conclusions about its truth based on the available facts. Moreover, people with this ability tend to analyze and rethink not only new information, but also facts already known to them. Thanks to this, they are able to independently discover that they were previously mistaken and admit it without clinging to erroneous beliefs.

A person with well-developed critical thinking is able to benefit from it in all areas of life. He is more observant and quickly notices various important details in any life circumstances. Because he always understands which arguments are more important, he is good at justifying his point of view in a discussion. He also processes information faster, learns new material more effectively, and knows how to apply his analytical thinking skills in any situation.

Verbal signs of lying

Most people perceive the art of detecting lies as the ability to read body movements and decipher facial expressions. This is partly true, but there is another side to this activity. What we say - the meaning of speech - can also be used to reveal deception. There are three main factors influencing a liar that make it possible to expose him: emotions, attempts to control the situation, and the cognitive load caused by the need to process larger amounts of information than when telling the truth. All of them affect the verbal part of communication, as a result of which we can notice quite specific changes. Read more…

Life hack No. 4 – pay attention to a person’s appearance

There is a popular expression: “You can’t judge a candy by its wrapper.” This is only partly true. The choice of clothing is an indicator not only of a person’s mood, but also of a person’s intentions.

A few important points:

Wearing clothes in muted colors (gray, blue, beige, white-gray) is an indicator of shyness. Probably, a person who prefers such colors is afraid to stand out. He is uninitiative, takes any criticism hard, is vulnerable and impressionable.
Bright red, black, light purple business suits are chosen by temperamental and bright people. They always behave politely and tactfully with others. Great listeners.
People who prefer to wear comfortable clothes without fear of compromising their style (tracksuit, wide shirt with jeans) are real rebels. They care little about what reaction they produce in society. Stubborn and uncompromising.

Also, when analyzing a person’s clothing, pay attention to its neatness and quality. If your interlocutor looks like a brand new person, this is a good indicator that he is ready for the meeting. Well, if he appeared before you in a wrinkled suit, and even with dirty shoes, then the conclusion suggests itself.

Online program "Profiling"

This five-week online program will teach you to analyze people, their facial expressions, gestures, and actions in order to better understand a person’s motives and feelings, identify hidden emotions, lies, attempts to manipulate, and create a psychological portrait. You will gain systematic knowledge about the most effective profiling methods collected from dozens of different sources, understand in what situations they are used, and see examples of their use. And with the help of special interactive exercises, you will develop a skill that will help you quickly analyze people and draw reasoned conclusions. Find out more...

The ability to analyze people, conduct a competent analysis of gestures, facial expressions, and behavior is one of the keys to competent communication and a way to protect yourself from a variety of troubles. Master this skill, and we will help you with this!