## "Uncover the Science of Reading People with Patrick King's New Book"
The Science of Reading People: How to Understand What People Are Really Saying and Why (How to be More Likable and Charismatic Book 26) By: Patrick King
Hear it Here - https://adbl.co/47LRdYk
00:00:00 Hello listeners
00:02:27 Perceptual Selectivity
00:03:54 Attribution
00:05:20 Stereotyping
00:06:41 The Halo Effect
00:08:22 Projection
00:09:33 Perceptual Set
00:10:51 Implicit Personality Theory
00:12:27 Expectancy
00:13:53 Perceptual Defense
00:15:12 Improving Your Perceptual Accuracy
00:22:59 Summary
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTYQXK62
Uncover the Science of Reading People with Patrick King's New Book"
Are you ready to unlock the secrets of human behavior and become a master of perception? In this episode, we dive into the fascinating world of behavioral psychology and explore how it can be applied to our daily lives. Join us as we discuss "The Science of Reading People," a captivating book by Patrick King, which offers an in-depth look at understanding others and becoming more charismatic.
In Chapter 1, we uncover the barriers that hinder accurate perception: perceptual selectivity, attribution, stereotyping, and more. Discover how these psychological concepts influence our interactions and shape our perceptions of others. Learn practical tips to improve your own perceptual accuracy and develop a deeper understanding of those around you.
With tons of science-backed methods and an easy-to-understand approach, this book is a game-changer for anyone looking to enhance their social skills and become more likable. Don't miss out on this opportunity to boost your people skills and take control of how others perceive you! Click the link in the description to grab your copy now: httpsadbl.co47LRdYk
Whether you're a business professional, a student, or just someone looking to navigate social situations with ease, "The Science of Reading People" is an essential guide that will leave you feeling more confident and charismatic. Let's explore the power of perception together!
Remember to check out our podcast episode for even more insights and don't forget to subscribe for future content!
Transcript
Hello listeners, and welcome to Social Skills Coaching on this day June 4th, 2025, where you become more likeable, more charismatic, and more productive.
Speaker:Today's featured book is The Science of Reading People.
Speaker:How to understand what people are really saying, and why, by Patrick King.
Speaker:This is in the How to Be More Likeable and Charismatic book series.
Speaker:For today's episode, we take a look at Chapter 1 from this book.
Speaker:What stops us from accurately perceiving others?
Speaker:To begin with, our perception is often distorted by various biases and cognitive errors, such as perceptual selectivity, or the halo effect, both of which cloud our judgment and prevent us from truly seeing people for who they are.
Speaker:In order to overcome these obstacles, we'll discuss practical strategies to improve how to read others.
Speaker:So get ready to discover how knowing yourself deeply and cultivating genuine empathy can lead to a more accurate understanding of those around you.
Speaker:We're also going to emphasize the importance of curiosity, open-mindedness, and delaying judgments to form well-rounded opinions about individuals.
Speaker:So join us as we uncover the secrets to enhancing your perceptual accuracy and becoming a true expert in reading people.
Speaker:The first step to really reading a person?
Speaker:Pay attention!
Speaker:You’d be surprised how much you can see if you only look.
Speaker:But by the same token, many of us don’t see what is right in front of us because there is something in the way of our perception.
Speaker:“Perceptual barriers” interfere with our accurate perception of others.
Speaker:This seems obvious, but it’s a point worth laboring—if you only perceive what you want to, it’s as good as not perceiving at all.
Speaker:That means that if you can remove bias, expectation, assumption, ego, prejudice, interpretation, judgment—in short, as much of your subjectivity as possible—then the better you will be at reading people.
Speaker:Here are some of the things you may not realize are undermining your ability to really understand other people.
Speaker:Perceptual Selectivity
Speaker:Simply, this is the tendency to choose certain objects from the environment while ignoring others.
Speaker:An individual's pre-existing beliefs, values, and needs determine which objects are focused on.
Speaker:Being selective means that your perception is more influenced by your own attitudes, interests, and background than by the stimulus itself.
Speaker:To really see what is in front of them, a person must screen out most stimuli and focus on only a few—but how they do this makes a world of difference.
Speaker:Importantly, being selective is not a huge problem—we all do it.
Speaker:Rather, we need to be aware of when it’s happening so we don’t confuse our own conclusions with reality.
Speaker:For example, let’s say we are in an ambiguous situation.
Speaker:Someone is suddenly upset.
Speaker:We think, “Must be that time of the month,” and congratulate ourselves for being great at reading between the lines.
Speaker:Can you see the problem?
Speaker:Your selective focus on one aspect of the situation (the person being female), combined with your own beliefs and assumptions, has led you to make a guess about someone that is probably distorted.
Speaker:In this case, you are more accurately perceiving your own intellectual shortcuts rather than something objectively in your environment.
Speaker:Attribution
Speaker:Attribution is what we do when we try to explain why people behave as they do.
Speaker:For example, we see a child having a tantrum and think, “He’s deliberately trying to push my buttons.” We’ve made a guess as to the cause and motivation of the behavior.
Speaker:It’s normal to draw conclusions about the factors that influence people, or try to make meaning of their behavior.
Speaker:We all like to feel that the world makes a certain sense and that we can reliably predict the behavior of others.
Speaker:But again, in this way, our own bias may creep in and obscure what is actually happening.
Speaker:We are too busy seeing what we know is there that we cannot see what is there!
Speaker:Imagine this example.
Speaker:You are talking to a person from Japan.
Speaker:They have made a mistake.
Speaker:You’ve brought it to their attention, and now they are grinning at you and nodding furiously.
Speaker:If you did this yourself, it would mean one thing only: You didn’t take the situation seriously and were even laughing rudely at the other person.
Speaker:So you ask yourself the question, “Why are they behaving this way?” But you answer the question as though you were answering for yourself: “Because they don’t take this seriously.” In fact, it’s just a cultural difference.
Speaker:The Japanese often smile in awkward situations in order to defuse tension—it is the opposite of rudeness!
Speaker:Stereotyping
Speaker:That is, judging someone based on what you think about the group to which they belong.
Speaker:It is a basic human trait to see a person as part of a single group or class, and then to give that person positive or negative traits based on what most people think about that group as a whole.
Speaker:It’s one of the ways we simplify our world and make it easier to understand.
Speaker:It’s also a surefire way to distort our perception of how people actually are—and they’re usually a lot more complex than stereotypes would suggest.
Speaker:Have you ever been really surprised to learn that a person you thought you knew was actually quite different from what you first thought?
Speaker:It’s a great opportunity to ask why your expectations were so subverted.
Speaker:Stereotypes don’t have to be full-blown prejudices to distort perception.
Speaker:In fact, our perception can be most disturbed by those assumptions we have that are usually true.
Speaker:For example, a drug-trafficking operation could work precisely because it employs the help of unassuming elderly women to transport packages.
Speaker:The stereotype that little old ladies don’t smuggle heroin is pretty accurate—but believing it will allow you to miss the truth.
Speaker:The Halo Effect
Speaker:Speaking of little old ladies, the "halo effect" is the tendency to judge people based on a single trait, whether that trait is good or bad.
Speaker:The halo effect is very similar to stereotyping.
Speaker:However, in stereotyping, a person is judged by the group they belong to, while with the halo effect, they are judged by a single trait they possess.
Speaker:We sometimes judge a person based on the first thing we see or hear about them.
Speaker:For instance, if someone is kind, they may also be seen as trustworthy, competent, hardworking, and so on.
Speaker:If someone is beautiful, we might wrongly assume that they are also healthy or intelligent, or if rich we might imagine they are materialistic or have good taste.
Speaker:We might see a tech billionaire with an interest in economics, politics, or social issues, and wrongly assume that if they possess a certain business acumen, they must somehow also be adept in other areas.
Speaker:In real life and with real people, these traits sometimes go together, and sometimes they don’t.
Speaker:A celebrity may have something relevant to share about animal rights or the best diet for children, but they may also be just as ignorant as the next person.
Speaker:By the same token, there is nothing to say that a doctor who goes to prison for assault suddenly knows any less about medicine than he did before (let’s call it a “devil horns” effect!)
Speaker:or that people who are color blind can’t be good artists.
Speaker:In either case, if we take one observation and over-extrapolate it, we stop perceiving what is actually happening in front of us.
Speaker:Projection
Speaker:Sometimes, we perceive not what somebody is, but what we are—we project onto them the same way a film projector puts its image onto a screen.
Speaker:This idea originally comes from the theories of Carl Jung, who explained how people might disidentify with some unwanted traits, and then seem to discover them in other people.
Speaker:But projection doesn’t have to be a serious psychological phenomenon involving shadows and unconscious material.
Speaker:Sometimes it simply occurs because people lazily assume that others are more like themselves than they really are.
Speaker:Have you ever been surprised to find that someone you knew actually had very different religious or political opinions than you originally believed?
Speaker:You might have enjoyed their company and simply assumed that what they thought was the same as what you thought.
Speaker:So there is some stimulus in the environment and you wrongly assume what their response will be.
Speaker:Or you observe some behavior in them and automatically conclude a cause for this behavior that is more accurately a cause for your behavior, not theirs.
Speaker:Perceptual Set
Speaker:A perceptual set is a group of beliefs about how others see and understand certain situations.
Speaker:For example, a manager may come to believe and act as if workers are lazy and just want to get as much as they can from the organization without giving their best.
Speaker:This is a mix of different assumptions, preconceptions, and ideas—it’s a set.
Speaker:Another example is when a family has a perceptual set for one child that includes a whole narrative about them being special, unique, and precious, while the perceptual set for the other child revolves around their being difficult and troubled.
Speaker:You can tell a perceptual set is in play because it tends to distort neutral stimuli so that it fits the set, rather than realizing that the set is inaccurate.
Speaker:For example, the “black sheep” described in the family above may often behave in intelligent, kind, and unexpected ways, but this behavior will be interpreted so that it always supports the pre-existing perceptual set.
Speaker:The parents might perceive this behavior, but say, “Every once in a while, he does stunts like this just to show off.
Speaker:He’s always been egotistical like that.
Speaker:He’s just looking for attention, as usual.”
Speaker:Implicit Personality Theory
Speaker:When judging and making assumptions about other people, a person's thoughts are affected by how he thinks certain human traits are linked to each other.
Speaker:This is something you might never have given a second thought—but can you be sure that the “rules” you assume control the way personality traits cluster are actually accurate?
Speaker:Later, we’ll see that personality theories have been a perennial fascination for social theorists, psychologists, and lay people-readers since time began.
Speaker:But an implicit personality theory is the (often unexamined, unconscious, and inaccurate) model of what personalities are and how they are formed.
Speaker:For example, hard work is often linked to being honest.
Speaker:People think that anyone who works hard must be honest.
Speaker:Have you ever made this implicit association?
Speaker:If someone told you that someone at work had been stealing petty cash, wouldn’t you tend to suspect the lazier members of the team over the workaholics and “Type A” people?
Speaker:It’s because you’re working with a model that assumes the traits go together.
Speaker:But if you examine this association, you’ll see that there’s no reason at all that one implies the other.
Speaker:If you don’t believe it’s possible for someone to share both traits, or neither, then you stop being able to accurately perceive that person when they cross your path.
Speaker:Expectancy
Speaker:Expectation is the tendency to see people, things, and events based on how we thought they would be in the first place.
Speaker:Imagine you’re about to be introduced to someone you are told is a priest.
Speaker:You know very little about priests and have no experience with them, but you immediately start assuming things: They’re stern, maybe a bit of a killjoy, upright, softly spoken, middle-aged, kind of boring, morally superior, compassionate, or perhaps they are hiding a terrible secret.
Speaker:When you actually meet the priest, your expectations mean you are unconsciously looking for confirmation of all this.
Speaker:You discount all the things that don’t line up with the picture you already have in your head.
Speaker:The things that do line up, you focus on and even encourage.
Speaker:This situation is why this is sometimes also called a "self-fulfilling prophecy."
Speaker:Let’s say you believe that priests are all compassionate and non-judgmental.
Speaker:When you meet, you start confessing all your personal troubles.
Speaker:The priest sees that someone needs his attention, and politely gives it.
Speaker:You think, “See?
Speaker:Priests are compassionate.” However, if you hadn’t led the priest down that path by confessing so much, you might have discovered that he would have preferred to talk about Formula One racing.
Speaker:Perceptual Defense
Speaker:One final thing to consider is that we may not be able to accurately perceive people simply because what they are or what they are saying are actually too threatening to acknowledge fully.
Speaker:Here, “threatening” can encompass a broad range of ideas.
Speaker:It can mean subtle but culturally unacceptable ideas that your mind unconsciously chooses not to see.
Speaker:Have you ever noticed that some people can be very obviously gay, and yet many people around them seem oblivious to the fact?
Speaker:Their eyes work; it’s just that they don’t really want to see!
Speaker:It can go the other way, too.
Speaker:If someone is very anxious and suspicious, anything their partner does may be perceived as strange and troubling.
Speaker:In the first example, the defense is not to perceive fully; in the second example, the defense is to see things that aren’t actually there.
Speaker:In both cases, the perception is not accurate.
Speaker:A little perceptual defense is only human, and sometimes it’s necessary.
Speaker:For example, we don’t tell little kids that it’s impossible for them to become astronauts—a little modification of a harsh truth is sometimes necessary!
Speaker:Improving Your Perceptual Accuracy
Speaker:As you can see, one thing continually gets in the way of accurate perception: ourselves!
Speaker:All the above share something in common: We prioritize our idea about reality over reality itself.
Speaker:Anytime we do this, we undermine our powers of perception.
Speaker:So how do we get better?
Speaker:1.
Speaker:Know thyself
Speaker:135 00:15:47,920 --> 00:15:52,160 Knowing who you are is a powerful way to avoid perceptual distortions.
Speaker:It lets you know what is your stuff, and what is their stuff.
Speaker:What values, beliefs, and blind spots do you bring to the table?
Speaker:To be a good people-reader, you don’t have to completely remove these blind spots—you just need to be honest about the fact that they are there.
Speaker:Overwhelmingly, people usually see others wrong because they don’t see themselves right.
Speaker:The better a person knows himself, the better he can understand other people.
Speaker:Importantly, don’t just flesh out your idea of who you want to be, or focus only on the good.
Speaker:Instead, be clear about all that other stuff, too—prejudices, fears, bad habits, and so on.
Speaker:A good question to ask yourself is, what are your most recurrent personal biases and prejudices?
Speaker:If you say “none,” then there is work to do!
Speaker:We all have them.
Speaker:Know what yours are.
Speaker:For example, if you are aware that you tend to assume that everyone is less intelligent than you are, be honest about how this skews your perception.
Speaker:What can you routinely do to offset this tendency?
Speaker:2.
Speaker:Cultivate empathy
Speaker:152 00:17:08,040 --> 00:17:13,160 We tend to think of empathy and kindness as more or less the same thing.
Speaker:But empathy has a perceptual and cognitive component.
Speaker:It means not merely caring about how others feel, but actually understanding it and being able to perceive it.
Speaker:After all, how can you care and be kind if you don’t even know what is happening, or why?
Speaker:Empathy is a natural trait, but it’s also a skill one can develop over time with the help of a good feedback system and genuine interactions with others.
Speaker:Don’t simply assume you are already empathetic enough.
Speaker:Constantly check that your perceptions about others are actually true—or else you risk becoming one of those people who crows about being an “empath” but who really, really isn’t!
Speaker:Something to try: Get into the habit of asking, not assuming.
Speaker:For example, if you’re worried one day that you’ve offended someone, don’t just take it as a given that you have.
Speaker:Don’t just assume that your guess about their inner perception is 100 percent accurate.
Speaker:Confirm your reading of the situation by asking them.
Speaker:Empathy is not all about mind-reading—sometimes good old-fashioned communication leads to far more understanding!
Speaker:3.
Speaker:Be positive
Speaker:167 00:18:28,560 --> 00:18:35,280 Perceptions are strongly and long-lastingly affected by how people feel.
Speaker:When we have a bad opinion of someone or something, our view of that person or thing will be skewed.
Speaker:Furthermore, if we have a bad opinion of ourselves or of life in general, that cannot help but color the way we see the person in front of us.
Speaker:“Positive” here doesn’t mean rose-colored glasses, but rather a kind of gentle, curious, open-minded optimism that is secure enough to allow us to abandon our own preferences so we can more clearly see the way things really are.
Speaker:It’s the wholesome attitude of, “Hm, here is a new person I know nothing about.
Speaker:I wonder what I’m going to learn about them?”
Speaker:174 00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:29,800 A good habit to practice: When dealing with someone you find difficult, routinely ask yourself “What is working right now?” This will train you to see possibility, options, solutions, and avenues you hadn’t considered.
Speaker:Be willing to learn.
Speaker:If someone says something that seems totally wrong, ask what is right about it.
Speaker:Assume there is something.
Speaker:Ask how their perspective is enriching you.
Speaker:Ask what you can learn from any difference between you.
Speaker:Ask what that potential friction could be showing you about your own limitations.
Speaker:4.
Speaker:Postpone Impression Formation
Speaker:184 00:19:57,080 --> 00:20:03,000 People have a natural tendency to quickly form strong opinions about things or people.
Speaker:Just from one or two meetings, we can figure out what someone is like.
Speaker:Though this is an understandable part of human nature, we often sacrifice accuracy for speed and ease.
Speaker:But just remind yourself of how annoying it is to be pigeon-holed by others based on just one or two of your traits.
Speaker:Deliberately make the effort to just wait—you don’t have to form an opinion about everything!
Speaker:Let people show you who they are.
Speaker:It takes time.
Speaker:Here's a great habit to cultivate: Change statements to questions.
Speaker:This will keep you curious and open-minded and will improve your perception.
Speaker:The moment you form a conclusion about someone, your perception is out of the game and you go into assumption instead!
Speaker:For example, notice yourself wanting to say “She’s a snob,” and turn it into a question.
Speaker:“Is she a snob?” This simple shift allows you to notice the possibility that you could interpret her behavior in some other way.
Speaker:It helps you notice what is happening, rather than you focusing on your premature theory about what is happening.
Speaker:5.
Speaker:Practice open communication
Speaker:200 00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:20,400 Many misunderstandings are caused by poor or one-way communication.
Speaker:Or, let’s be honest, a complete lack of communication.
Speaker:A whole world of perceptual distortions can appear in a conversation if we are not conscious of how we send and receive information.
Speaker:One good idea: don’t ask leading questions.
Speaker:Instead, ask with a genuinely open and curious mind and truly listen to what you’re told.
Speaker:Imagine that you are not asking questions to confirm or disprove a running hypothesis, but are genuinely wanting to learn something .
Speaker:.
Speaker:.
Speaker:and perhaps even be surprised.
Speaker:To run with the previous example, you might ask the woman who always insists on wearing cashmere, wool, and silk to tell you more about why she does this.
Speaker:You learn that she’s not a snob at all, but has a skin allergy that makes wearing synthetic fabrics impossible.
Speaker:6.
Speaker:Verify your perceptions by comparing them with others
Speaker:214 00:22:18,120 --> 00:22:25,920 One way to reduce perceptual errors is to compare how you see something to how someone else sees it.
Speaker:You may have already done this in the past and were shocked at the discrepancy!
Speaker:By talking about how we see things, we learn about different points of view and may be able to understand the situation much better.
Speaker:That said, comparing our perceptions with others doesn’t mean they’re right and we’re wrong; rather, it’s an exercise in perspective taking.
Speaker:In the same way that certain colors tend to change depending on what colors they appear next to, comparison can bring to light certain assumptions we didn’t know we were making.
Speaker:And that concludes Chapter 1.
Speaker:Before we close, let's take a look at a summary of some of the main take-away points from this chapter.
Speaker:If you can remove bias, expectation, assumption, ego, prejudice, interpretation, and judgment, the better you will be at reading people.
Speaker:Distortions and biases, what we think we see, can get in the way of actually seeing.
Speaker:These biases include perceptual selectivity, attribution errors, stereotyping, the halo effect, projection, or assuming others are just like us, holding a perceptual set, using implicit personality theories, expectation, and perpetual defense that causes us to deny or distort what we're seeing if it's perceived as a threat.
Speaker:To improve your perceptual accuracy, work hard to know yourself, and then cultivate genuine empathy for others.
Speaker:Confirm your perceptions are true, and compare them against others.
Speaker:Be curious, open-minded and non-judgmental, ask open-ended questions, and delay forming an opinion about people.
Speaker:Keep an open heart and mind, and always seek to see beyond the surface.
Speaker:Thanks for joining me on this podcast.
Speaker:I'll catch you next week with more insights into the human experience.
Speaker:Until then, let me leave you with this little slightly confusing quote from the famous poet Rumi who said, Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
