Social Hacking

  This is how strange I am: The other night I when I was writing the last post (12) and got to the part where I told you to see how good you where at reading people, I stopped in my writing and started to think. Yes, when I get to something more interesting my mind tends to wander off easily. However, I started to think about how well I really know people so I was on MSN (more money for m$) and I thought up a simple question. Then I picked my subject, a group of people I know differently well. I though of which responds they would give me and why.

  The first person I asked answer exactly as I predicted. My prediction was that I would have to ask the question twice, first time I would get a question back as response and the next time I would get an answer. Pretty impressed with myself I went on and kept asking people. In the end I was right about 80% of the time (Yea, it was really 100% but I want to make me look human).

  Now for the strange part, the question I asked was: "Right or left?" (in Swedish though: "Höger eller vänster?"). If you see this as a strange question, you are absolutely right. I did also notice something else. I asked 9 boys and 6 girls the question. All boys answered left and all girls answered right (ok, all but one..). Can someone explain this to me?

  When I talk about reading people I mainly mean the ability to predict how that person will act. The easiest way to do this is to get to know the person in question really well. This might not be that easy and, from why I have experienced so far, there will always be people that you will never be able to read.

  The basic technique for reading someone is to put yourself in the persons shoes and make the decision. This is much easier said then done. The term "putting yourself in someone else's shoes" is used too much and in most cases it is to experience only a single incident. However, to use this reading technique you need to become that person. To make this persons decision you need to consider everything that you know about him or her.

  Almost all of our decisions are made from what we have experienced so far. This means that if you now a lot about a person and you are able to take everything into consideration you should be able to accurately predict what that person is going to do.

  When using this technique it is important to establish the order of how to take different things into consideration. For example; if you knew that I ate a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch that would not affect my decision on whether or not to watch a movie with you. However, if you had that information you would probably going to predict that I would not have a ham and cheese sandwich for dinner (I am not that crazy about ham and cheese sandwiches).

  I will know present the way I would rank the information that you know about a person. I am glad if you don't agree with me since that means that you are thinking (hopefully). First of all I take prior decisions into mind. Next I think about the current emotional state of the person. Third I think about the general status of the persons life. Last I try to factor in everything else. This all means that I have to be very judging with the person, something that I don't really like. However, with this technique it is the only way to go.