Tell a Lot About Someone By These Little Things: So You Can Instantly Know Their Emotional State
Become a modern personality profiler.
We are always communicating to the world about who we are. No matter how much we fake it til we make it or put up iron-clad facades, we communicate this in many nonverbal cues.
You can see signs of people’s emotional mindset by paying attention to the smaller things that are not obvious.
The music they groove to
What kind of music do you listen to, and what lyrics are you reciting?
Music has a lot of influence on our minds more than we think. We don’t like the music we like by accident. Our favorite songs and artists have something in common or something we see in ourselves. Our music selection also depends on our mood. Spiritual minds say music talks to the soul. Science says the music we like is our subconscious thoughts, feelings, and desires speaking to us.
The downside to this is sometimes we don’t know if our music is a mirror of our reality or if the music influences our perception of our reality.
Music has been a passion of mine since I can remember. I have been listening to music my entire life. Music has poisoned my mind as a young man and influenced a lot of my decisions in life. On the other hand, music has also inspired me and gives me nostalgia for some great times in my life
Although I am a big Hip Hop fan, my favorite kind of music is 80’s music.
My love for 80’s music tells me a few things about myself:
- The 80s reminds me of my mother and I moving to Minnesota. This tells me that I really enjoyed my childhood.
- The 80s reminds me that I am passionate about creativity and art forms.
- The 80s also reminds me that I was a lonely child.
Their treatment of animals when nobody is watching, if you can catch them
Most serial killers show psychopath-like tendencies in the way they treat animals.
My mother lives in a small town in the south of America. There are a lot of dogs in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, these dogs are not the dogs you are thinking of.
These dogs are a wild pack of dogs. The dogs remind me of the old 80’s cartoon, “Top Cat”, a bunch of dogs who roam the neighborhood like a gang.
My mom also has a neighbor who seemed to have some negative energy about him. One day I overheard a dog yelping outside of my mom’s house and I went to see what it was.
I found this neighbor kicking the dog in the stomach for no reason.
It was then that I knew this guy was a douchebag.
Not surprisingly, this same person was kicked out of the apartment complex for fighting, screaming, and arguing with his wife although she was booted as well.
There is one common denominator here and that is the lack of compassion.
If an individual doesn’t have any compassion for animals. more than likely they won’t have any for humans.
That is how serial killers are predicted at a young age in their regards to the treatment of animals.
Here is a study by Science Direct discussing, Predicting animal abuse behaviors with externalizing and psychopathic personality traits
Who do they like to date
The people you date are an extension of you.
If you want to know what your future significant other sees in you, look no further than their exes. There will be some patterns and similarities.
Generally, most people want universal traits in their significant others but there are some clear-cut patterns you can pay attention to.
- Specific body types, race, or culture — This individual may have some sort of fetish toward these criteria
- Specific personality — This individual may be dating their dominant parent or lack thereof
- Perciveved extreme attractiveness = This individual may be shallow or is seeking validation from external sources
Humans are complex so there are many grey areas even with patterns.
But when you notice these patterns of personal preferences, you probably will be knee-deep in the relationship already.
How they behave in the presence of people who are different from them
Most people in the predominant society are socially awkward.
In my travels in other countries, I can always tell when someone is American from their social awkwardness. This comes from being in a comfortable social setting their entire life.
When I say comfortable, I mean engaging in social circles where everyone has everything in common with them.
People innately like others who are like them so this isn’t a weird thing. it’s just that we Americans pride ourselves on independence and individual differences yet we only hang with others who are like us.
This is why most Americans struggle with culture shock when traveling to foreign countries.
If you don’t fit neatly into American society’s idealized version of a conservative person, think back on all of the awkward conversations you have had with others because of your differences.
The reason for this is because more than likely the person you were having a conversation with has never socially interacted with someone who was different from them.
“What is society but an individual? The ocean is not society; it is individuals. This was how I managed to gain a modicum of freedom from my terror at the illusion of the ocean called the world.” ― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human
How they treat people who can do nothing for them
You can easily spot these kinds of habits in the hospitality industry.
The hospitality business is a tough one because you are there for one purpose. to serve others. If you are there for the money, you are going to eventually burn out.
The hospitality industry weeds out the fakes because you genuinely want to be able to help and serve people without an ego.
I worked in the airline business for over 8 years as a gate agent. The one thing I noticed was how the business passengers in first class treated everyone else.
Most of them were pretentious. They had status among the airlines due to their frequent flying. Most of them would treat the gate agents and flight attendants like crap. It was as if the airline workers were there for one purpose, to stroke their egos.
This used to piss me off so I investigated why some business travelers were jerks and other ones were very nice. There wasn’t a balance between the two extremes.
I noticed one common denominator. The jerks tended to be stressed and also had bosses to answer to. The nice business class passengers were self-made entrepreneurs.
The need for validation and something to prove is what separates the two personalities.
You can look to many opportunities to witness these kinds of interactions:
- How people treat servers
- How supervisors treat their employees
- How people treat random homeless people on the street
When they face some adversity
Watch how someone reacts when an airline loses their luggage.
You can always tell a lot about someone when things hit the fan.
Pain is a great motivator but it is also the boogie man. People will do anything in order to avoid mental pain. This is the cause for addictions, to avoid mental discomfort.
Out in the world, everyone wears these fake confident masks to protect themselves. these facades are developed over the years so that they become convincing and believable to everyone in their daily life.
I have worked with many supervisors at work who appeared competent and confident when things were going well but at the first sign of trouble, they cracked like an egg.
They behaved in ways that were the complete opposite of the facade that they portrayed to everyone.
They sweated nervously, raised their voice, got impatient and angry, and some even deferred to you because the adversity was too much.
Adversity cuts through all of the layers and masks that you protect yourself with.
The less you protect yourself with facades and masks, the more equipped you will be to deal with adversity.
“Adversity does not build character — it reveals it.” — James Lane Allen
Recognize people’s mindset by nonobvious things. People wear social masks and always give their best representative by appearing perfect at face value. You can only fool people for so long.
Everyone eventually tells on themselves in subtle ways. You just have to pay attention.