The Art of Profiling: Reading People Right the First Time
It has been well established that people are not very good at assessing the personalities of strangers. Journalist Korem claims to have invented a system that improves one's ability to create an accurate personality "profile" upon meeting someone new. Unfortunately, aside from the statement that workshop participants move from 25 to 75 percent accuracy after a day of training, this system has not been subjected to outside evaluation. The system is based on carefully observing the subject's communication and performance traits (e.g., displaying or controlling emotion, asking or telling when communicating, behaving confidently or fearfully), then comparing them with certain extreme types. However, readers are not given enough information about how to elicit data in the first place, e.g., the questions to ask in job interviews or specific actions to look for. This would seem to be a subject far better taught in a multimedia format such as a videotape set or computer program. Not recommended.?Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, Wash.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.