1. 26 Reading People
ter which area you reflect on first, as long as you keep all of them in mind
when you're sizing someone up. With a little practice, you'll develop
your own approach. Eventually much of this process will become second
nature to you, as it has to me.
To discover meaningful and reliable patterns:
1. Start with the person's most striking traits, and as you gather more in-formation
see if his other traits are consistent or inconsistent.
2. Consider each characteristic in light of the circumstances, not in iso-lation.
3. Look for extremes. The importance of a trait or characteristic may be
a matter of degree.
4. Identify deviations from the pattern.
5. Ask yourself if what you're seeing reflects a temporary state of mind
or a permanent quality.
6. Distinguish between elective and nonelective traits. Some things you
control; other things control you.
7. Give special attention to certain highly predictive traits.
YOU HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE—
BEGIN WITH THE MOST STRIKING TRAITS
The amount of information I'm able to gather about prospective jurors
is trivial compared with what's available in everyday life. We often see
people in many different settings: casual, formal, business-related, social.
And we often get to know them over the course of months or years. In
fact, we have access to so much information it's easy to feel over-whelmed,
unless we have a game plan designed to keep us focused.
Anyone who has assembled a jigsaw puzzle has learned that without
some logical approach, one can fumble endlessly with the hundreds of
pieces on the table before finding a single match. To get started, most
people begin by putting together the edge pieces—not because they show
what the finished puzzle will look like but because they are relatively
easy to identify and assemble. Once the edge of the puzzle has been com-pleted,
we have a framework to help us determine how the other pieces
fit into place.
Within the first few minutes, or even seconds, of meeting someone,
I've usually gathered a tremendous amount of readily observable infor-mation
about age, sex, race, physical characteristics, vocal mannerisms,
and body language. With a few questions I can quickly learn about my
new acquaintance's education and marital status, the number, sex, and