1. 34 Reading People
someone on a fixed income dresses in expensive clothing, it might sug-gest
she's impractical and insecure and longs to gain social acceptance. If
there's little money left over for the kids' clothes, she's also selfish and
self-centered. If a wealthy woman purchases the very same clothing
when she can afford to spend more, it might reflect the exact opposite:
confidence, frugality, security, and no particular concern about how oth-ers
view her. However, I would also look for other clues. Maybe she
dresses down because she does care about how others perceive her, and
wants to be seen as down-to-earth. Only after completing the pattern-building
process would I feel comfortable deciding which is the case.
Elective Traits
Because people can change elective traits from day to day or minute to
minute, I view them very differently. A person's clothing, jewelry and ac-cessories,
and even many mannerisms, can be altered almost at will.
They change as we change settings and circumstances. Most of us don't
dress for work the way we do when we're lounging around the house or
going to a party. We speak differently when talking with old high school
friends than we do with our boss or a customer.
When you're identifying patterns, it is particularly important to keep
in mind that elective traits often fluctuate. If you rely on them in isola-tion,
you may not see the truest picture of someone's personality. If you
saw me in my sweats at the market on a Saturday afternoon, you would
draw very different conclusions about me than you would if you saw me
in business dress, entering the courthouse. Either set of conclusions
would miss the mark to some degree. Don't assign too much significance
to someone's elective traits, unless you've seen him enough times and in
enough different circumstances to form a well-rounded picture.
Remember, also, that we alter our nonelective characteristics as we
mature. The woman who gets a nose ring as a fashion statement or a
form of rebellion when she's nineteen may have forgotten it completely
by the time she's thirty-five. The nose ring may be more a reflection of
youthful experimentation than of her core character. Of course, if she's
fifty-five and still sporting a ring in her nose, I would consider it an ex-treme
trait and pay it much closer attention.
ALL TRAITS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL
He's short, dark-haired, slightly overweight, well-dressed, smiles a lot,
has a college degree, is married with two young children, teaches high