In his classic book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman suggests that in our daily lives we are like characters in a play: We take on roles and present a front. Accordingly, what we say and do during a social interaction is like a script. Goffman says that it is easier to stay in character than to react authentically. When we act

The field guide also shows how changing your appearance might influence how you’re seen—Borkenau’s findings suggest that creating a refined appearance for yourself will tend to make people see you as extraverted, conscientious, and open. Borkenau’s data suggest that formality of dress was the key to judging conscientiousness.

living spaces are great for learning about openness, conscientiousness, and, sometimes, neuroticism; but if it’s people’s extraversion or agreeableness you’re after, a peek at the “most played” list on their iPods is more telling

Unlike my colleague, Charles Gibson is not dismissive of order. As I began to piece together a sharper picture of him, I realized that he seems to have an “I really must get around to that” personality—that is, his actions typically lag behind his good intentions.

But McAdams’s contribution goes far beyond clever portraiture. The crucial lesson from his work is that getting to know someone is not just a matter of knowing more about the person; that “more” must be a different kind of information. You have to go beyond traits, such as how kind the person is or how talkative; you have to begin understanding the

across domains openness is easier to spot than agreeableness.

I learned that she had been inspired and heartened to realize that even if brilliant achievements go unrecognized early on they can be acclaimed and rewarded much later, sometimes only after a person’s death.

Most of us don’t have access to McAdams’s formal method of eliciting information about identity. But, happily, snooping is a good shortcut to this key component of personality because much of our everyday stuff holds clues to identity. As I noted in chapter 1, a good place to find these clues is in the photos of themselves that people choose to

However, as I continued to hang out with Jack, I began to notice that the stories all seemed familiar, even though they described different events. Then one day it struck me why this was so. Whether he was telling me about a presentation at an academic conference, a squabble with a neighbor, or how he fixed his car last week, the narrative was