traits provide “a psychology of the stranger.” They paint a portrait in broad brushstrokes but leave out much of the finer detail.

if you are trying to discover how the person wants to be seen, you should choose items that are both controllable and public. Web site profiles and bumper stickers are good examples. But if you are concerned that your snoopee is trying to dupe you, then you’ll want to compare the messages sent by the items known to be public with those believed to

The Truehome method focuses more on some levels than others in Dan McAdams’s three-tiered system of describing personality. Recall that Level 1 traits, such as sociability and curiosity, are the most superficial. Then as we get to know people better, we learn about their personal concerns (Level 2), and we may even glimpse their identities (Level 3

One of Borkenau’s most surprising findings is that soft facial lineaments (that is, the contours of the face) are a key to spotting agreeableness; consistent with this result and with some earlier research from the 1980s, he found that a “baby face” look (a round face, large eyes, small nose, high forehead, and small chin) is associated with agreea

But there are also important differences between living and working spaces. As with bedrooms, our snoopers thought decorated offices were occupied by extraverts, but unlike in bedrooms—where level of decoration was a false clue—in offices it really did mark the extraverts. In offices (but not bedrooms), invitingness also signals extraversion—extrav

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 dis

In his great work The Characters, Theophrastus sketched thirty types—from the penurious and the garrulous to the flatterer and the shamelessly greedy—and illustrated his character portraits with an astonishing level of detail.

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.

McAdams makes an important point about identity: It is a story you tell about yourself to make sense out of what has happened in the past and the kind of person you are now. From this perspective, it is not essential that the story be true.