the interviewees who spent more time talking, who gestured a lot, and who dressed more formally were judged to be higher on both social skills and work motivation.

Grammer takes a perspective rooted in evolutionary theory. This means he tries to understand our modern-day traits and preferences by considering the pressures—such as the need to find a good mate or quickly detect a dangerous foe—that have shaped our ancestors over the millennia. Deception is a topic that interests ethologists like Grammer. Just

Note, however, that it’s the variety, not the quantity, of books, magazines, and music that’s most important. Sure, a person with more books is likely to have a greater variety of books, but a person with ten books, each on a different topic, will be higher on openness than a person with fifty books on the structural properties of bridge rivets.

consider one useful definition of personality: An individual’s unique pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving that is consistent over time.

Schultheiss’s research also showed that people high on these story-based measures of power respond poorly to defeat in a competitive game. They secrete high levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress. But people low on this motive for power are actually more stressed out by winning!

If we are snooping in a place that is neat, clean, and organized, we can consciously overrule our natural tendency to judge the person as high on agreeableness. This is an important point to bear in mind as you think about yourself as a snoopee, and the impressions your own space conveys.

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

Thinking about stereotypes this way—as assumptions about things (people or objects) in the absence of direct experience of those particular things—allows

hoarders and collectors have different personality profiles. Excessive hoarding tends to be associated with neuroticism, whereas meticulous collecting is more indicative of conscientious behavior.