There were four main types of interpretations, in no particular order of frequency:
– The first posited that they were clearly having an argument of some kind, and that the woman was frustrated with the conversation and ‘biting her tongue,’ so to speak.
– The second was that the girl had clearly done something wrong, and the man was being stern and disappointed, alternately with or without anger, and the girl was looking away innocently, as you would see an 8-year old in a TV-Sitcom do. (Note that I say ‘girl’ only because this is how they called her within that interpretation.)
– The third was that the woman was recalling some sort of happy memory and thinking of it fondly, after having been triggered to in some way by the conversation.
– The fourth was that the woman was recalling some sort of happy memory and thinking of it fondly, with the man just being an onlooker and having nothing to do with it. (And interpretations of what he is doing vary wildly.)
The first implies the woman is frustrated, the second the woman is dismissive of the man’s concerns, the third implies she is happy, and the fourth imagine she is both happy and not even interacting with the man. These are wildly different interpretations for what should be a pretty clear and concise training exercise.
Hadnagy surely knows that a 90 degree angle is a very safe angle for most people, even within personal or even intimate space – though, of course, this is less the case when there is eye-contact. On YouTube, Apollo Robbins gives a great explanation and demonstration of this. However, I don’t think his potentially not knowing this is the problem. Instead, what was probably glossed over is the fact that the reader makes his own interpretation of the _relevance_ of the angle, and does not necessarily know why they are in that angle in the first place.
Maybe Ben has just approached and is now standing there, frustrated or otherwise, waiting for Selena to stop day-dreaming and be given attention? This explains interpretations 3 and 4.
Maybe Ben is standing in that angle because he is frustrated with Selena, like in interpretations 1 and 2, but in a fifth possible interpretation, she might not even be aware he’s there, angry with her.
In that case, as I believe Hadnagy would agree, it would be entirely the wrong move to approach Selena at all, as you’ve just taken away the attention that Ben couldn’t get – what a horrible situation to be in!
So really, I don’t believe this should be a matter of interpretation, given Hadnagy states it is at least part science, and that is the problem with these ‘caricatures’ or ‘set-up’ photo’s – instead, use real photo’s and describe us the situation after we’ve tried to analyze it. That would’ve been vastly more effective, wouldn’t you agree?
To get back to my original point, analyzing just one situation with every possible interpretation would’ve been vastly preferable to meaninglessly glancing over several – because it would’ve illustrated the inherent flaws arising from lack of proper context and have shown the many ways to incorrectly assess both correctly and incorrectly observed data.
Interestingly, this is similar to what I’ve done here – rather than listing all the bad examples, I raised two examples and dissected them thoroughly. This gives the audience a clearer understanding of what is going on, without overloading them with examples that are meaningless to them, or at worst counterproductive and confusing. It’s an effective teaching method.
That is my first major complaint.
My second complaint has to do with the feeling it instills to a potential student of non-verbal communication within social engineering, which seems to be Hadnagy’s main demographic.
This only applies slightly to myself, and more so to the people I’ve polled, among which were some social workers, counsellors and psychology students. My question was: “If I hadn’t opened with the disclaimer that no answer is wrong, and instead this would’ve been part of an emotional recognition test, within either the learning part of a course of examination of that course, what would you be feeling right now?”
Unanimously, they came to conclusion that they would’ve felt either ‘betrayed’ (by the author), ‘indignant’ (for being told they’re wrong when they’re clearly right) or ‘stupid.’ The ‘stupid’ aspect, I can only assume, comes from the fact that even after relooking at the picture, it was difficult to find a way to rationalize ‘coming on strongly’ and ‘discomfort’ were the only explanation, let alone an intuitive one. This seems completely contrary to ‘Unmasking the Social Engineer’s’ aim to be a teaching tool.
One problem is that it (subconsciously) gives us the impression that either Hadnagy is unaware of simple things that we all should know, or that we’re idiots for not noticing such simple things – a feeling, I feel, that a lot less experienced people will have more, and they will be disappointed by themselves as a result. It leads us to feel dumb, not empowered or enlightened – and fools rather than students.
Of course, I don’t agree that feeling ‘indignant’ here is the intended or expected response, mostly because Hadnagy never tells them anything even remotely capable of making us feel that way, but to reprise an old point: “It doesn’t matter what you say – people will remember how it made them feel.”
My suggestion: either be general enough to not have such obvious exceptions, or be specific when using these examples. Again, a short disclaimer could have fixed this problem, and helped ease the reader.
Maybe they used hyperbolic naming for emotions that are not quite so pronounced, but reasonably, they should not be there at all.
Before I conclude this point, my samples also thought the p.69 image didn’t at all show a “perfect example of a confident man” – but a creepy, weird, ‘downy’ man instead. I can only assume this is due to the awkward angle, or perhaps a quality of the lens. The image is entirely unsettling, and I can’t for the life of me imagine Ekman and Kelly both not realizing this.
Perhaps it’s because they are too busy finding what they know is there, rather than seeing the image, and the book as a whole, as a novel situation from the perspective of the reader – which is a thing everyone does, and three legends are no exception.
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