On Sale: Nov 12, 2013
Page Count: 288 pages
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN-13: 9780465069880

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Every day we make predictions based on limited information, in business and at home. Will this company’s stock performance continue? Will the job candidate I just interviewed be a good employee? What kind of adult will my child grow up to be? We tend to dismiss our predictive minds as prone to bias and mistakes, but in The Tell, psychologist Matthew Hertenstein reveals that our intuition is surprisingly good at using small clues to make big predictions, and shows how we can make better decisions by homing in on the right details.

Just as expert poker players use their opponents’ tells to see through their bluffs, Hertenstein shows that we can likewise train ourselves to read physical cues to significantly increase our predictive acumen. By looking for certain clues, we can accurately call everything from election results to the likelihood of marital success, IQ scores to sexual orientation — even from flimsy evidence, such as an old yearbook photo or a silent one-minute video. Moreover, by understanding how people read our body language, we can adjust our own behavior so as to ace our next job interview or tip the dating scales in our favor.

Drawing on rigorous research in psychology and brain science, Hertenstein shows us how to hone our powers of observation to increase our predictive capacities. A charming testament to the power of the human mind, The Tell will, to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, show us how to notice what we see.

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Matthew Hertenstein is an associate professor of psychology at DePauw University in Indiana. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and his work on non-verbal communication has been featured on national and international television and radio, including the Today Show, ABC News, NPR, and the BBC, and in newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Cosmopolitan, Allure, Esquire, Prevention, the Economist, Psychology Today, Scientific American Mind, and the Guardian (UK).

“An entertaining look at our oft-maligned intuitive capabilities, offering useful tips on how we may sharpen our powers of observation and increase the accuracy of our predictions.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Fascinating … The Tell succeeds as an engaging tour through current work in the science of behavior by a young psychologist who has the makings of a leading contributor to his field.”
—Shelf Awareness

“Lively and engaging…. Hertenstein offers much material to ponder and suggests that we embrace the power of these tools for helping us predict behavior.”
—Publishers Weekly

“The human brain, some have said, is a prediction machine. Sometimes our forecasts go awry, of course. But often our astonishing ability to predict helps us navigate our complex physical, social, and emotional environments. In this fascinating book, Matthew Hertenstein unpacks the secrets of our predictive abilities and shows how we can hone those abilities to become better judges of people and situations. The Tell is one of the year's essential reads.”
—Daniel H. Pink, author of To Sell Is Human, Drive, and A Whole New Mind