I’m a former professional poker player and the author of a trilogy of books on poker behavior (aka poker tells). I have a psychology podcast called People Who Read People. I also do some independent research and writing: my research into online deception has been featured in the NY Times and Washington Post, and other places. I’ve been interested in psychology since I was a kid, probably due to my dad’s eclectic bookshelf that included a bunch of psychology and philosophy books.
I picked a book on language to lead the pack because there is so much more practical and reliable information contained in language, compared to the often murky and highly variable area of physical behavior. If you’re new to this area, this book is a fantastic introduction to how much information can be contained in language, whether written or spoken. McClish examines language for meaning from a bunch of true crime and legal cases. (Maybe of interest: this book inspired me to write my book Verbal Poker Tells, and I interviewed McClish for my podcast.)
Statement Analysis® is the process of analyzing a persons words to see if the person is being truthful or deceptive. There are usually several ways you can phrase a statement. People will word their statement based on all their knowledge. Therefore, their statement may include information they did not intend to share. I Know You Are Lying will show you what to look for in a verbal and written statement to determine if a person is telling the truth. The Statement Analysis techniques will also show you how to obtain additional information from a statement.
You can’t have a strong understanding of the external aspects of behavior (for example, verbal tells, or poker tells), without a strong understanding of underlying human psychology. This book by Cialdini is a well respected classic, especially in the advertising and sales world, as it deals with how people change their minds and are persuaded or manipulated. And how people change their minds is key to understanding human psychology and how they behave, so that's why I chose it.
The foundational and wildly popular go-to resource for influence and persuasion-a renowned international bestseller, with over 5 million copies sold-now revised adding: new research, new insights, new examples, and online applications.
In the new edition of this highly acclaimed bestseller, Robert Cialdini-New York Times bestselling author of Pre-Suasion and the seminal expert in the fields of influence and persuasion-explains the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these insights ethically in business and everyday settings. Using memorable stories and relatable examples, Cialdini makes this crucially important subject surprisingly easy. With Cialdini as a guide, you don't have…
Freud gets a bad rap for a lot of things, and I’m on board for a lot of that criticism (for a great analysis of Freud’s major flaws, see my recommended book by Irvin Yalom below). But no matter his faults, Freud was a fantastic examiner of human behavior, of the little things in our daily lives, in our speech, in our dreams, that can contain meaning and give away our true feelings, our true motives. I read this book at a young age, and found it so elucidating about so much behavior we see around us every day, and from ourselves. It was also probably a key factor in my early interest in psychology.
In "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life" Freud examines the psychological basis for the forgetting of names and words, the misuse of words in speech and in writing, and other similiar errors. Freud's examination of the subject is extensively discussed through the use of anecdotes and examples. "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life" makes for one of Freud's more readable works.
Paul Ekman is a well known researcher of human behavior and facial expressions and indicators of lying. He’s written several books that many serious students of behavior have read, and this is a good one to start with. He delves into the meaning of various facial expressions, and also explains how research shows the universal, cross-cultural nature of our underlying emotions and how those show up in our faces.
Using scores of photographs of faces that reflect the emotions of surprise, fear, disgust, anger, happiness, and sadness, the authors of UNMASKING THE FACE explain how to identify correctly these basic emotions and how to tell when people try to mask, simulate, or neutralize them. In addition, it features several practical exercises that will help actors, teachers, salesmen, counselors, nurses, and physicians--and everyone else who deals with people--to become adept, perceptive readers of the facial expressions of emotion.
This is a psychology book, maybe not what some would consider about “behavior,” and it’s a fairly heavy and dense one. But I feel I must include it as it has helped me understand human mental struggles more than any other book I’ve read. And a key part of understanding human behavior, especially the broader societal and political aspects, is understanding those dark, often under-the-surface struggles that we all deal with. It is the wisest book I’ve ever read, and I have bought it for many people. Yalom has become a sort of secular guru for me. It is that good.
Existential therapy has been practiced and continues to be practiced in many forms and situations throughout the world. But until now, it has lacked a coherent structure, and analysis of its tenets, and an evaluation of its usefulness. Irvin Yalom, whose Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy has rendered such a service to that discipline since 1970, provides existential psychotherapy with a background, a synthesis, and a framework.Organized around what Yalom identifies as the four ultimate concerns of life",death, freedom, existential isolation, and meaninglessness,the book takes up the meaning of each existential concern and the type of conflict that springs…
In my trilogy of books on poker tells, Verbal Poker Tells is the book I’m most proud of. It’s an examination of the ways in which the things poker players say can give away information about what they have. I spent eight months, full time, working on this book, and that included watching and logging hundreds of hours of televised poker footage, and taking notes when I played. It’s a very unique book, and I’ve been told by readers that it’s enhanced their understanding of the meaning that can be hidden in language, even outside of poker.
