This looks fascinating -- stand by for more when I've read the book, Honest Signals
Research from MIT's Sandy Pentland.
What you say in a conversation -- whether it's on a first date, a job interview or pitching an idea -- may be less important than how you say it. But the cues that may decide the outcome can be so subtle that neither person in the conversation is consciously aware of them.
Whether or not you get the job, or the other person's phone number, is very strongly influenced by unconscious factors such as the way one person's speech patterns match the other's, the level of physical activity as people talk, and the degree to which one person sets the tone -- literally -- of the conversation. These subtle cues provide "honest signals" about what's really going on and strongly predict the outcome, according to research by the MIT Media Lab's Alex (Sandy) Pentland and his colleagues.
First spotted at Boing Boing
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