Getting better at reading people

What training does and does not do

Start with the general rule from the brain-training literature. A large review of the studies cited by brain-training companies found extensive evidence that people improve on the tasks they train, less evidence of improvement on closely related tasks, and little evidence of improvement on distant tasks or everyday performance. Practising E-Motions will make you better at E-Motions and similar face tests. Whether it makes you better in a tense client meeting depends on what else you do.

People-reading specifically has a more encouraging record:

• Person perception. A meta-analysis of training studies found that training significantly increased accuracy at judging others. The approach mattered more than the length of training: practice and feedback beat instruction alone, and a combination worked best.
• Brief expressions. Matsumoto and Hwang reported evidence that the ability to read very brief facial expressions can be trained.
• Emotional intelligence. Across 58 studies, EI training had a moderate positive effect, and exploratory analyses suggested it worked better when it involved practice and feedback rather than lectures.
• Situational judgement. In a high-stakes medical admissions setting in Belgium, commercial coaching raised SJT scores by about half a standard deviation. SJTs mostly measure knowledge of what works, and knowledge can be taught.

Strategy 1: read faces in a fixed order

When you have a second or two, a fixed scanning order beats a general impression, because the classic confusions are decided by one or two features.

1. Mouth first for the easy split

   Corners up points to happiness; corners clearly down points to sadness; a flat mouth with nothing else happening is neutral.

2. Then the eyes

   Wide-open, rounded eyes put you in the fear and surprise family. Tense, glaring or narrowed eyes point towards anger or disgust; heavy, lowered lids towards sadness.

3. Then the brows to break ties

   Raised brows with nothing pulling them together suggests surprise; raised and drawn together suggests fear. Brows pulled down suggests anger; a wrinkled nose and raised upper lip suggests disgust.

4. Name the near-miss before you answer

   Every emotion has a usual confusion partner: fear and surprise, anger and disgust, sadness and neutral. Ask yourself which of the pair it is and what single feature decides it.

In real conversations add two steps the tests leave out: check the context (what just happened, what was said), and when it matters, ask. "You seem a bit worried about the deadline, is that right?" costs nothing and replaces a guess with information.

Strategy 2: a method for situational judgement

SJTs reward the same few principles again and again. You will see them worked through in the TeamChat lesson; the short version:

1. Identify whose problem this is and what outcome matters (the client's delivery, the team's deadline, a colleague's wellbeing).
2. Rule out options that ignore the problem, hide it, blame someone publicly or break a rule.
3. Among what is left, prefer the response that acknowledges the person and moves the problem forward with a concrete next step.
4. Escalate when the decision is genuinely above you, and bring a proposed solution when you do.

Strategy 3: know your style before the questionnaire

You cannot and should not train a personality score. What does help is knowing yourself well enough to answer quickly and consistently. Saville's candidate guidance suggests reflecting on your own work style before you start, using a wide range of the scale, and being as honest as you can because there is no one right answer.

Faking is less useful than it looks. People can raise their scores when told to fake, but modern forced-choice questionnaires cut that inflation sharply: in one meta-analysis the overall score inflation for forced-choice measures was only 0.06 standard deviations. Social desirability, meanwhile, does not predict job performance. An inflated profile mostly gets you flagged, or hired into a role that does not suit you. The Portrait and PortraitXT lessons cover this in detail.

Strategy 4: build a story bank for interviews

Behavioural interviews ask for evidence. Prepare six to eight true stories from projects, internships, clubs, sport or family responsibilities, each written in STAR form, and map them to the competencies recruiters ask about.

For each story, write one line per STAR step, then say it aloud in under two minutes. Keep the result honest and, where you can, measurable: "the demo ran on the day", "we cut the build time from twenty minutes to eight". Interviewers probe, so a real story with a modest result beats a polished one you cannot defend.

Using the practice tasks on this shelf

Each of our four workplace tasks trains something different, so use them differently.

• E-Motions is the only one that feeds your Workplace score. Treat it as deliberate practice: after every session, read which emotion you most often misread and as what, and make that pair the focus of the next session.
• TeamChat does not count towards your scores yet. Every reply has written credit (full, half or none) and each full-credit reply has a one-line reason, but that answer key is still being reviewed. Use it as a rehearsal space for the SJT method: read the thread, decide which reply you would defend in an interview, say why in one sentence, then compare your reason with the key's in the review.
• Portrait and PortraitXT are self-description questionnaires. They exist so the format feels familiar on the day. What they report back, consistency and response style, tells you whether you are answering carefully, not whether you are the right kind of person.

A four-week plan

Short, spaced sessions beat one long cram. Log each session in two lines: what you got wrong and what cue or principle would have fixed it.

1. Week 1: learn the formats
   • Two E-Motions sessions; after each, note your commonest misread from the report
   • Read the TeamChat lesson and attempt one TeamChat session, judging every reply with the four-step method
   • Attempt Portrait once, answering quickly and honestly, then read your profile
   • Draft four STAR stories
2. Week 2: attack your confusions
   • Three E-Motions sessions; before each, rehearse the cue that separates your worst confusion pair
   • One TeamChat session; for each thread, write one sentence on why your reply beats the next best
   • Attempt PortraitXT and check the consistency and longest-run figures
   • Complete six STAR stories and say two aloud
3. Week 3: speed and range
   • Three E-Motions sessions at the level the app sets; aim for zero unanswered faces
   • Practise real-world reading: in two meetings or classes, silently name one emotion and what cue you used
   • Map your stories to the six competency columns and fill gaps
   • Do one mock HR interview with a friend using past-behaviour questions
4. Week 4: rehearse the day
   • Two E-Motions sessions, one early and one late in the day, to see how fatigue affects you
   • One full TeamChat session without pausing
   • Reread the Portrait lessons, then answer one questionnaire in a single sitting
   • Two mock interviews; tighten any answer that runs past two minutes

2 practice questions

1. According to Blanch-Hartigan et al., what made person-perception training most effective?
2. What did Cao and Drasgow find about forced-choice personality questionnaires in high-stakes settings?

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Sources

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2. Blanch-Hartigan, D., Andrzejewski, S. A., & Hill, K. M. (2012). The effectiveness of training to improve person perception accuracy: A meta-analysis. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 34(6), 483–498. doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2012.728122
3. Matsumoto, D., & Hwang, H. S. (2011). Evidence for training the ability to read microexpressions of emotion. Motivation and Emotion, 35(2), 181–191. doi.org/10.1007/s11031-011-9212-2
4. Mattingly, V., & Kraiger, K. (2019). Can emotional intelligence be trained? A meta-analytical investigation. Human Resource Management Review, 29(2), 140–155. doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2018.03.002
5. Lievens, F., Buyse, T., Sackett, P. R., & Connelly, B. S. (2012). The effects of coaching on situational judgment tests in high-stakes selection. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 20(3), 272–282. doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2012.00599.x
6. Barrett, L. F., Adolphs, R., Marsella, S., Martinez, A. M., & Pollak, S. D. (2019). Emotional expressions reconsidered. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 20(1), 1–68. doi.org/10.1177/1529100619832930
7. Viswesvaran, C., & Ones, D. S. (1999). Meta-analyses of fakability estimates: Implications for personality measurement. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 59(2), 197–210. doi.org/10.1177/00131649921969802
8. Cao, M., & Drasgow, F. (2019). Does forcing reduce faking? A meta-analytic review of forced-choice personality measures in high-stakes situations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(11), 1347–1368. doi.org/10.1037/apl0000414
9. Ones, D. S., Viswesvaran, C., & Reiss, A. D. (1996). Role of social desirability in personality testing for personnel selection: The red herring. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(6), 660–679. doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.81.6.660
10. Saville Assessment. Introducing Wave Professional Styles (candidate preparation). savilleconsulting.dk
11. MIT Career Advising and Professional Development. The STAR method for behavioral interviews. capd.mit.edu