Here is a summary of chapter 3 from Robert Greene's Laws of Human Nature: See Through People's Masks - The Law of Role Playing

Video Summary: https://youtu.be/dX7XQbrPPlk

Written Summary:

People tend to wear the mask that shows them off in the best possible light. Humble, confident, diligent. Hiding their insecurities. If we take this at face value we can be blindsided when someone shows us anger or hostility. We didn’t recognize the cracks in the mask that are shown by people’s non-verbal cues that they can’t completely control. You must become a superior reader of men and women.

Since appearances are what people judge you by, you must learn to present the best possible version of yourself.

Non-verbal communication cannot be experienced simply through thinking and translating thoughts into words, but must be felt physically. This language connects with the animal part of our nature.

We are the pre-eminent social animal on the planet and depend on our ability to communicate with others for our success.

It is estimated Over 65% of our communication is non-verbal. But we only pick up about 5% and focus most of our communication on what people say, which more often then not is actual designed to conceal what people are thinking and feeling.

Non-verbal cues let us know what people are trying to emphasize with their words and the subtext of their message. Nuances of communication. What people are hiding, actual desires. They reflect real emotions and moods.

If we don’t know notice the signs of what people really want or need, we are operating blindly, inviting misunderstanding, missing opportunities to influence others.

Your task is simple: Recognize your state of self absorption and how little you actually observe. How little we focus on non-verbal cues and how fixated we are on what we’ll say next.

You discover a new and deeper way of relating to people with the increased social powers.

Keys to human nature

People with consummate acting skills can better navigate our complex social environments and get ahead.

We have been using non-verbal cues to communicate with people since the dawn of time, it’s how we survived. But we have not been trained to focus on this when communicating with others. We are still always just focused on the words.

Your task as a student of human nature is two fold:

• Understand and accept the theatrical quality of life. Play your part on the stage of life with consummate skill. Attract attention, dominate the limelight, and make yourself into a sympathetic hero or heroine.
• You must not be naive an mistake peoples appearances for reality. Don’t be blinded by peoples acting skills, become a master transcoder of non-verbal behaviour.

There are 3 aspects to this particular law:

1. Understanding how to observe people
2. Learning some basic keys for decoding non-verbal communication
3. Mastering the art of what is known as impression management.

Observational skills: give yourself a goal in a casual conversation of seeing one or two facial expressions that seem to go against what the other person is saying or indicates some additional information. Be attentive to micro expressions. Write down observations or patterns you notice. Don’t try to interpret what you see. Just be open to what you see and observe. Too much eye contact will betray you.

Increase your vocabulary when it comes to correlating facial expressions and emotions. Sit in a cafe and observe the people around you. Try to guess peoples profession by their body language.

Be aware of common errors you can fall into. Non verbal cues are indirect and don’t have any dictionary. You can interpret peoples non-verbals to express your own biases which is dangerous.

If you're observing someone you don’t like you may interpret every gesture as hostile. They opposite happens for people that you like. Strive to be as objective as you can.

Observe yourself as well. Try to see how often and what situations you put on a fake smile. When you tend to drum your fingers or quiver your lips. Becoming aware of your own non-verbals will make you more able to decode and understand the emotions behind other peoples non-verbals.

You will become increasingly sensitive to other peoples shifting moods and will be able to anticipate them. These powers can make you seem psychic.

Decoding Keys: remember that people are trying to present the best possible front to the world. Concealing their possible antagonistic feelings, desires for power, attempts at ingratiation, insecurities.

The three categories of the most important cues to observe are: dislike / like, dominance / submission, deception.

Dislike / Like Cues: peoples hostile or resistant actions are never out of the blue. There are signs before they take any action. People give out clear indications in their body language of active dislike or hostility. Squinting or the eyes at something you have said, pursing of the lips, glaring, stiff neck, torso or feet that turn away from you while you’re trying to make a conversation, folding of the arms as you try to make a point, tenseness in the body. Train yourself to look for the micro-expressions. If someone dislikes you and you approach them out of surprise, you will clearly see signs of displeasure before they fit on their mask to cover their feelings.

Sudden silence says a lot as well. People often relieve pressure by showing negative body language but saying something positive. They rely on the fact that you are going to pay attention to the positive stuff that they said. Take notice of people who praise or flatter you without their eyes lighting up, could be a sign of hidden envy. People will tend to leak out more of their hidden feelings when they are drunk, sleepy, under stress.

People who show positive affection for you will display noticeable signs in the facial muscles. Calmness. In the forehead and the area around the mouth. With love, the pupils dilate, the cheeks flush.

Learn how to distinguish between the fake and genuine smile. The genuine smile affects the muscles around the eyes and pulls the cheeks upward.

The most telling indication of positive emotion is the voice. Unless you’re a trained actor, the voice is very difficult to consciously modulate. When people are excited to talk to you, pitch is warm and natural. Absense of tension. Animated and happy voice infects us.

Monitoring non-verbal cues is essential in your attempts at influencing and seducing people.

Dominance / Submission Cues: as the most complex collaboration species on the planet, we form elaborate dominance hierarchies based on position, money and power.

We are aware of this but no one talks about this openly. So we’ve adopted non-verbal cues to signify power. The feeling of being in a superior position gives people confidence that will radiate outward in body language. Some people feel this before they attain a position of power and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Confidence comes with a greater feeling of relaxation which is clearly reflected in the face. Powerful people will feel allowed to look around more at the room, make eye contact with whoever they want, and show boredom or annoyance more freely. Smile less as smiling a lot is seen as weakness. Feel more free to touch people in a friendly manner. Take up more space in a meeting, stand taller. Others feel compelled to imitate their style and mannerisms. Not only their ideas but their calm and more frenetic energy.

Alpha males speak faster than others, feel entitled to interrupt, control the flow of the conversation. Handshake is crushing, when they enter a room, they assume a taller stance and longer stride.

Observe those in your group for signs of dominance hierarchies and social positions.

People often show various dominance or submission cues. If they show up late they are trying to show they aren’t obligated to be on time. If their feet are twitching it means they are nervous, no matter what’s going on up top.

Use these cues as a way of gauging peoples confidence levels and acting appropriately. With leaders who have insecurities you can poke at their insecurities to gain power, but often it’s better not to get too close as they tend to do poorly over time.

If people aren’t leaders but are trying to assert themselves as if they were, your response should depend on their personality type. If they are rising stars full of self belief and a sense of destiny, it might be wise to try to rise with them. Notice such types by the positive energy that surrounds them.

If they are arrogant and petty despots, strive to avoid them.

Deception Cues: we humans are quite gullible. That we can get some magic pill to fix us, that most people are essentially good. We need to recognize certain telltale signs of an attempt at deception and maintain skepticism as we examine the evidence further.

The most clear and common sign is when people assume an extra animated front.

If people are trying to cover something up, they tend to become extra vehement, righteous, and chatty. Playing on the conviction bias. We tend to take extra conviction as truth.

Now look for non verbal signs to confirm your suspicions.

If someone is deceiving sometimes they’ll use a lot of numbers and statistics. Con artists use this. Seem like bureaucrats. Look for contrived impressions. Reality is never so seamless. Real life involves random occurrences and it’s messy.

People often freeze before they make a movement. This is the fight or flight response. Even with the most practiced deceivers, one way to see through their lies is to see how they give emphasis to their non-verbal cues. It’s difficult to fake this. People who’s tone doesn’t quite fit the context of what they’re saying.

With deception there’s always a scale involved. At the bottom of the scale we find harmless white lies (you look great today, not revealing what you did that day). Polite society relies on this level of deception.

The art of impression management:

Role-playing has negative connotations. People assume if you’re genuine you don’t need to role play. But you’d feel uncomfortable if your pilot started acting like a car salesman or your mechanic like a therapist.

Life in the public sphere means wearing a mask. And sometimes people wear the mask of authenticity. People have more freedom to express themselves once they’ve established their competence in a field, but it’s always within limits.

Here’s some basics in the art of impression management.

• Master the non-verbal cues. When people want to get to know about us, they pay great attention to the non-verbal cues we emit. Know how to control these cues to some degree so you can emit the signs that are suitable and positive. Know dominance cues and radiate dominance.
• Be a method actor. Learn how to consciously put yourself in the right emotional mood by imagining how and why you should feel the emotions suitable to the occasion. Surrender to the feeling of the moment.
• Adapt to your audience. You need to fall into certain parameters set by the roll you play, but you must be flexible. Know your audience and shape your non-verbal cues to their style and taste.
• Create the proper first impression. This is the most important thing as it shapes how people will think about you. Present a neutral front, don’t be too excited. Relax your smile and look people in the eye.
• Use dramatic effects. Use the art of presence, absence. If you’re too present and people can predict what you’ll do next, they will quickly grow bored with you. Know how to selectively absent yourself so people want to see more of you, not less. Cloak yourself in mystery, display some subtly contradictory qualities. Make your appearances and behaviours less predictable.
• Project saintly qualities: no matter what time period we live in there are some qualities that are always seen as positive and that you must learn how to display. Embody what is considered good and above reproach. Showing yourself as progressive, supremely tolerant and open minded. Be seen giving generously to certain causes. Projecting sincerity and honesty always plays well. A few public confessions of your weaknesses and vulnerabilities will do the trick. People see signs of humility as authentic. Learn how to lower your head and appear humble. If dirty work needs to be done, get others to do it. Always keep your hands clean. Never overtly play the machiavellian leader, use the appropriate dominance cues to make others think you’re powerful even before you reach the heights. You want to seem like you were destined for success.

The better you play your role, the more power you will accrue. And with power you’ll have the freedom to express more of your peculiarities. If you take this far enough, the persona you present will match many of your own unique characteristics, but always heightened for effect.

TL;DR: We all wear masks to make ourselves seem better. Accept that you have a role to play and play it. Recognize what people are hiding by paying attention to non-verbal cues.

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