品牌：Sam Gosling
基本信息·出版社：Basic Books
·页码：272 页
·出版日期：2008年
·ISBN：0465027814
·条形码：9780465027811
·装帧：平装
·英语：英语
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内容简介This is a provocative and witty look at how our private spaces - from boardroom to bedroom - reveal our personalities, whether we know it or not!Does what's on your desk reveal what's on your mind? Do those pictures on your walls tell true tales about you? And is your favourite outfit about to give you away? For the last ten years, psychologist Sam Gosling has been studying how people project (and protect) their inner selves. By exploring our private worlds (desks, bedrooms, even our clothes and our cars, he shows not only how we showcase our personalities in unexpected - and unplanned - ways, but also how we crate personality in the first place, communicate it to others, and interpret the world around us.Gosling, one of the field's most innovative researchers, dispatches teams of scientific snoops to poke around dorm rooms and offices, to see what can be learned about people simply from looking at their stuff. What he has discovered is astonishing: when it comes to the most essential components of our personalities - from friendliness to flexibility - the things we own and the way we arrange them often say more about us than even our most intimate conversations. If you know what to look for, you can figure out how reliable a new boyfriend is by peeking into his medicine cabinet or whether an employee is committee to her job by analyzing her cubicle. Bottom line: the insights we gain can boost our understanding of ourselves and sharpen our perceptions of others. Packed with original research and fascinating stories, "Snoop" is a captivating guidebook to our not-so-secret selves.
作者简介Sam Gosling is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He has spent the last decade conducting research on how personality is expressed New Haven, Connecticut.
媒体推荐"Gosling's work, reminiscent of Martha Stout's "The Sociopath Next Door" in its vivid, true-to-life portraits of people and places, is a unique blend of scholarly research and accessible vignettes. Expect future books from this young scholar, whose storytelling skills prove he's capable of bridging the gap between ivory-tower dwellers and street denizens."-"Library Journal," starred review"Gosling, a psychology professor, shows us how the bits and pieces of our everyday lives can reveal more than we ever imagined. Did you know that the stuff you keep on your desk can tell a shrewd observer not just your likes and dislikes, but also your political leanings, your sexual interests, your fears, even your secret self-image (as opposed to the version of yourself you present to the world)?"-"Booklist""The basic premise behind "Snoop" is that you can tell an awful lot about a person based on their apartment; their work space; their favorite music; their style of dress - even their trash. (Gosling approvingly quotes Ward Harrison, a professional scavenger who made a career rummaging through the trash of celebs, who once said, "Garbage is a window into the soul.") This thesis puts "Snoop" firmly in "Blink" or "Freakonomics" territory."-"New York Post"
编辑推荐From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Jay DixitIn 1942, as the United States was entering World War II, the Office of Strategic Services -- the precursor to today's CIA -- was scrambling to find promising spies to go behind enemy lines. One of the aptitude exams it developed was the Belongings Test, in which candidates had to draw conclusions about a man based purely on items in his bedroom: clothes, a timetable, a ticket receipt.Sam Gosling, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, has made a career of studying how such clues illuminate personality. His premise is that our personalities seep out in everything we do and that expert snoopers can draw remarkably accurate pictures of us by examining the traces we leave behind.Gosling's conclusions are supported by rigorous academic research, but his engaging book is aimed at a popular audience; he presents it as a field guide to the "special brand of voyeurism" he calls "snoopology." Few readers may actually rummage through their neighbors' garbage in search of what Gosling dryly calls "behavioral residue," but Snoop's conceit makes for an entertaining tour of how people project their inner selves outward into the world.Some clues come from explicit, deliberate identity claims, like the Malcolm X poster on your wall or the crucifix over your bed. Others, like the songs you download or the coffee cup you throw away, are what psychologists call "seepage," messages that leak out beneath your notice.The trick to decoding a person's space is knowing what to look for. Offices with plants, knick-knacks and symbols of friends, family and pets tend to belong to women; men display more sports items and symbols of their achievements. Rock fans are less friendly, more artistic and more anxious than fans of religious music. Extroverts offer comfortable chairs and bowls of candy as "bait" to lure people into their offices, while difficult people wind up on the remote fringes of the workplace.This may seem like just common sense, but it's not. We think people with messy, disorganized bedrooms will be unpleasant, but we're wrong. We incorrectly assume people whose rooms are highly decorated and cluttered are more extroverted. We make similar errors in judging people directly: We expect timid, grumpy-looking people with weak voices and halting speech to be anxious and easily upset, and we expect self-assured, smiling, stylish people to be open, imaginative and curious. But neither expectation is accurate.On a date or job interview, you may succeed in presenting a misleading impression of yourself. But since the gradual accumulation of clues in your living space is hard to fake, snooping can yield a penetrating portrait. And that, says Gosling, is perfectly okay, because though we try to put our best selves forward, most of us, in the end, want to be known not for who we wish we could be, but for who we are.Of course, one of the main ways we carve out our identity is by consuming. We surround ourselves with things that reinforce our conception of who we are, purchasing not just the objects we need but also symbols that help us articulate our personal narratives. That's why Ramones T-shirts outsell Ramones albums 10 to one and why, Rob Walker asserts, 75 percent of Viking's ultra-high-end kitchen ranges are never used.In Buying In, Walker, who writes a consumer behavior column for the New York Times Magazine, makes a startling claim: Far from being immune to advertising, as many people think, American consumers are increasingly active participants in the marketing process. True, we've grown skeptical of traditional advertising, the clumsy, crass kind in which someone on Madison Avenue thinks up a soft-drink jingle and broadcasts it into ubiquity. And it's true that TiVo and the Internet have given us more control over the advertisements we see.But Walker leads readers through a series of lucid case studies to demonstrate that, in many cases, consumers actively participate in infusing a brand with meaning. Consider the iconic mouthless cat known as Hello Kitty, used for marketing clothes, toys and bandages by the Japanese company Sanrio. She has no personality because the company painstakingly avoids defining her character, Walker says. The key to the mega-brand's success, he suggests, is ensuring that Hello Kitty remains an ambiguous symbol, a blank slate on which buyers can inscribe whatever meaning they want, from nostalgia to camp to subversiveness.For the same reason, the makers of Red Bull never claim anything specific about the highly caffeinated drink's special ingredient, taurine, or which powers of athleticism, mental acuity or virility it supposedly bestows. They prefer marketing campaigns that promote the brand's "personality" by sponsoring such extreme sporting events as kiteboarding to Cuba, kayaking over waterfalls and street luge.Or consider how the Pabst Blue Ribbon brand was hijacked by young, anti-corporate types. PBR's fan base grew not from aggressive marketing, Walker says, but from the lack of it. Long neglected, PBR had virtually no image at all, which helped make it an underground darling among people who attached a blue-collar, honest-workingman, anti-capitalist ethos to the brand.Walker's analysis breaks down in places. He can't fathom why people would pay more for a Viking range or an iPod when competing products are cheaper. Most iPod buyers have never heard of such features as "Smart Playlists" and thus, he concludes, do not understand "all the functions that they paid a premium to obtain" -- as if those functions, and not the device's sleek form, are what drew 100 million purchasers. He considers the notion that people can pay for aesthetic pleasure but then dismisses it, saying it sounds more like a "rationale" than a rational choice. He's likewise baffled by why anyone would buy Method's leaky but beautiful, hourglass-shaped bottle of dish soap. Since we don't parade around town impressing others with elegant cleaning products, there's no "purely rational defense" for buying one, he says, seemingly oblivious to the possibility that we can rationally spend money on aesthetic pleasures we will enjoy alone.But his major argument is convincing: In this new era of participatory marketing, many brands' meanings -- once crafted and maintained from atop the peaks of corporate hierarchies -- now originate from consumers. We once feared an Orwellian future in which big, scary corporations secretly manipulated our thoughts and desires. But commercial influence has become an open-source project. "We have already met the new hidden persuaders," writes Walker, "and they are us."
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
Review
"Gosling's work, reminiscent of Martha Stout's "The Sociopath Next Door" in its vivid, true-to-life portraits of people and places, is a unique blend of scholarly research and accessible vignettes. Expect future books from this young scholar, whose storytelling skills prove he's capable of bridging the gap between ivory-tower dwellers and street denizens."-"Library Journal," starred review"Gosling, a psychology professor, shows us how the bits and pieces of our everyday lives can reveal more than we ever imagined. Did you know that the stuff you keep on your desk can tell a shrewd observer not just your likes and dislikes, but also your political leanings, your sexual interests, your fears, even your secret self-image (as opposed to the version of yourself you present to the world)?"-"Booklist""The basic premise behind "Snoop" is that you can tell an awful lot about a person based on their apartment; their work space; their favorite music; their style of dress - even their trash. (Gosling approvingly quotes Ward Harrison, a professional scavenger who made a career rummaging through the trash of celebs, who once said, "Garbage is a window into the soul.") This thesis puts "Snoop" firmly in "Blink" or "Freakonomics" territory."-"New York Post"
Review
“Sam Gosling is an engaging writer, a brilliant psychologist, and a charming individual—and he must never, ever be allowed inside my office!”–Mary Roach, author ofStiff and Bonk
“I love this book. The content is fascinating, and Gosling presents it with great style and clarity. He teaches you to find clues about people in the most unlikely places—from the clutter in their closets to the smiles on their faces. If you want to know what your stuff really says about you, readSnoop.”–Jonathan Haidt, author ofThe Happiness Hypothesis
“Snoopis a tour de force! It’s one of the smartest and most original books I’ve come across in a long time. I devoured it and then rushed over to clean up my desk and change my iPod playlist.”–Richard Florida, author ofThe Rise of the Creative ClassandWho’s Your City?
“If you are looking for a lover, a job, a new house, or a serial killer,Snoopis for you. It’s great science and a fun read by a world-renowned personality researcher.”–James W. Pennebaker, author ofOpening Up and Writing to Heal
“Hugely enjoyable and insightful...Gosling has produced the perfect combination of rigorous research and lightness of prose to create a book that will transform every reader into a super snooper.”–Richard Wiseman, author ofQuirkology
“Grounded in first-rate science,Snoopis an entertaining page-turner and a must read for anyone who wants to learn about the cutting edge of psychological research.”–Eric Abrahamson, coauthor ofA Perfect Mess
“Gosling is the rarest of authors—a superb behavioral scientist who is as funny as he is smart. One of his great contributions is giving us fresh insight into what makes each of us who we are.”–Dan P. McAdams, author ofThe Redemptive Self
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