Meeting People
for getting ideas of what to expect from them
by
Gernot Winkler
                                        
Accidental details can mislead our attention and first impressions will be wrong or superficial.  “Small talk”, if not guided in a direction of our choosing, will also not give us much useful information. Of course after a while, we will get to know a new acquaintance much better, but we can accelerate this process by making our vague impressions intentionally abstract in reference to some model. It is possible, even without expert psychological consultation, to gain a tentative concept of what to expect if we concentrate on a few typical features. These can often characterize the person quite well, if only provisionally. As a fringe benefit, our thinking about an objective, meaningful characterization of a person will bring us to a better understanding of ourselves. Take as a first example the following factors which we can estimate for a rough assessment of personality:

(i) The range, or the extent of intellectual concern, capacity and vision; the "Mental Horizon.” It is an important datum to tell us how large a person's universe of reference is; it relates to how he can see into the future and plan realistically. It gives the range of his interests which determines how many implications he can perceive because one notices more those things in which he is interested; how well he can understand a situation in reference to what he knows; and therefore, how easy it is for him to remember details in the making of sound judgments. (The more “hooks” he has in his mind, the better he can get back to ideas). A larger mental horizon allows us to talk meaningfully with a larger range of people. The factor accounts for more than plain intelligence because it includes the effects of initiative and energy of living. It estimates effective intelligence as it has been developed in demanding applications, and it suggests the chances for further growth. Obviously, to get ideas about this factor we have to direct our conversation to a range of subjects that is wider than the weather, booze, cars, or the latest fashions. An example questionnaire that I used with journalists (to their visible consternation) is given as appendix. In plain gossip, observe at least how generous your partner is in talking about other people. This belongs already to the next item.

(ii) The degree of basic generosity, good will, or “volume” of the soul; how much it could absorb without exploding. Generosity, the literal magnanimity (μεγα θυμος), is not only related to giving and forgiving, it is equally related to receiving - through gratefulness and appreciation. People who are ungrateful show that they have a small, confining soul which is too sensitive to afford forgiveness of the slightest infraction - or debt. Generosity is not connected with Horizon, there are many simple people with very limited knowledge, interests, or views, who are naturally generous and vice versa. In different terms, one could relate this factor roughly to the state of maturity of the person. In this sense, maturation would be a “growth of the soul.”  To estimate this factor we try to find out how petty minded the person is in regard to others, say, regarding the salary of politicians, or the “rich”. In other words, envy should count heavily as negative generosity.

(iii) The degree of Self Control and Restraint (Discipline). This factor can best be observed in the little actions of daily life and the general behavior of a person. How did he/she meet you. How is his/her driving?  Is this person considerate of others? Self Control is of crucial importance for his (or her) social relations. It shows in the regard to his environment, the way he pushes forward regardless of others, an inclination to pranks - all this suggests an Ego with poor  self control. The opposite shows in tact and courtesy.

(iv)  Finally, we could assess the degree of Authenticity, as the inverse of fictitiousness. Is the person genuine? Or is there pretense, hypocrisy? More appearance than reality? A theatrical behavior is an almost certain indication of an artificial front instead of a real person. Individuals with a high degree of fiction progress into hard frauds easily. People who need to “reinvent” themselves (instead of learning and developing) can hardly be authentic, but seem to be more of an insecure walking (and talking) fraud from whom we can expect anything. We observe a wide range of this parameter: from almost crazy, habitual histrionics to a totally plain and serious behavior. This last is rare and could indicate a high degree of inner security. Frequent are types who excel with their elaborate appearance. Perhaps, they are just a bit insecure. Note, please, that females should not necessarily be assumed to be more affected on this than males.

We need not limit our characterization factors to four, but whatever we chose, the factors should not be correlated, i.e., a factor should not depend on features that also affect the other factors in an obvious way. The factor estimates are given as numbers on a scale of zero to ten. Our first factor refers to intellectual capacity. The rest pertain to character as it is generally understood. Together, these numbers characterize  the person, of course, only tentatively. We can never hope to exhaust a person with such a model, but even a rough estimate, obtained in usual situations, is better than just vague feelings without any mental reflection!

The above is only a simple example, but the factors are more meaningful than one could expect on account of the simplicity. One could, of course, be much more elaborate. Professional evaluation centers which advise their clients on hiring and assignment of personnel, use a large battery of tests with groups of interviewers who have to prepare a detailed assessment of capabilities with many factors. This is a complex task, with cost and elaboration commensurate with the delicacy and the importance of making a good appointment.

On the other extreme, on the basis of a completely different world picture, intuitive instead of abstract, and more impressed by emotional factors, we find the artists who could use quite different factors. A highly creative literary artist with wide experience, the noted Henry de Montherlant (Carnets, XLIII), thinks that man can be understood as being of three components: the Apollonian, which is the creative element; the Dionysian, to account for the earthly passions (and the bowels); and the Odyssean, which rules the behavior and social navigation. Obviously, with such factors not much practically useful information is given.

For job applicants we should estimate honesty (connected with the above authenticity), judgment, intelligence, and initiative (energy), as factors in this decreasing order of importance. Our four factors above reflect a general typology, seen from a humanistic point of view, in contrast to the four as given here, which relate directly to traits that affect job performance. The chosen factors have to be defined as clearly as possible. Operationally, we define them through the tests which we specify, but these tests can almost never be designed so that they depend only on a single factor. Furthermore, we must realize that in all cases of a specific job application, the best ideas about future task performance will most reliably be obtained in a trial period that requires typical elements of the future job. When this is not practical, at least the major elements of job performance must be used in a test.

I remember the case of a young technician who presented to the interviewer a good set of credentials with several training courses that he claimed to have taken. He looked bright and alert and he was hired, in large part on the basis of these credentials. But it quickly turned out that he could not even locate the @ symbol on the keyboard! He was practically useless and we spent the next year to send him to several training opportunities, without much effect. Finally, an inquiry revealed that his credentials had been grossly inflated, if not plainly fraudulent. This should give us an idea how important it is to expose the candidate to an actual job situation because the background checks that had been made as a matter of course, had been too vague and useless! Not everyone is willing to say the truth out of fear of becoming the victim of a law suit.

How about the I.Q.?

My short answer is that, while important, it is generally misunderstood and overrated. It must not be used as a single factor in selecting persons for anything. We can understand why the problem with intelligence is vastly more complex than describable with a single number, but we must examine how we think. The question is why it is possible, even not so rare, that highly intelligent people can be outright stupid in their decisions.

Machiavelli, in chapter XXII of his famous Principe (1513), has the following to say about the problem of accepting advice:

 ". . . because, there are three kinds of brains, the first has insight by himself, another understands what is explained as the insight of others, the third does not understand by himself, nor what is explained by others. The first is outstanding, the second excellent, the third useless.”

The third kind is actually worse than useless and you would be well advised not to waste time on this type once you recognize him!  However, we must also realize that many times with otherwise intelligent and capable people, the other mind may not want to understand if he is too emotionally fixed on his beliefs, regardless of the evidence. Such a person simply cannot be objective whatever his intelligence may be! We can model this with the existence of a "switch" in the mind that allows. or blocks, information from the vague, intuitive level, to reach the abstract reasoning level. It is a half instinctive, half conscious disposition that decides whether or not we want to look at a new view point. This shows how important our character is for us to be able to be objective because this "switch" can be brought up to full consciousness.

The problem of understanding is in such cases not at all a question of intelligence (for more see the essay #1, on Truth) because the switch is opened or closed before our intelligence is allowed by the (fearful?) Ego to get into action, and we can override this from our highest level of consciousness. It seems, therefore, that an important factor is in such cases our intellectual security, or even our integrity. It is very necessary for us to have opinions, almost like having a map in a strange city. Without this, we would live in a confusing chaos. If our confidence is high, we can afford to look at other opinions objectively (because we trust we can evaluate them), but if we are insecure, we will be afraid to lose our "map", and then we may be lost!  But other reasons can enter here, too. Especially hate of another person can make us automatically deaf for his ideas. 

From countless personal contacts I had over decades, my impression is that Machiavelli's third type, which includes both, the intellectually challenged as well as the intelligent but immature, emotionally affected "closed minds", comprises well over 50% of the specialized "intelligentsia" who are over 30 years old. These have become virtually immune for education on the subjects which "close the switch" and yet, they can be highly intelligent (as evidenced by a high I.Q.). On the other hand, most young persons (before they are infected by the cynicism in a dull environment) are eager to get information and want to understand. Most persons will deny to have a closed mind, naturally, but a simple self test could reveal, assuming you are honest with yourself, whether you fall perhaps in this group of the closed minds? Ask yourself who of all persons you know, is for you the least likable, the most detestable?  After you have identified this person (he could be a hated politician), name something very good about him/her. If you cannot do that, you are not able to be objective because every normal person has something that we could recognize if we can only get over our feelings. This should alert us to the great difficulty when we speak about intelligence because so many additional aspects enter here.

Intelligence is nevertheless widely understood as the most important cognitive factor and a great amount of psychological research has focused on tests for it. However, I am convinced that unspecified "intelligence" is not necessarily the most important thing to look for if we are concerned with the future task performance of an applicant. First of all, as we just saw, the concept of intelligence itself is very hard to define because it is highly abstract and too general, apart from the potential emotional problems just mentioned. A good way to be more specific would be to distinguish between the abstract, serial, intellectual preference to analyze problems, from the holistic, parallel, or instantaneous, intuition with which an artistic mind perceives a situation. This is accepted as being due to the different specialization and individual dominance of the left or right sides of the brain (E.g., Robert E. Ornstein, The Psychology of Consciousness, 1972). Of course, these two types of a mind have radically different abilities, which is ignored if a single number, the I.Q. , is used as an estimate.

More detailed, we can distinguish (as I did above) between the ability to perceive realistically, from a second level where we select and translate the vague impressions in the semi or subconscious, - into abstract notions with words that can be communicated and recorded. I believe that at this level 2, the emotional and character problems can arise. A third level in this system would then be the facility of processing these abstract notions, i.e., writing and logical - arithmetic activities. This last purely abstract ability is prominent when intelligence is mentioned in a general way, even though this kind of abstract reasoning is the one part of intelligence that can be most easily taken over by machines. Our modern life and most tests make demands on this abstract processing ability, e.g., concluding from "A & B to C", and also in the use of computers, etc.

However, as I need to emphasize, not this is the most critical, sensitive and precious factor, but the first one in which artistic minds and some simple uneducated people can excel - even if they may be quite incompetent in the abstract manipulations. I believe that without this intuition, and without the earnest desire to find the truth regardless of everything, no valid, objective judgment can be expected. We can observe this in the spectacular failures of high level abstract performers. Such persons, often celebrities, can surprise us with their inability to recognize what is important while they are fascinated with pet ideas and are highly proficient in the handling of details. It is actually a problem of cardinal importance.

A tragic example for this, I think, we can see in the former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, undoubtedly one of the hardest working, most highly gifted and highly motivated leaders with tremendous energy. So, why did he fail, as he himself admitted later?  People who dealt with him complained often that he would not accept anything that was not presented in a totally abstract way with exact numbers for everything. Intuition, or non digital information, hunches, etc., were simply not accepted as a hard source of information. Among other things, this became the origin for the notorious body counts, numbers in which the battle reports from the field had to be primarily couched. Now, apart from the practical human side which in the system caused some inflation of these "counts", often enough based only on rough estimates, - the heroic effort of the leader to be realistic through accuracy created the opposite effect in his own mind:  a picture of the situation in which something essential was missing.

After the fact, we can see how a misleading, if not a totally false, picture could emerge out of a myriad of numbers which did not really reflect the experience of the people in the field. Nobody can expect to succeed with strategic decisions on the basis of an essentially incomplete picture. McNamara and others talked much later about "The Fog of War". I suggest that a part of the fog is in our own mind if we cannot let go of our opinions (at least temporarily) to be interested in the hunches of the experienced and close to the action. The Fog must be a subjective effect because some people can see the situation quite well - nevertheless, immersed in our subjectivity, it is extremely difficult to be truly objective. What appears to be even worse is that experience does not seem to prevent such "holes" in our world picture. Mr. McNamara's pronouncements indicate to me that he still cannot realize the problem. We will come back to this in a moment, as it concerns every one of us.

Another most remarkable case was the rise of Hitler to absolute power in democratic Germany. Masses of intelligent and educated people could not see where Hitler was going when they, almost blindly were taken by him, gave him votes and full dictatorial power in 1933.  He had written the book Mein Kampf and his SA paramilitary organization had been terrorizing the streets. He said in his speeches where he wanted Germany to go. On movies from this time, Hitler appears as an obviously crazy, dangerous madman. I asked several people after the war why people did not see any of this when they voted for Hitler.  I was told: "Yes, yes, but who could have foreseen these terrible things?".  It is obvious that they should have seen it, but they did not want to look at the warning signs because they were so impressed by Hitler as the best promise to bring Change!  There you have the action of the "switch"!  I happen to know of quite a number of people who did expect and saw rather clearly what had to happen as consequence: Change, yes; a catastrophe of unprecedented dimension.

An awareness of the different abilities and disabilities of our cognition and of the cognition of others is of great practical importance.  Moreover, we know today of many, often genetically caused, partial mental handicaps that leave the person quite capable for most activities while they may produce weaknesses in some language use, and otherwise. (I know of a highly competent person who gives a poor impression at briefings). All this should caution us in the use of a single overall performance measure, such as the I.Q.  Interesting examples of such handicaps are discussed with many references by Steven Pinker in Words and Rules (1999), chapter 9,

A factor related to "intelligence", which emphasizes energy, sophistication, lucidity and mental alertness, -  is "esprit".  We have no single word with the same meaning in English; nevertheless the notion is helpful. I am often embarrassed by the bad taste when "educated", "intellectual" people tell me supposed "jokes", which are solely based on the most primitive sexual suggestions. A failure to appreciate the "joke", will just prolong the pain of an "explanation". I am reminded of a French philosophe who said that the degree of esprit needed to amuse you, is a good measure of the esprit that you have, and I wonder what, if anything else could be in a mind so modest in his requirements?  The experience lowers our expectations because he could tell you the next time that the grass is green. Of course, one has to make allowances for age and background of the person. Esprit is correlated with maturity; it is "Distilled Common Sense" with a dash of light humor. Voltaire, exceptionally gifted in this regard, found: La terre est couverte de gens qui ne méritent pas qu'on leur parle -  too few show esprit - and one must make more allowances and just be patient - with memory!

The most consequential aspect concerning our cognition and cognitive ability, however, arises from the fact, that we receive most of our information today not directly from our own experience and intuition, but "ready made" in a totally abstract way through the media or otherwise. This is an encouragement for thoughtless repetition, and worse, even in the best case, we do not obtain sufficient information about the tremendously complex and detail rich world, but only about those aspects that have been selected and condensed into the transmitted information. Nevertheless, this is the main source for most opinions and it can give us eventually this feeling of living in a strange world that is not quite real!  The effect is particularly evident if you come into a country about which you had received only media information. The unreality of your prior ideas about it will be striking. For making decisions, to be not sufficiently realistic is dangerous. It can extract an immense penalty, as we just discussed, and therefore, except for special, demanding purposes, very high "intelligence" (in the common abstract sense) or an intellectual profession which would accentuate this problem of abstract vs. realism, should not necessarily be the single most important feature to seek in associates. (To be blunt, do they have good sense? See also my essay Can we know too much?). What I have attempted to explain here is that both abilities, the intuitive perception and a high abstract ability are necessary, but are rarely of equal power in one and the same mind. Obviously, it would be important to identify where a person's strength and weakness are in this regard.  


But, if not "intelligence", what else?

How should one characterize a person? This is an enormously important question. Are we not physical systems that can be characterized by exposing them to tests? Of course, we are physical systems, but systems with a huge, selectively forgetting memory and a core, the “Ego”, that by its own achievement, should become a truly independent entity! A person is highly unpredictable and almost anything can be expected unless this person has made himself free from the accidents of emotions and environment by acquiring a firm character. If we want to predict the decision of an acquaintance, then it would be a mistake to be too much influenced by a single act that may be an accidental reaction to some one-time stimulus. Important are his character, values, beliefs, habits, inclinations and principles for action - data that must be derived from history or inferred from very sophisticated tests. These “patterns” are more reliable predictors for his future behavior than an impression on the basis of an accidental single event.

Therefore, it is not by accident that in the first example, we selected three out of the four factors to deal with the character and only one which reflects on intelligence (as one of the horizon's components, in a summary, implied way). Character and acute perception are more important for the decisions made in life than intelligence, given an average intellectual acuity. In the last analysis, even the ability to be truly objective when making judgments depends on character. But, character is also much more difficult to examine than general intelligence. In the first place, a formal test is not a useful way to gain character related information. It is much more revealing to observe the unimportant, the routine actions of persons in which they do not expect to be the subject of critical examinations. It is of uppermost importance to gain, as much as possible, a total picture of the person, not the sum of individual character features revealed at a single moment of time.

Of course, attempts to characterize a person will be useless if this person is not consistent in his behavior. Young children (10- to 13 years) have shown that they do not tend to behave in systematic ways, independent of the situation. Children will most likely do what others around them are doing. This is why they are so responsive to peer pressure, which is consistent with the idea that a person has to develop a firm character before he can be free from his environment. Individuals who do not progress to this stage, remain immature and should not be depended upon as much as we do with true adults. Therefore, I believe that the most important part in the assessment of an individual is the degree of maturity that he demonstrates in his actions. An obvious feature is appearance and behavior. Successful people, attorneys and politicians, appear impeccably groomed. On the other hand, some adults, even some professionals, seem to disregard this and arrive at meetings, even at the dinner table, in all stages of personal neglect.  They do not care because they have poor social sensitivity and poor discipline, but they could shine in "brain storming" sessions.

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                              Figure 1: The Galen - Wundt Character Model

From H. J. Eysenck (1967), The Biological Basis of Personality, (Springfield). Eysenck suggested to replace the unchangeable-changeable axis with the introversion - extroversion designations. The biological basis for this he sees in a greater cerebral stimulation of the introvert as compared with the extrovert who needs more external stimulation and for this reason seeks and prefers social contact. (Montaigne reveals himself as a great introvert when he says: La plus grande chose du monde, c'est de sçavoir estre à soi. (I/39)!)  In the other direction, a very pronounced emotional tendency can go into outright neuroticism and later writings of Eysenck label this axis accordingly. In Genius, the natural history of creativity  (1995), Eysenck identifies a tendency toward psychosis, i.e., psychoticism, as a key condition of creativity. See Arthur Jensen's contribution to Intellectual Talent by C.P. Benbow & D. Lubinski (discussed in Essay 12, Note [1]).

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Therefore, very significant observations can be made simply from behavior, from the style of driving, interacting with others, and even from writings. Many different ways have been applied in psychology to use these observations for a characterization of personality. The oldest methods try to locate the tested in a set of well defined types. This goes back to Galen (figure 1) in antiquity: he classified people by their behavioral temperament. Galen mentions only the four major temperaments: phlegmatic, melancholic, choleric, and sanguine. We place the person according to two major tendencies, pictured in the graph as the horizontal and vertical axes, which allows a more detailed characterization.
 
Psychological research is full with methods to characterize ability, personality, and basic motivational types. One of these motivational type theories is Spranger's. It is based on the "dominant value direction,” DVD, of the individual. Spranger distinguishes six major, ideal, types of value direction: (1) theoretical: the person values the search for truth; (2) aesthetic: highest values are in beauty and harmony; (3) religious: most important is a feeling of absorption in a higher reality; (4) social: sympathizes with misfortune; (5) economic: values the utilitarian aspects; (6) political: desires power over others.

Spranger’s system seeks to find what really moves a person and, for this purpose, to find out the DVD of an applicant. One can express it as a sum of components of these types, as estimated on the basis of interviews. In free conversation, one can seek to find out what interests the new friend and what, if any, hobby he has. This has obvious importance when one is looking, e.g.,  for an assistant. In such a case, a candidate who scores as 1:3, 2:1, 3:9, 4:4, 5:1, 6:7 (total 25) would be a poorer fit (he could succeed in a seminary) than, e.g., a candidate with ratings of 1:3, 2:6, 3:1, 4:5, 5:9, 6:1. Of course, no person would fall exactly into one of these categories but one can imagine what would happen if we would assign a person in ignorance of his primary inclinations. Therefore, preferences of a candidate are important to keep in mind when making assignments. Selecting and assigning people this way, is far superior compared with a male/female, black/white, labeling with implied prejudices. This we must avoid like the plague. Of course, seasoned supervisors know this and act accordingly. Or do they? I found that few supervisors can do this well without specific training.

In contrast to Spranger, who took the dominant drive as typical for the characterization of a person, Erich Fromm looked at the mode of human action. On the basis of how the individuals preferred to act, he distinguished in this way mainly five character types: receptive, exploitative, hoarding, marketing, and productive. The last is obviously the socially most valuable type. Without doubt, however, the performance of an individual is very much affected by motivation and the environment. It is conceivable that, e.g., a receptive type would, in a highly productive environment, be induced to perform productively. But this problem of motivation, enormously important in its implications, is beyond the scope of this article. I should say this, however:

My basic drive since childhood has been a desire to understand. Somehow I learned to find almost everything interesting (certainly not Latin, but I was forced into it). Therefore, I never suffered from boredom but had a problem in using the right priority when I had to drop the learning of interesting things for the sake of taking care of some necessity. The best way of doing this, as I discovered later as an adult, was to find the necessary also interesting (including the Latin). The desire to understand and make hypotheses has been always foremost in my mind and it did not fade in adolescence. I am convinced that it was my mother who conditioned me to this. When she drove me around in the stroller, she pointed to plants, animals and features in Nature, and she explained them - she was well educated and as a minimum (when she would not know the name or details of a plant), she conveyed her feeling for the beauty and richness of it. She did this when we went for walks later in my life, and she directed the conversation at home to important subjects. She also subscribed for me the nature magazine Kosmos which I received until I was in senior class of high school. I am certain that mine was not a unique case. Good mothers should be the dominant influence for the mental development and conditioning of their children from the earliest time on. My mother really opened my mind to the Universe.

On the other hand, I take a dim view of  a "popularization" that uses inappropriate dramatization, stupid metaphors, and common media sensationalism to capture the curiosity of the presumably dull masses (e.g., the "dancing planets", or the obligatory "greatest", the "oldest", etc.). This is offensive; it diverts attention from the deep mystery of our world; ubiquitous hyperbole is not the way to lead to deep understanding and objectivity; it lowers everything to the vulgarity of scandals and gossip. I even suspect this continuous sensationalism might be contributing to the blasé attitude of some youngsters.

The Conversation as Interview

With an enlarged idea in the mind of character types, preferences, and motivation, we should be better prepared to use normal conversation in our attempt to estimate in which way our partner would fit one of these types, and to what degree. We do this by asking specific questions to elicit response. E.g., after we ask what he (she) is doing, we can go a little more directly into preferences, what interests her (him) especially why certain choices have been made. I am convinced that only those persons can perform in a superior way, who are intensely interested in the subject. Monetary interests are strong motivators, no doubt. But to select a profession solely for its earning potential is a major mistake for young people.

Of course, our questions must reflect genuine human interest. With some practice we will be able to obtain better ideas about our conversation partners by using abstract structures in the back of our mind. The greatest benefit, however, will come if we use these experiences to make us think about ourselves. If we have a clearer picture about our own temperament, and our preferences, our strong and weak points, our life can be re-oriented to give it more content.

But again, we cannot over emphasize the importance of discipline and character and the all-important question for us is how we can improve these? Of course, we cannot hope to change our biological heritage. But this only fixes very wide limits within we will go as far as we truly want to go. To strengthen ourselves, I know of only one way: persist in controlling yourself. Make a habit in doing this. At first, it is hard, but by doing it as a matter of habit, you can reach eventually completely unexpected powers. The ultimate value of our associates can only be estimated if you can perceive the degree of self-control this person has achieved.


It is important to see through fiction and pretense!

The flip side of what I just said is equally important: In trying to form a realistic opinion of our conversational partner, we must expect to be frustrated or detracted by his/her attempts to conceal what would be an important thing for us to know. What we see in a person is not so much his real self but, of course, more likely that what he wants us to be seen by way of his best self-control. Many people have a great talent to appear to be what they are not. It is only natural that some people would have such wishes. This can happen in all degrees. We all know of impostors who played the role of a skilled doctor, or other professional,  successfully for years until they were discovered by accident. These are extreme cases, but milder ones we meet practically every day and it would be extremely useful to have some way to be alerted.  Well, I wish I would know how to discover fraud quickly, but there is one idea that can help us.

While the role player will do everything possible to make himself appear genuine - by expensive wardrobe, grooming, good manners, even well practiced speech - he cannot change the most important thing of his person (except most rarely) - his sentiment. Although we must realize that we cannot hope to discover his true sentiment in a planned conversation, it will nevertheless tend to reveal itself accidentally, in careless, thoughtless, flippant remarks regarding seemingly unimportant matters. These we should note and remember as probably a true reflection of his real sentiment.  

Why is the sentiment of a person so important?   The most critical decisions depend on the personal sentiment and value system, which reflect his innermost core. This does not change, unless one becomes a truly different person!  A good (but not sufficient) indication of the sentiment is a person's attitude toward animals. However, one has to be careful: Hitler loved his dogs, but hardly anyone else. No person who is brutal toward helpless creatures is a good person. But to be a good person, love of one pet is not enough.

A very important datum that one should record in memory is an inclination to hate, especially the kind of hate that is blind and deaf to arguments and facts. It is, perhaps, the most important factor that influences decision making away from rational to purely emotial grounds. Such persons are unable to be objective. Sadly, we have to admit that we observe a great number of people who let themselves be dominated by burning hate. It can destroy their life (see . . Grass .).  An excellent way to discover the sentiment of a person is to find out who are his friends and mentors.  A great character is less likely to tolerate an intimate friend who has a poor character than somebody who has a poor character himself. The German saying is succinct: Gleich und Gleich gesellt sich gern. 

Complications

We must expect that things become more complicated when we go into more details. In our attempt to find a useful characterization of a person, the problems to be expected are, perhaps, more serious and difficult than in any other field of knowledge. A person with brain and memories (which determine his future actions in response to the environment) is an unbelievably complicated and in its detail not predictable process. A very important point is here the understanding that we must not envision the responses of a person as attributes or property that reside in him as such. This is a completely false and misleading idea.  

In an example, imagine an individual, Jones, who is loving and competent with his wife, imperious and arbitrary with his children, courteous and conciliatory with his customers, but meek and indecisive with his superiors. These character features must be taken in a complementary sense; each in its domain of validity, because taken by themselves they are contradictory. For a description of Jones' "objective" attributes we must state them all, together with the conditions under which each acts. Therefore, fixed definite attributes do not reside as such in Jones because their nature is only relational.  Descriptions are tools of our intellect to predict the behavior of the incumbent, but we must say that they are evoked by the specifics of the situation (for Complementarity see Henry J. Folse (1985), The Philosophy of Niels Bohr; The Framework of Complementarity. North Holland, Amsterdam).

I also suggest to distinguish between the concepts of the mind and the old concept of the soul about as follows: The mind is the process of our consciousness. The soul, in contrast, conveys the idea of a permanently (during the physical life) existing process that includes not only the intellectual abilities, but also all of the emotional systemic background in which memories can be invoked and choices made. Therefore, what we wish to find are the characteristic responses of this soul. But any such attempt is in danger of being totally misled in the presence of an abnormal psychological problem that can very well exist without it being obvious. The following should serve to caution us and make us aware of the magnitude of this problem.


Mental Problems in the Population.

A federal survey found that nearly 15% of US adults suffer from one or more personality disorders, making them unable to learn from their mistakes. In a sample of 43000 Noninstitutionlized adults, 18 years and over, they found that
      7.9% are obsessive compulsive
      4.4% paranoid
      3.6% anti-social
      9.0% abuse alcohol
    >9.0% suffer from depression or a bi-polar disorder (maniac depression)
  >11.0% suffer from an anxiety disorder.
These findings are from the 2002 epidemiological survey on alcohol and related conditions (NESARC), as Published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 

Again, things become much more complicated if one has to go deeper. In this case, I would recommend to read Chapter 136 about Cults, and Chapter 137 with the Classification, of the excellent and widely available  The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy (15th or later edition).


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Questionnaire 

The following example of a questionnaire could help to roughly estimate a person's intellectual interests (connected with the “Range”). It is not to be understood as a test for intelligence. I used it with journalists who had asked for an interview;  in this case, the explicit purpose was to identify areas of familiarity.

        
You plan to discuss with me several subjects, some of them complicated. For an effective communication, I need to get some idea about  your background. It would help me if you agreed to a short test.  Brief comments (5 min or less) on any of the following questions, (I mean talking about it, not just knowing what it is) would give me excellent suggestions for our discussion. You could also criticize the questionnaire! The more, the better!

 1) Which languages do you use to read, write, program, converse, - and why?
 2) How is Information different from knowledge?
 3) Who/what is Voltaire?
 4) What is your idea of an Intellectual?
 5) Which are the Laws of Dialectics?
 6) What is the difference between Materialism and Mechanism?
 7) What is Determinism?
 8) What distinguishes Science from “non Science”?
  9) What is the difference between a Theory and a Hypothesis?
10) What is Truth? Possible theme: Pilate (John 18, 38):  Τι έστιν άλήθεια;
       or  Thomas Aquinas’ concept of Truth as adaequatio rei et intellectus.
11) What is the difference between an Axiom and a Postulate?
12) What is Correlation?             
13) How is Money created?                                             
14) What is the difference between Price and Value?
15) What is the main cause of the Trade Cycle?
16) Talk about some ideas of Plato's Republic.
17) Which are the main Motivational Factors?
18) Define Management.
19) Define Politics        
20) What is Descendence? Can you say something about its opposite?
21) Define Energy
22) Define Entropy
23) What is the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
24) On which effect is the Police Radar based?
25) What are atto, femto, pico, micro, hecto, kilo, Mega ?
26) Why is the sky blue?
27) Describe the difference between efficiency and effectiveness.
28) For which expression is Descartes famous??   And why?
29) What is the legitimation of a belief?
30) Mention a few great persons of the History of mankind.
31) Who is Pascal.
32) Who is Pythagoras?                    

Explanatory Comments:

1)  A similar testing method is used in electronics when we expose a circuit or system to signals that contain all frequencies. From the response produced, we infer the frequency response, useful as a characterization. Here, we expose the tested to a wide variety of subjects, hoping to get responses that will allow us to conduct the interview in a “matched” way (within the “Oases of Familiarity”) that would be much more meaningful than commonly possible when people talk on different levels . . . or have no idea what is under discussion . . . . . .

2) For my purposes, the questionnaire was weighted heavily with scientific technical - philosophical subjects. For other applications, it must be modified accordingly . The important point is to get the other person to talk freely on a subject of his choice. A few minutes can be most revealing for an attentive observer.


Copyright @2003 by Gernot Winkler.     Last Correction  (and substantially augmented)  05/14/2009.