The Tell: The Little Clues That Reveal Big Truths About Who We Are by Matthew Hertenstein

Despite my addiction to popular psychology titles, I couldn’t get into this book - but only, at first. Hertenstein teaches and researches psychology and his writing style has the flow of an interesting lecturer rather than a practiced author. But the content soon outweighed any stylistic concerns and, as the subtitle promises, he soon shows you the many small clues about the people you meet; clues that are hidden right in front of you.

Most of us are lousy at spotting liars, performing barely any better than chance. But there are a small group of people who are known in the field of lie detection as truth wizards. These amazing human lie detectors can detect deceit in over 80% of cases. Unfortunately, there are not many around and your local copper probably isn’t one.

Another slightly scary finding relates to the link between your facial characteristics and your chances of ending up in the slammer. I thought the Victorians were a bit batty with their fixation on the pseudo-scientific art of correlating facial features and head circumference with things like morality. Surprisingly, there are scientific findings to support some links between bone structure and behavioural tendencies.

Hertenstein gives a lot of food for thought. You can find out about the accuracy of your Gaydar, how to predict the success of companies based on photos of the CEO, how even kids as young as five years old can predict who’s elected as president, and how lecturers can increase their students’ evaluations of them by changing just one superficial behaviour. All aspiring Sherlock Holmes - please pay attention….

Reviewed by Spot

Catalogue Link: The Tell