Product Description

A TELL IS AN ACTION THAT TELLS YOU WHAT SOMEONE IS THINKING, EVEN IF THAT PERSON DOESN'T KNOW IT THEMSELVES. AND TELLS ARE HIGHLY INFORMATIVE...The way you stand when you're talking to others, how you move your feet, your hands, your eyes - even your eyebrows - says a lot about your commitment to a conversation and your underlying attitude. Your actions and stance can also affect how long you get to talk and how often you get interrupted. Even when you're seated, the position of your arms and legs provides a wealth of information about your mood and intentions, showing whether you feel dominant or submissive, preoccupied or bored. But Tells aren't confined merely to conversations; when you are alone you are constantly shifting your body - and each movement, each gesture provides clues about your state of mind. In this illuminating book, Peter Collett, social psychologist, former Oxford don and Big Brother's resident psychologist, introduces us to the fascinating concept of Tells, showing how they work, where they come from and how to identify and iterpret them. Whilst sentizing readers to the motives and actions of other people, this invaluable guide also focuses on the messages that we unwittingly send, and the impact that these might have on those around us. Comprehensive and accessible in its approach, and written in the tradition of the international bestseller, Manwatching, THE BOOK OF TELLS offers a new, unifying vocabulary for understanding human communication and social influence - and a unique opportunity to read yourself, and others.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44895 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

From the Publisher
In the tradition of the international bestseller Manwatching, THE BOOK OF TELLS, by former Big Brother resident psychologist, reveals how you can read other people’s minds – and your own.

From the Back Cover
A TELL IS AN ACTION THAT TELLS YOU WHAT SOMEONE IS THINKING, EVEN IF THAT PERSON DOESN'T KNOW IT THEMSELVES. AND TELLS ARE HIGHLY INFORMATIVE.
The way you stand when you're talking to others, how you move your feet, your hands, your eyes - even your eyebrows - says a lot about your commitment to a conversation and your underlying attitude. Your actions and stance can also affect how long you get to talk and how often you get interrupted. Even when you're seated, the position of your arms and legs provides a wealth of information about your mood and intentions, showing whether you feel dominant or submissive, preoccupied or bored. But Tells aren't confined merely to conversations; when you are alone you are constantly shifting your body - and each movement, each gesture provides clues about your state of mind.
In this illuminating book, Peter Collett, social psychologist, former Oxford don and Big Brother's resident psychologist, introduces us to the fascinating concept of Tells, showing how they work, where they come from and how to identify and iterpret them. Whilst sentizing readers to the motives and actions of other people, this invaluable guide also focuses on the messages that we unwittingly send, and the impact that these might have on those around us.
Comprehensive and accessible in its approach, and written in the tradition of the international bestseller, Manwatching, THE BOOK OF TELLS offers a new, unifying vocabulary for understanding human communication and social influence - and a unique opportunity to read yourself, and others.

About the Author
Dr Peter Collett is a social psychologist and ex-Oxford don. For many years he was a member of staff at the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, where he taught and conducted research studies. Peter is the co-author of Gestures: Their Origins and Distribution (with Desmond Morris), Driving Passion: The Psychology of the Car (with Peter Marsh) and is the author of Foreign Bodies: A Guide to European Mannerisms, the foreword for which was written by Peter Ustinov. He has appeared in various TV documentaries, on News at Ten and Newsnight. For the past two years he has been the consultant psychologist for the hugely popular Channel 4 series Big Brother, appearing each week to analyze the behaviour of the participants.

Customer Reviews

Oh dear...
A couple of things to say right from the start; whatever you think it is, it isn't. It will disappoint you. This book is common sense. It deals with over the top body gestures, then "decodes" them for you. The book just falls short of saying "People who punch you dislike you." They may be saving that for the follow up...

If you are struggling socially, then perhaps this may help. If you are otherwise normal, you will resent the "Big Brother" cash-in of the author. If you have read just about any other body language book, you will cringe at the rehashed "skills" it teaches. If you have studied psychology you will simply bin it.
I strongly recommend books on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP for short), don't worry, it's not as scary as it sounds.

It gets one star for being written in readable English. It gets the other star because it is a clear, amusing (in a bad way), if pointless read.

Mostly common sense
Although this is an interesting read, it is 99% common sense. Collett points out that the secret is noticing the common sense and I agree with him there. An obvious example is when two people fancy each other, of course they look and smile at each other, women try to make themselves look more feminine and men try to make themselves look more masculine. Collet spends a whole chapter on this.
there were only 2 or 3 times throughout the entire 345 (subject) pages where I said to myself, "I didn't know that". The vast majority of the population would have exactly the same response as me.
You aren't going to turn into Derren Brown or be some expert on "reading" people afetr reading this book. This merely gives you an insight, definitely only showing the tip of the iceberg.
If you must buy it, buy it second hand

I notice things I never would have noticed before
"Tells" are actions which reveal valuable information about what people are really thinking or feeling. They are used regularly when playing poker, but Peter Collett takes it a step farther and applies the usefulness of "Tells" to everyday life. He talks about tells used to show dominance, submissiveness, sexual signals, tells used while smoking, political tells, international tells, etc.

Overall, I found this book to be a really interesting read. At times, the author became repetitive or stated the obvious, but this book was packed with tons of little interesting facts. It was a fairly quick read, and quite rewarding and entertaining as well because each time I would pick it up, I could find people around me who were using postures or other "Tells" that had just been described in the book. I'm now much more aware of the signals that I send out as well as those that others send out. Recognizing and deciphering these tells adds a whole new dimension to every social interaction/observation I have. Of course, this book won't teach you to read minds, but when accompanied with good sense and intuition it can make your life a little bit more fun.