Читать книгу A Guide to the Scientific Career - Группа авторов - Страница 151

Naturally, you can't do a comprehensive personality assessment on everyone you meet. But in these days of widespread character disturbance, it's incumbent upon you make at least a rudimentary assessment of a person's basic makeup. Know the most common personality types and their key features. Be especially on the lookout for those aspects of personality that tip you off to someone's basic character. Know the difference between someone's basic personality or “style” of relating (i.e. their distinctive manner of perceiving and interacting with the world) and a style that is either so extreme in its manifestation, deviant from the norm, or inflexible that it causes unnecessary tension and dysfunction in a person's interpersonal relations. And if something about a person's “style” of relating doesn't strike you just right, scrutinize a little further. Knowing the kind of person you're dealing is your single best defense against being exploited. This is especially true when it comes to the most severely disturbed characters. Many character‐impaired individuals have keen predatory instincts and an uncanny ability to size up other people. Knowing you better than you know yourself and deceiving you about what they're really like is a major way they can get the better of you.