Learn the subtle art of likability and how to make people crave your

presence. Discover the secrets of context-dependent memory and how it

can enhance your social skills.

The Science of Likability: 67 Evidence-Based Methods to Radiate

Charisma, Make a Powerful Impression, Win Friends, and Trigger

Attraction (4th Ed.) (The Psychology of Social Dynamics Book 12) By:

Patrick King

Hear it Here - https://adbl.co/3BXFuHQ

The Science of Likability:

67 Evidence-Based Methods to Radiate Charisma,

Make a Powerful Impression,

Win Friends,

and Trigger Attraction (4th Ed.)

(The Psychology of Social Dynamics Book 12)

Written by

Patrick King, narrated by russell newton.

Introduction.

Like many college underclassmen who had no idea what they wanted to study,

I chose to major in psychology.

I thought it was a good default choice because the knowledge theoretically had

wide application and could transfer to any other field.

After all,

psychology is the study of why people,

and I would be dealing with people anywhere I went,

right?

It also didn’t hurt that I heard the vast majority of the classes had

open-book,

multiple-choice midterms and finals.

So I checked the box next to “Bachelor of Science in Psychology” and went

on with my day.

It was something I devoted all of ten minutes of thought to,

but in reality,

I could have done much worse.

Psychology has turned out to be incredibly applicable to my life,

relationships,

and career.

Psychology isn’t about reading minds or interpreting dreams,

though that’s the impression some people may have.

It’s more accurate to say that psychology is the study of why people do the

things they do—beyond the obvious reasons you can see on the surface and

often beyond people’s own understanding and consciousness.

This has obvious applications,

such as seeing why some advertisements are more effective than others,

why a child will rush to do something they are explicitly told not to do,

and the plain effect on behavior that positive and negative associations can

have.

But the biggest takeaway from my degree was that so many of our decisions are

made completely subconsciously and without any awareness on our part.

Our conscious thought follows our subconscious will,

and it often isn’t until far after we act that we figure out what actually

happened.

We may think we are acting logically and reasonably in a situation—we may

even use defense mechanisms to defend and justify our actions—but this is

just our subconscious getting its way.

For example,

one of the more famous experiments in psychology was called the Little Albert

experiment,

conducted in 1920 by the famous psychologist John Watson.

It involved the eponymous baby,

Little Albert,

who was presented with a white rat and nothing else.

He had no reaction,

positive or negative.

Albert had yet to be conditioned or socialized in any way regarding rats.

Next,

the researchers paired the rat with a loud crashing noise,

which frightened Albert and made him cry in most instances.

After only a couple of exposures pairing the rat and the crashing noise,

Albert was presented with the rat alone again.

He reacted as if the crashing noise was also present;

he had become afraid of the rat by itself.

But if he could talk,

he wouldn’t have been able to explain why.

He just knew that anything involving the rat was bad.

He had started associating the rat with the loud noise that frightened him and

wasn’t consciously aware of why he was suddenly recoiling and crying whenever

he saw the rat by itself.

On the one hand,

this tendency to be quickly conditioned to avoid negative situations is

something that probably has evolutionary roots.

If you didn’t quickly learn that furry,

growling animals with large teeth were bad news,

you likely didn’t stay alive too long.

Regardless,

Little Albert provided insight into how something seemingly so subtle and

unrelated could affect people’s actions in very real ways.

If people can be subconsciously conditioned about negative associations,

aren’t there ways that people can be conditioned to react positively to

objects and people?

What if Little Albert was conditioned to associate positive things with the

rat,

such as food or his favorite toy?

This would make Albert rejoice upon seeing the rat instead of recoiling in

horror.

Actually,

that was proven in 1897,

before Albert was even born.

This brings us to the most famous psychological experiment of the modern age .-

Pavlov’s dog.

Ivan Pavlov,

a Russian psychologist,

noted that his dog began to salivate when he anticipated a meal.

So Pavlov began to ring a bell every time he fed his dog,

which caused a pairing of the two behaviors - the bell and the dog salivating.

When Pavlov started ringing the bell by itself,

the dog salivated as if there was actual food coming.

Without any real clue as to why,

the dog thought he was getting delicious bacon every time he heard the bell.

Needless to say,

this same effect has been replicated in humans time after time.

Little Albert and Pavlov’s dog showed us two sides of the same coin—it is

possible for us to become both scientifically desired and despised.

It’s probably more helpful to focus on the former,

and if a bell can create a positive effect on others,

there must be additional,

more impactful ways of being scientifically likable.

It’s not that we are simply prone to seeing things where they don’t

necessarily exist.

In reality,

our brains are quite malleable and adaptive,

and every adjustment or association our brains see is an attempt at efficiency

and energy conservation.

We take shortcuts as often as possible,

but we usually don’t realize it.

Actually,

that’s exactly what we will seek to take advantage of in this book.

My mission is to uncover the most effective,

peer-reviewed psychological studies to dig deep and take advantage of what

human nature can offer us.

Just like our brains take shortcuts to everything else,

there certainly exist shortcuts to likability and charm.

You’ll learn proven ways to make yourself endearing,

likable,

funny,

convincing,

persuasive,

trustworthy,

credible,

and instantly magnetic.

You’ll learn why we hit it off with some people but never with others;

why we feel chemistry with some people and instantly mutter,

“Ugh,

not them,” in the presence of others;

and why we instinctively trust some people and check for our wallets around

others.

Using these tactics can certainly be seen as fake or manipulative.

I can recognize and sympathize with that perspective.

Anytime you are presenting something besides the genuine you and trying to do

something slightly sneaky,

underhanded,

or with ulterior motives,

you can feel icky.

This is one of the main reasons many people do not prefer sales jobs—there is

usually an undercurrent of becoming someone you are not in order to reach the

goal of selling something.

But my experience as a social skills and dating coach leads me to a different

conclusion.

Not everyone is born with what you might call social or emotional intelligence,

and sometimes people just need a guideline to understanding and connecting with

others.

It’s no different than thinking about how to prepare for a job interview or a

date,

and people wear makeup and dress better to make good impressions on people.

Indeed,

it’s no different than asking a friend for advice on,

well,

any interpersonal matter.

It all serves the same goal.

These studies run the gamut from confirmatory and common sense to shocking and

counterintuitive and everything in between.

Even the common-sense studies are important because,

after all,

common sense is not really so common.

We all live through only the perspective that our experiences show us,

and what is common sense to us (for instance,

being raised in a rich family and knowing how yachts work)

is certainly not common sense to those without our same experiences (for

instance,

being raised in poverty and never having seen the beach before).

Something only seems obvious to us because we have seen it in action,

and then you may realize that your sense of common sense amounts to simple

anecdotal evidence.

And besides,

if common sense was truly common,

people would generally make better decisions on a daily basis.

On the other hand,

some you might flat-out deny and not believe what the studies say.

But just as heliocentrism (the theory that the sun revolved around the earth

instead of the other way around)

was thought to be heretical and wrong,

sometimes you just have to follow the documented evidence and let go of your

preconceptions.

Just because it is not immediately obvious doesn’t mean that the figurative

dog is not being compelled to salivate.

All of that and more is The Science of Likability.

Chapter 1.

How To Make People Desire Your Presence.

Why do some people instantly like us while others seem to be offended by our

very existence?

Is hitting it off and becoming friends with people purely a roll of the dice,

or is there something more we can do to control our chances of connecting with

people?

For many people,

likability does seem to be a game of chance.

If you happen to sit next to someone who is similar to you,

and who also happens to share a hobby or hometown,

then you will have something to connect over.

But statistically,

that can’t happen with every new friend we make,

so things aren’t quite adding up.

As we saw from Little Albert and Pavlov’s dog,

we are more influenceable than we might assume.

People who see likability as completely organic and natural are somewhat

misguided because cultivating a feeling of likability around yourself is just

like any other emotion—it can be triggered,

summoned,

eliminated,

and ultimately engineered.

If we want to make someone angry with us,

we certainly know what to do and how to adjust our behavior.

If we want to make someone cry,

we also know how to create that feeling.

Likability is not much different;

we push psychological buttons,

but for a far more desirable outcome.

We all have specific and subtle triggers that influence the way we view others

and how they view us.

Most of them are minuscule,

subconscious,

and mired in the minutiae—but these are the details that actually make the

difference.

If you went into a restaurant and saw only one cockroach hiding in the corner,

well,

it might be minuscule but still quite important.

The first chapter of the book focuses on the small details that comprise our

first impressions,

an integral part of likability.

First impressions run deep,

are not subject to change,

and are your first opportunity to be likable,

so this is as good a place to start as any.

Context-Dependent Memories.

Memories have long been found to be context-dependent,

first by Godden and Baddeley in 1975 in their breakthrough publication

“Context-Dependent Memory in Two Natural Environments .- On Land and

Underwater,” which means memories are heavily linked to the environment,

events,

sounds,

feelings,

and even smells that were present during the formation of the memory.

The researchers found that either being on land or underwater led subjects to

recall different sets of memories.

We can see this in our everyday lives.

For instance,

this is why so many of us fall into bouts of nostalgia when we hear certain

songs—the song is information that is linked to much more than the song

itself.

This is why smelling a whiff of a buttercream pie takes us back to our

grandmother’s homes when we were children.

This means memory is not a flat representation of a set of events—it’s a

holistic,

three-dimensional snapshot of everything that was happening at that exact

moment in time.

Whatever else you were experiencing at the time is linked to the memory and can

be used to bring it back up.

Our brains act as sponges,

not focused lasers,

and absorb both consciously and subconsciously.

Obviously,

we don’t always realize this because,

by nature,

the subconscious is beyond our awareness.

But you might recall the feeling when you walk into your old school and

suddenly memories come flooding into your brain as if on cue.

But in fact,

a 1994 study by Eich,

Macauley,

and Ryan titled “Mood Dependent Memory for Events of the Personal Past”

found that memories were also mood-dependent.

In other words,

the mood we had when the memory was formed is also part of the memory.

The information is in there somewhere,

and Eich and his associates found that appealing to those hidden aspects of

memories allows you to influence people’s moods for the better.

The researchers created situations to put the participants in either good or

bad moods.

Then the subjects were given neutral words and asked what type of memories the

neutral words evoked.

Participants who were in good moods typically recalled positive memories while

participants who were in bad moods typically recalled negative memories.

And of course,

the subsequent memories recalled served to further increase the moods they were

in—misery and happiness both grew.

Memory and mood are closely linked,

and influencing one can influence the other.

In other words,

if we think about happy memories,

our mood rises,

and if we think about dreadful memories,

our mood plummets.

By itself,

it’s not a huge revelation.

If you think about puppies and kittens racing toward a bowl of food,

you are likely to smile and laugh and get cheered up.

But never before had it been shown that our moods can be so intimately tied to

memories.

It also works in reverse;

thus,

if we can conjure up memories from a mood,

we can use memories to conjure up a mood—and remember that memories are both

explicit and subconscious.

By understanding this relationship,

we can sneakily become more likable.

We can’t control people’s moods directly,

but we can control the memories that they are thinking about to do it

indirectly.

This is the first step in becoming a presence that people start to crave;

if you either (1)

directly talk about positive memories or (2)

indirectly evoke elements that were present at the time of that positive memory

(recall how holistic and three-dimensional memory is),

people will slip into the mood they were in during that memory.

For instance,

suppose you know your friend Dorothy’s happiest moment in life was when she

got married to her beloved beau Brian.

Her wedding was in a garden with lots of balloons,

pillows,

and flowers.

She had a themed wedding where everyone wore black and silver as a tribute to

her favorite band,

Kiss.

Presumably she was in a good mood that day.

So what would you do to improve Dorothy’s mood?

You could of course mention her wedding and talk about how amazing it was and

how beautiful she looked.

But that’s something you already know and don’t need research to teach you.

Instead of that,

you would indirectly display or reference things that would remind her of that

day.

You might play Kiss music in the background,

you might talk to her outside in a garden,

and you might wear a black and silver shirt.

You might even bring up a wedding you were at recently,

since she has such a fond memory of weddings.

Maybe none of these things in isolation would impact Dorothy’s mood,

but taken together,

these are powerful,

indirect reminders and cues for one of her best memories.

She will pick up on that and her mood will perk up—though she may not

understand why.

One more time for posterity - because our memories comprise everything our five

senses can absorb,

including our moods,

directly or indirectly referencing that memory can lead to an improvement in

mood.

How can we wield this information?

If you get a hint that someone is in need of a mood boost,

you can talk about things,

people,

and events that were present when they were in fabulous moods.

Reference their greatest triumphs or fondest memories.

If you want to amplify someone’s good mood to elation,

then do the same thing.

Talk to people in terms of what makes them happy,

and it will make them happier.

It’s not a radical notion,

and you didn’t necessarily need a scientific study to demonstrate this

commonsensical approach.

But now you know why it works,

which allows you to be more intentional about it.

For instance,

if we want to improve someone’s mood,

our first inclination might be to simply make a joke or create a distraction

like an entire pizza and quart of ice cream.

Those approaches are attempting to distract from the poor mood while

referencing memories is a direct means of changing it.

Take advantage of your knowledge of someone and pull them out of the doldrums

by triggering their greatest hits.

If you know James had a blast the last time he went skiing,

bring up a story he’s told about it.

Become his cheerleader.

Have him retell it to you.

Ask him about the logistics and whether or not he would recommend that

particular ski lodge.

Talk about the games he played that weekend.

Casually reference a video of skiing tricks.

Likewise,

if James loved biking,

you could mention his greatest biking adventure,

his longest ride,

his favorite bike,

his biking buddies,

or his latest gear purchase.

It makes sense that people like to discuss their favorite topics,

but now there is a deeper psychological understanding of why and what it does

to someone.

Like Pavlov’s dog,

this isn’t a process that we are fully aware of until we reach the end result

of suddenly salivating.

Eich’s study was about influencing people’s moods,

not necessarily improving them.

In the context of likability,

the only way you should be influencing people’s moods is positively,

but this subconscious superpower can be used to take people’s moods in any

direction you wish.

It just won’t necessarily give you a pleasant outcome and subsequent

association.

No one is drawn to the person that reminds them of the last funeral they went

to.

The Power Of Association.

There is an additional benefit to improving someone’s mood repeatedly - the

power of association.

If you play your cards right,

people will subconsciously start associating their happy moods with you.

You become part of their pleasant memory,

and they begin to be drawn to you without a conscious understanding of why.

When you are successful in creating a happy mood or dragging someone out of the

dumps consistently,

they will begin to associate you with those positive feelings.

As you’ll discover,

one of the running themes of this book is that human beings may appear complex

and nuanced,

but often we make choices that are incredibly straightforward and

predictable—for instance,

we will almost always make the decision to avoid pain and seek pleasure.

You can come up with many theories about the motivations people have for

certain things,

but it’s a very streamlined decision-making process the vast majority of the

time.

So we tend to gravitate toward people who make us feel good and away from

things that hurt us.

We also gravitate toward people and things associated with the people who make

us feel good,

and this is called classical conditioning.

Remember Pavlov’s dog?

He would salivate in the presence of positive reinforcement and eventually was

conditioned to salivate to only the sound of a bell.

Byrne and Clore in 1970 with their reward/need satisfaction theory expanded on

Pavlov’s findings and discovered that if people are nearby when we feel good,

even if they were not involved in creating the positive feelings,

eventually we begin to feel good whenever they are around.

When people subconsciously begin to associate you with positive moods and

emotions,

you are going to be the bell that makes people smile without realizing why.

Creating or being present during people’s great moods is one way to become

associated with their happiness and for them to want you around.

It’s like if you’re a baker and you need a rare kind of flour for your

favorite cake.

If you see the rare flour,

you know you are going to have a chance to bake your favorite cake.

It’s not about the flour,

and it’s not about you.

It’s what you represent and are associated with.

The Positivity Spreader.

There are two other main ways through which we can take advantage of being

liked because others associate us with great feelings - positivity and

compliments.

The cliché stands true - positivity pays off.

In our modern world,

there are a lot of unpleasant people,

and most people are too absorbed in their own muck to be cheerful to others.

You’d be surprised how effective staying in a good mood,

putting on a happy face,

praising others,

and acting positive is.

In fact,

there is a term for the contagious power of positivity - emotional contagion.

This was discovered by Stanley Schachter in 1959 and describes how emotions

spread from person to person,

both good and bad.

Emotions spread like germs or yawns;

when you’re happy,

people around you become happy.

We all infect each other with our emotions if we’re not careful.

And of course,

people enjoy being happy,

so they will naturally want to be around the causes of their happiness.

They would rather not be dragged into other people’s problems and have to

listen to various personal tragedies.

People will associate positive feelings with you and subconsciously want to

spend time around you—it’s the brain’s way of telling them to continue

producing endorphins.

For instance,

suppose you brought donuts to every meeting you attended in the office.

People will quickly begin to welcome your presence regardless of the meeting,

and they won’t even realize that it may be because of the food instead of

your shining personality.

Eventually,

they’ll just want you around,

period.

There’s nothing wrong with that as long as that’s where it ends,

and they use the donuts as an opportunity to discover your charm and wit.

Second,

we all know that compliments make us more charming.

Most people don’t receive compliments on a daily or even weekly basis.

By giving someone even a shallow or cursory compliment,

you might be 100% of their compliments for the entire week.

This isn’t something that will go unnoticed.

Compliment them on something shallow (if you must),

their personality,

or their opinion.

Pay attention especially to compliments you can pay in recognizing something

that someone has put effort into.

Just put someone in a position to say thank you.

But there’s a deeper level beyond mere flattery that benefits you even more.

It’s called spontaneous trait transference.

John Skowronski in 1998 coined this term and argued that people will associate

to you the compliments and positive adjectives you give to them.

If you call someone generous and kind,

they will associate you with those traits as well.

No,

there is no logical connection,

just a simple unconscious association.

So give compliments more,

and it’s a win-win situation for you.

Shut Up And Let ’Em Talk!

The final piece of the puzzle in creating a subconscious longing for your

presence is the age-old piece of advice,

likely popularized by Dale Carnegie and his famous book How to Win Friends and

Influence People.

Much of his advice is now derided as common sense,

even though the very reason it’s deemed so obvious is because of his book.

Perhaps one of his best pieces of advice was simply to get people to talk,

or even brag,

about themselves,

because this will make them enjoy conversing with you.

He was quoted as saying,

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other

people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in

you."

Consequently,

this is one of the most bandied about pieces of conversation advice.

It turns out that Carnegie was correct,

right down to the biological level.

A 2012 study conducted by neuroscientists Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell at

Harvard University entitled “Disclosing Information About the Self is

Intrinsically Rewarding” found that our urge to share personal information

with others is one of the most fundamental and powerful parts of being human.

Brain images showed that sharing information about ourselves triggers the same

sensations in our brains that we experience when we eat food and have sex—two

behaviors that we are biologically compelled to do.

Thus,

it seems we are biologically compelled to share and communicate our thoughts.

One method that the researchers used to determine how much the participants

valued being able to talk about themselves was to offer a modest financial

incentive to anybody who would answer questions about other people instead.

Some of the questions involved casual subjects about hobbies and personal

tastes while others were about personality traits,

such as intelligence,

curiosity,

or aggression.

The researchers found that many of the participants were willing to pass up on

the money,

preferring the rewarding feelings of self-disclosure over financial gain.

In fact,

the average participant willingly gave up between 17% and 25% of their possible

earnings just so that they could reveal personal information.

Then they used a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner (fMRI)

to observe what parts of the brain were most excited when the subjects were

talking about themselves.

Again,

they found a correlation between self-disclosure and heightened activity in

brain regions belonging to the mesolimbic dopamine system—again,

the same region that’s associated with the rewarding and satisfying feeling

we get from food,

money,

and sex.

It even happens when we speak about ourselves without anyone listening to us.

That means that each party in a conversation or social setting is highly

incentivized to talk about themselves from a neurochemical perspective.

Dale Carnegie was in fact correct.

How can we utilize this knowledge for our social success?

Talking about yourself to some extent is natural,

both biologically and within the flow of a conversation.

It’s estimated that some 40% of what we say relates to expressing our own

thoughts and feelings,

and that’s because it is highly rewarding to do so.

So change that ratio.

The most important step for most will be to start imposing limits on themselves.

Yes,

it feels good to talk about yourself as the studies have shown,

but when you do so,

you are depriving others of the space and time to talk about themselves.

And in the end,

the goal is to make yourself more likable,

not necessarily to feel better about social interaction.

Be curious about others,

ask them questions that give them the opportunity to brag,

and generally let the conversation focus on them.

Concentrate on their strengths and assist them in painting themselves in a

positive light.

Be a good listener and encourage them to continue talking about themselves.

When’s the last time you asked someone five questions in a row without

interrupting or interjecting with your own anecdote?

What about ten questions?

This is the exact type of interaction that feels good to people that we

routinely deny them because we can’t resist our own pleasure of sharing.

Takeaways -

•Most people tend to rely on luck or happenstance to strike up friendships

and be likable.

They are passive and waiting.

This is the wrong approach because it undermines your own abilities and limits

you unnecessarily.

The power is in your hands,

especially when armed with subtleties and nuances in this book,

to influence our likability and charm.

•One way we can make people crave our presence is through memory’s

context-dependent nature.

This means that a memory is a three-dimensional snapshot of everything present

at the time the memory was formed,

including your emotional mood.

Thus,

to improve someone’s mood,

we can directly or indirectly reference happy memories.

•Eventually,

after being present for people’s great moods,

you yourself will become part of the positive memory.

This is through the process of association,

and it functions like the bell making Pavlov’s dog salivate.

You will become that bell over time.

•Positivity makes a bigger impact than you realize.

People like being around other happy people,

sure.

But through the process of emotional contagion,

your positivity will quite literally infect others.

You will literally be the source of people’s happiness if you act the part.

•We all inherently know that compliments and flattery will get you just about

anywhere.

But there’s another way that it benefits you and makes your presence

important—spontaneous trait transfer.

This is the phenomenon where whatever traits or adjectives you are using to

compliment others will be applied to you.

No,

it’s not logical and it doesn’t really make sense,

but that’s how our brains subconsciously make connections sometimes.

•Finally,

the art of disclosing feels as good as sex and food—to our brains.

People like to talk about themselves and they derive a lot of pleasure from it.

So encourage this.

Ask questions,

listen well,

and keep the focus on other people.

Make sure that you shut up from time to time.

This has been

The Science of Likability:

67 Evidence-Based Methods to Radiate Charisma,

Make a Powerful Impression,

Win Friends,

and Trigger Attraction (4th Ed.) (The Psychology of Social Dynamics Book 12) Written by

Patrick King, narrated by russell newton.