Table of Contents Title Page Dedication PROLOGUE ONE - Less Than Zero Acquaintance SPACE INVADERS IDENTITY CLAIMS: CINDY’S SIGNALS FEELING REGULATORS: DUNCAN’S SANCTUARY BEHAVIORAL RESIDUE: IN GIDEON’S WAKE BECOMING A SHARP SNOOPER TWO - OCEAN’s Five ANCIENT CHARACTERS THE BIG FIVE THE LEONARDO FACTOR—OPENNESS THE ROBOCOP FACTOR—CONSCIENTIOUSNESS THE BEVERLY HILLS COP FACTOR—EXTRAVERSION THE MR. ROGERS FACTOR—AGREEABLENESS THE WOODY ALLEN FACTOR—NEUROTICISM THREE - Getting to Know You PERSONALITY THE LONG WAY IDENTITY THE PUZZLE OF PERSONALITY FOUR - Belgian Sleuths and Scandinavian Seabirds THE BELGIAN SOLUTION THE GULL IS MINE A FEASTFUL OF CLUES BEYOND INTUITION FIVE - Jumpers, Bumpers, Groovers, and Shakers SEEPAGE AND LEAKAGE HIP READING GOTH OR NOT SHAKE ‘N’ BRAKE PERSONALITY 24/7 SIX - Space Doctoring DOWN WITH OCQ WAITING FOR GOFFMAN A TOWEL’S RIGHTFUL PLACE LOOKING GOOD VS. LOOKING REAL WORLD WIDE WEB OF DECEIT? FOOL ME ONCE EN GARDE! SEVEN - In Defense of Stereotypes THE SHREW THAT ROARED THE PERSONALITY OF PLACE RED STATE, BLUE STATE ADAM’S HUNCH A STEREOTYPICAL MINEFIELD SEX, DRUGS, AND ROCK ‘N’ ROLL KENNELS OF TRUTH EIGHT - When Good Judgments Go Bad A ROOM WITH A CUE WHEN ENOUGH’S TOO MUCH OFFICES’ MESS THE WISDOM OF BLOBS NINE - Like a Super Snooper QUIRK 1: FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT QUIRK 2: CUES DERIVE PART OF THEIR MEANING FROM OTHER CUES QUIRK 3: WE MAKE USE OF CUES THAT SEEM UNRELATED TO THE TRAIT WE’RE JUDGING QUIRK 4: MIND THE GAP QUIRK 5: KNOWING ME KNOWING YOU TEN - An Office and a Gentleman GOOD MORNING, AMERICA GOOD INTENTIONS GONE BAD PICTURING CHARLES MIKE BARZ: THE SEDIMENT OF SENTIMENT ELEVEN - Bringing It Home YOUR TRUE HOME TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT REMODELING YOUR MATE MY OWN PRIVATE MYSTERY BOX SNOOP DREAMS Acknowledgements NOTES INDEX Copyright Page In appreciation of their wisdom, creativity, and loving support I dedicate this book to Mum and Dad, and to my mentors, Oliver and Ken. PROLOGUE The Arrival of the Mystery Box A FEDEX PACKAGE awaited me in the mailroom. Nothing much distinguished the box from other boxes. It was your standard box, brown and about the size of a shoebox, but squarer. What made this delivery different was the unusual set of instructions that came with it. I was not to open it until given permission to do so. Just in case I was in doubt, the words DO NOT OPEN were boldly inscribed in black ink across the top flap. According to instructions left on my voicemail, at a prearranged time I was to videotape myself opening the package. So at 3:00 P.M. the next day I took the box to a small room equipped with a video camera. Once inside, I pointed the camera to the spot where I would be standing and switched it on. I moved into view of the camera lens and pulled a small scrap of paper from my pocket. There was a number scribbled on the paper. I punched it into my cell phone. “This is Dr. Gosling. I’d like to speak to Gary.” “I’ll put you through.” A click. Then a pause. “Gary speaking.” “It’s Sam here. I’m ready.” “Go ahead and open it up.” Free at last to exercise my Pandoran urges, I slit the box open. “Inside you will see some things belonging to one person,” said Gary. “They’re all taken from that person’s bathroom.” (I noticed he was careful not to say his or her). “Take the objects out one by one,” he continued, “and tell me what they say about the owner.” As I removed the objects, I turned each one over in my hands. A small tube of skin cream, a CD, slightly scratched, of dance music, a brown plastic hair brush, and a Polaroid photo of the owner’s sink area. As I inspected each item for clues I narrated my reasoning to the camera. “Well, the brush is quite large, probably belonging to a man.” My theory was supported by the Polaroid photo, which showed a sink area with the surrounding surfaces generally devoid of sweet- smelling stuff and with levels of grime and (dis)organization more likely to be associated with males than females. I noted that the hairs trapped on the brush were short, straight, and dark. Perhaps the person was Asian or Hispanic. The photo showed that the door on the bathroom vanity wasn’t closed properly and the hairdryer cord was hanging out; the tube of skin cream had been squeezed in the middle, not from the end, and some crusty residue was stuck to the cap. The CD was a compilation of house music, a genre stereotypically associated with gay clubs. Combine that with the evidence that the person is concerned with his (I’m now pretty sure the owner is a male) appearance and a coherent picture begins to emerge. After a few minutes, Gary asked: “So, what can you tell me about the owner of these items?” On the basis of what I’d inspected, I said I believed the owner was an Asian male in his mid to late twenties and that he was quite possibly gay. I had underestimated his age by a few years—he was in his early thirties—but I was right about the rest. Gary seemed pleased. What was going on here? What was I doing talking to this faceless voice under such strange circumstances? The mysterious caller was a television producer planning a new reality series that would deal with the familiar, almost irresistible, human urge to snoop. If you’re anything like me, you do more than passively observe the surroundings when you enter someone’s living space for the first time. I find it hard not to look around and collect, filter, and process information about the occupant. Would I be so kind as to excuse the host while she goes to the bathroom? Absolutely! She’s gone. Right. Hightail it over to the bookcase. Scan the books. A guidebook to budget travel in Madagascar. A tiny gift edition of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Interesting. Now the photos. Hmm, all but one show my host with a big group of friends, and each picture projects an image of drunken hilarity. No time to dwell, I just heard the toilet flush and there are still the CDs, the trash basket, and that pile of junk on the windowsill. And all this is before I’ve had a chance to look through her medicine cabinet ... I mean, kindly be excused to powder my nose. (Medicine cabinets are such quintessential snooping sites that I’ve often thought it would be fun to surprise guests with a “visitors’ book” inside.) The television producers were taking this common impulse to its logical endpoint: What can a physical space tell you about someone you have never met or even seen? The vision for the program—unlike MTV’s popular show Room Raiders—included a role for an expert who would provide insight into the snooping process. Why were the producers talking to me? I am a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, and I specialize in the study of personality differences and