Jenn's 4 Part Personality Metric

I have talked before about my friend Jenn and her excellent advice, but I don't know that I ever explained the most useful advice I've ever gotten from her. The ability to know people and predict their actions is incredibly useful for people with anxiety or poor social skills, so she gave me the framework that I still use to this day, literally 20 years later.

To know what someone will do in a situation, you need to know four things.

1. What do they want?
Observe where their eyes go. How long they look at something determines how much they want that thing or that person's attention.

2. What are they afraid of?
If they flick glances at something but look immediately away, then they want something but are also afraid of it. If they avoid looking at something entirely then they are afraid of it or dislike it. (Comes in complicated flavors for the neurodiverse)

3. What do they do about what they want?
Do they want things but make no moves towards those things? They have bad self esteem, and can not be counted on to take any particular actions, since low self image warps everyone in a different way. Do they have routine approaches to what they want, ie. straightforwardness, cunning, bargaining, or coercion? What did they do the last time they did not get what they want? Pay attention. Remember.

4. What do they do about their fears?
Do they treat their fears as impossibilities or inevitabilities? Do they avoid the things they fear? Face them head on? Work together and communicate to navigate around them?

The next time you need to figure out someone's likely actions in a situation, I recommend trying this method out.