You and a psychiatry professor arrive in a laboratory with two naked men sitting in reclining chairs, smiling wryly in embarrassment. The professor hands them the blanket and describes to you:
”Both gentlemen work in multinational corporations, one is the CEO with a wonderful family, loyal employees, and reliable friends. The other is in the company Cleaning, he’s also an honest and kind person, but he’s a failed relationship and doesn’t have many friends around. Now, my question is, can you tell who they are?”
You look at the two men Go, the two are not only about the same age and weight, but also have the same facial expressions. The professor walked over and lifted the bottom of the blanket. The bare feet of the two of them were exposed. The professor asked, “How is it? Is the prompt enough?”
”Ah! That’s not good.” What do you think of
them when they come from the same background, grew up in the same community, went to the same school, and even got the same IQ test results?”
Now you’re completely dizzy! If not appearance, intelligence, education, wealth or upbringing, what is the criterion? You still can’t guess. So the professor turned to the two and said, “Thank you very much for your cooperation, gentlemen, you can go now.”
Hearing the professor said that the experiment was over, A turned his head to B and said, “Joe, the experiment is finally over, I think you must be very happy. Are you happy? Well done!” Just as he was about to go out, he said to the professor and you again: “This experiment must have been an embarrassing experience for both of you, and I hope you will feel better next time. Your research must be very important, right? ?”
B said when he stood up: “I knew you couldn’t live without me.” When he reached the door, he stopped again, as if looking forward to it. The professor understood immediately and stepped forward and handed him some money… The professor closed the door and asked you again: “How, can you guess their respective identities now?”
”Of course, the first one is the CEO. Officer.” You replied confidently.
The professor was very happy: “That’s right! How did you find out?”
”Because he pays attention to how the other person feels, and how we feel. And what the other guy is saying sounds like everyone else owes him something.”
”Exactly!” the professor continued. “Do you feel The CEO was much more confident in the experiment? That’s because he focused first on the embarrassing experience of his peers. He acted confident, but also because people always respected him. And then react accordingly. Again, he took care of our feelings.”
I call the ability that the CEO demonstrated as emotion prediction, and he was able to predict the different feelings of the other parties immediately after the experiment. On this basis, he successfully established interpersonal relationships with everyone in just a few simple sentences, and made everyone feel friendly and natural.
Emotion prediction refers to predicting the emotions reflected by someone’s words and deeds in advance, so as to adjust their communication behavior accordingly. This practice usually increases the confidence and self-esteem of the person you communicate with, and it also improves the other person’s favorable impression of you, which leads to positive feedback from the other person. Two people with similar external conditions have different ability to predict emotions, so they go on different paths.
