Books on predicting human action

[Hansu]

I have a problem, which is that I cant understand why someone acts the way they act towards me or other people. My mind creates scenarios out of false beliefs which impact my emotional health and self actualization. I take simple human errors too personally only to find out that nothing shady is going on. I have known this fact for a long time, and sadly discovery of this trait haven't cured my problem. It causes compulsive thinking which immensely eats away my trust in people, mental resources and emotional health

In other hand, Im too trusting towards people due to my lack of understanding a human behavior. This creates immense emotional pain and compulsive thinking as I get betrayed or fucked by the person I thought I could trust but shouldn' have. I can't differentiate these kinds of people from the people who actually care about me, the ones that I know actually do love me, which causes me to think every small setback as a sign that they don't care about me or they are fucking around with me, even if I know 100% that the person does care about me. Even if I consciously think "I have known this person for 12 years, he/she is not trying to hurt me" the compulsive thinking goes away for maybe 5 minutes and comes back.

Leo's video on masculinity vs femininity has opened my eyes and helped me get rid of a lot of these neurotic behaviors, but sadly not everything can be canned into simple masculine and feminine behavior.

So Im looking for source of information akin to the Leo's video on masculinity and femininity, but in more broad perspective. Books kind of like the Joe Navarro's "What every BODY is saying" which goes deep into the complex human body language, scratching the surface and giving tools for lifelong learning with a nice boost worth of a decade of learning bodylanguage by mistake.

Thank you!

[Hansu]

To be honest, this topic could be better off existing in the serious emotional problems forum

Could a mod help me with that? Thank you

[Leon_Mao]

This may be a more personal issue rather than exclusively for relationships, though I think it is appropriate to be here since it does mostly involve interpersonal relations. I haven't really read any books besides "How to win Friends and influence people" on the topic, but "Influence: Science and Practice" is a well known book on human relations. I haven't read it, but I intend to. A couple others might be "Spy the Lie" and "What Every Body Is Saying". Though if you are already somewhat paranoid, not to be rude, you may want to stay away from these books till you get that sorted out. I also cannot verify how good they truly are, so research them and read reviews before going off and wasting money.

In my own experience I am generally good at judging what people want from me personally. I think this is due to staying out of a lot of "needless" social interactions and just watching how other behave with one another. For instance when I was working at a grocery store I observed the social dynamics with the store to see who liked who, and how those relationships evolved over time. That's not to say you shouldn't be involved with people, but taking a step back and trying to be less biased towards what's happening around you will give you more than a book can from first hand experience. That's not to say books are useless. They can be pointers to things you wouldn't otherwise notice.

[Leon_Mao]

Also letting go of whether people are trying to manipulate you or not is also a strategy you may want to employ. I'm of the belief most people are not malicious, but can be when there equilibrium is disrupted by an outside force, which might be you if you're trying to change something that is normal to them. Meaning if you try to break the status quo expect repercussions from the average person. With time unless the person is unreasonable it will settle down. If they are you will have to decide what to do about it and possibly burn bridges. However, don't be hasty to act without thinking. Lastly predicting individual human behavior is tricky unless you've known a person for a while. You can expect them to generally follow Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, but you have to remember everyone's different. I could go on, but I think I've given you a enough to start doing your own research.

[Hansu]

Hey, thanks for the answer!

I dont think that Im paranoia, thought I can see how my opening post could paint that picture. It is really just about me trusting another person and genuinely thinking that they are respecting my trust, and when something happens contradictory to that belief then I cannot reliably distinguish whether it was due to an honest mistake or if they are actually fucking around with me. In short: I cannot tell whether I can trust a person or not even when observing their behavior. I know this sounds silly, but its true. This is why I thought that if I can read into peoples personalities and their mind patterns, then I can tell whom I can trust in the first place which should eradicate my problem completely.

As for observing social communications from aside, that has brought to my awareness things that I cant understand when I try to think about them mindfully. Like this one time, when our university class was out drinking one of the socially low-tier students asked the group whether we should go to the next place (which had been planned in advance) and one of the top 3 social standing student snapped at him that "You can go where-ever the fuck you want". So the low-tier guy went to then next place, and 5 minutes later this higher social standing guy asked the group "Well, should we go to the next place?". Observing interactions like this just make me want to stay home alone. That's the easy way out of my problem, just going hermit. I cant begin to understand happened in that situation and why it happened. I mean I understand we have a social pecking order but still. And the most fucked up thing is that the incident most likely increased the popular guy's standing in the pecking order, even thought he was being a total fucking asshole towards someone with whom he agreed. I feel like reading a book featuring this kind of behavior would help me understand these situations and not let them crawl under my skin

The part of last post about letting go really rang with me. I have observed enough behavior that proves to me that general people don't act according to my views of respect and fairness, so why should I even care. As long as they are not physically coming onto me or screwing my career with shit talk, then fuck them. Going stoic in this aspect would probably be really healthy

 

Thanks!

On 12/14/2018 at 5:48 AM, Leon_Mao said:

 

@Leon_Mao

Edited December 15, 2018 by Hansu

[ZZZZ]

Learning to read body language is a useful tool, but it takes lots of practice. Do you/have you spoken to a lot of people from a wide variety of backgrounds? Putting yourself in more social situations will help you get used to casual social interactions, and pick up on more implicit information.

How is your empathy? Is your problem identifying intentions, or understanding them? That's another aspect to explore as well.

When you've had an exceptionally unpleasant interaction with someone, your brain naturally starts to look for this pattern of behavior again. Instead of the broader, more generalized approach we tend to take with social interactions, our brains will start trying to fit all behaviors into this box first so we don't get "fucked over" again. Avoiding this pitfall is best done by letting go of the emotional trauma associated with these events, and letting time pass. On an even deeper level, we do this with all of our concepts and preconceived notions.

It kind of sounds like you are mostly dealing with the emotional side of things. Meditation, self inquiry, therapy, contemplation, nutrition/exercise, etc. can all help with this. 

[Hansu]

@ZZZZ

I have been lucky in a sense that in the past 5 years I have been able to meet people from multiple backgrounds regarding to social and cultural standing which has helped me to drop many subconscious irritations towards "different" human traits (something I struggled with for a long time) but I don't feel like they have been complimentary to solving my problem here

Im a little ashamed to say this but contemplation through the writing about this topic on a forum has helped me understand some fundamental issues regarding my problem, which would be "Expecting others to hold my perspective of the words respect and importance of truth" "Scarcity of human connections (Kind of like spinning plates theory from Rational Male, but without the seeking mate element)" and few others. So yeah, my problem is definitely more on the emotional side which I should tackle first.

Also, Im going to contemplate on this and many other subjects instead of distracting myself by looking for books and discussing them on a forum.

 

20 hours ago, ZZZZ said:

Instead of the broader, more generalized approach we tend to take with social interactions, our brains will start trying to fit all behaviors into this box first so we don't get "fucked over" again. Avoiding this pitfall is best done by letting go of the emotional trauma associated with these events, and letting time pass.

I can heavily relate with this. I have been socially active only for my past 5 years and there have been so, so many moments during this time that something very negative happens, I hold to the emotional trauma and think about it over and over, effectively coding my subconscious mind while the thing causing the negative situation is out there living their lives happily. Its not going to help me, so why bother harming my subconscious and compulsively thinking about getting a revenge on someone who does not care if they did me wrong?

[Chase Ellfeldt]

The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Green 

[Hansu]

On 25.12.2018 at 1:00 AM, Chase Ellfeldt said:

The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Green 

Judging by the cover this is perfect! Thank you!

[Hellspeed]

Meditation is the highest source of inspiration.