Samuel H. Barondes

What’s the best way to critically assess others’ personalities? First impressions matter. Demonstrated behaviors matter and often affect us directly. Family history and formative experiences certainly matter. Making Sense of People provides a practical, manageable framework for putting all available data points together. One key benefit of the approach is that it counterbalances any the emotional lenses we might bring based on our own tendencies or previous experiences with a person. For show more someone looking to improve how they size up others, or to develop emotional intelligence in general, this book is an excellent starting point. show less

This book may be light-weight, a bit of pop psych, but it is useful. It gives me a framework for understanding myself and others in ways that matter. You can read it front-to-back, or better, use the helpful index to find your own way through.
Barondes gives us a much broader view of personality than many books designed for the average reader, a more interesting and useful view. He describes four ways to view personality: traits, patterns of behavior, values, and life story. These together show more give a more complete picture than a more simplified approach would.
For personality traits, he uses the Big-5 profile, which psychologists and psychiatrists now prefer over the Myers-Briggs or other methods.
For patterns of behavior, Barondes lists what he calls the Top-10 patterns from the DSM-4.
Values and morality he divides into culture-based ones and those found in a majority of world cultures.
Life stories provide us with a sense of identity.
I think most of us are interested in how people are alike and different. This book doesn't "decode" personality as its subtitle promises, but does give some help in how to talk about this complex topic. show less

good - very technical - they lost me at GABA but i appreciated their confidence in my ability to follow.

actaully the best explanation of DNA I have ever read!

I read the first chapter of this book and then skimmed through the remainder. The most valuable parts were a background on Oprah’s childhood including her life struggles and a list of Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues. I found the writing style lacked readability. It was easy to read but I was unable to engage with the content.