Customer Reviews

Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

About: University of Texas at Austin psychology professor Gosling fancies himself a "snoopologist" and studies how people's belongings exhibit their personalities. While he believes belongings give clues to personality, he notes that it does not work for all folks in all situations. Personality is defined as "An individual's unique pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving that is consistent over time." (pg 28). Gosling uses the Big 5 personality traits (Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) to further break down the personalities he describes in the book and spends quite a bit of time going over the basics of these 5 traits. He discusses many studies of how certain behaviors and owned objects of humans fit these personality traits, and even analyzes the office of ABC News anchor Charles Gibson

Things I Thought Were Interesting:

* Only in extreme cases can you learn much from a person's refrigerator

* Formal dress tends to be a good indicator of conscientiousness

* People can match strangers to their cars better than chance

* Bedrooms, Facebook profiles and personal web sites tend to give reliable info on
personality

* Bedrooms of liberals tend to have a larger variety of books, music and art supplies, while conservatives have more flags, alcohol bottles and sports paraphernalia

* Male bedrooms have fewer photos of families and friends, closets that tend to be open with stuff on hooks and more hats and caps than female bedrooms

* In a job interview, dress and amount the applicant leans forward tends to give clues to job motivation

* A more personalized office means a higher commitment to the organization

* Maps in a space points to diverese interests and open-mindedness


Pros: Clear writing, sources cited (but not in-text), interesting "tidbits" of info found throughout

Cons: Parts read like a primer on social psychology and personality, which leaves too little room for talk about people's "stuff" and makes the book seem to be more about what humans do than what they own. People whose work he cites gave him blurbs for the book (tit for tat perhaps?)

Sam Gosling's book is an anti-materialist's nightmare--or is it? In a time when many are advocating that we "purge" our possessions and live "simpler" lives, "Snoop" is an amusing, clever, and occasionally unnerving brain teaser. It posits that we are, in fact, our stuff, and everything we wear, hang, collect, listen to, display, etc. says something revealing about us. (Even the way people arrange pictures in an office--facing a guest so as to impress, or facing the owner to provide reassurance/emotional nurturance--is significant.) Occasionally the book gets fairly scientific when measuring various psychological qualities (Neuroticism, Openness, etc.), but it's nothing that will throw anyone who's ever taken a Meyers-Briggs test. Gosling also analyzes "hoarders" and "emotional narcissists" who never throw anything away, and his conclusions are thought-provoking. And the charts analyzing different music listeners (gospel, rap, rock, etc.), and folks' stereotypes about these people based on their music choices, are real eye-openers. If anything, the book is too short; another chapter or two would've been pure gravy, especially if it dealt with the current trend of disposability, or "renting" rather than owning (as in people who only take CD's or DVD's out from the library rather than buying them). Some may also find the tone a bit facile, though I thought it was funny and clever (especially a chapter entitled "Knowing Me Knowing You" with several pointed ABBA jokes). Still, after I read this book, I couldn't walk into any room in my home without casting a critical eye at the art, the knick-knacks, the books, etc. It's the sort of book that may genuinely change the way you see yourself, as well as the world around you.

I enjoy pop psychology books but I found this book a little tedious and droning at times. Some thoughts were interesting, such as identifiers being geared to influence the opinion of others versus to reassure yourself, but because the test subjects were nearly all college students I, as a person over 40, didn't find much of interest for the world that I inhabit. The author did not acknowledge that college students and that time in a person's life is unlike the bulk of an average person's existence. College and young adulthood is a time of trying out new identities, supporting causes, and learning about new social ideals, and few demands made on your time by children, aging parents, and spouses. So while it's interesting to hear about how young adults decorate their dorm rooms and how that reflects their personality it would be more interesting (to me) to visit people out of the academic milieu and learn how to make educated guesses about their personalities.

I run an architecture firm and know of Sam Gosling's work. My wife posted above immediately after she finished reading Snoop, and reviewed this book without disclosing that a process we use with our clients called the Truehome Workshop is discussed in the last chapter of this book.

She was not attempting to be deceptive. She simply did not believe her tenuous connection impacted the relevance of her review. In any case, we apologize for any misunderstanding.

Because I do know this man's research, I am here to tell you that in real world situations, understanding both how your personality and values impact your decisions about your home - and separating "trash from treasures" - make a big difference when it comes time to making decisions about changing your living space.

I mean a big difference in time, money and how you feel about your new living space when you have completed your project.

People tend to think of such issues as "fluffy" but in truth they are central to creating a home that fits. After all "home" is really an emotional experience.

You "feel" at home.

A house is made of bricks and sticks, tile selections and floor coverings, but not a home. The difference between a house and a home is created by how much your living space fits your lifestyle, tastes, values, budget, emotional needs and personality.

So we are talking about emotional assessments cued by features of your home environment like comfort, self-expression, a feeling of safety, privacy, control, lower stress levels and the like. Real world experiences!

Almost all of those "feeling of home" are a result of your automatic emotional response to features of your living space that are unconscious, often from childhood, and most of us are not aware of how much they influence important financial and aesthetic decisions.

Our clients almost always lack an understanding of the impact of these deep emotional and psychological influences on their decisions. That is why we spend a lot of time learning about them - and helping them become aware of them - BEFORE we begin a design.

The more you know about who you are relative to your living space, the better job you can do of making choices that will have lasting value.

That is the deeper level of what this book has to offer while it trains you to be a "Snoopologist."

I'm fascinated by the objects people own and what those objects say about that person.
At work I like studying people's offices and trying to guess what their possessions might symbolize about them. For example, one woman's office is decorated like Toys `R Us. There's Barbie dolls, teddy bears, free McDonald happy toys, and other toys galore. You'd think with an office decorated like this, this woman would be a very light-hearted and playful person, but just the opposite. She's someone who's very serious and rarely smiles. I wonder then if perhaps she was kid who grew up too fast and was given adult responsibilities too soon...and so these toys are a way to recapture her lost youth.

The only books I've seen regarding the surface details of someone are books on how to read body language. Sometimes those books will have a paragraph or a small section on actual items someone owns, but never have I seen a whole book devoted to the subject. I was excited then when I came across this book.

There were some interesting tidbits in here. The most interesting part of the book was the section on the Big 5 Personality Profiles (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism....or OCEAN for short). It was an interesting way of testing who someone is, though not all possessions reveal these traits. For example, while having unusual art in the home could signal Openness, it's much harder to detect Agreeableness just by looking at someone's possessions.
Another interesting part was the True Home, though it didn't seem to fit with the focus of this book.

Although there were some interesting bits in this book, I found it lacking organization. The author reveals his cleverness by giving chapters titles like "An Office and a Gentlemen" and "Less than Zero Acquaintance", but I would've preferred the chapters be divided by room (like kitchen or bathroom) and by place (like home, work, or car). Instead, these details are scattered throughout the book so that, if I want to go back to a point he made, I have a hard time finding it again in the book.

I also thought the author spent too long on some subjects that weren't very interesting or relevant and so, reading this book was a tedious experience at times...and this is a subject I find quite fascinating.

It was also frustrating how the author wouldn't commit to a meaning behind an object. He'd say this object could mean this, or it could mean that, or it may not mean any of these things. I understand the author doesn't want people jumping to conclusions without seeing the whole picture, however, there still must be some things that are giveaways. After all, he was able to accurately guess one person's age, gender, sexual orientation and more simply by looking at their contents in a box. So why not reveal more of his secrets?

In the intro, the author keeps teasing the reader that they will, by the end of this book, be able to accurately guess what someone's possessions most likely symbolize, but he never delivers on that promise. Instead, I walked away knowing just as much as I did coming in. So, to improve upon this book, I would appreciate more guidance and better organization.

A reviewer had referred to the type of psychology apparent in this book as "pop psychology". I am in no position to evaluate that subject, but I am more sceptical of this book than I am persuaded by it. I accept that one's personal possession may tell people some things about that person but the conclusions are probably speculative and the error rate may be high. If, say, a person has only books on pop music in his room, it may suggest that this person enjoys lively contemporary music; but can we safely conclude that he is a shallow person or a person with superficial character? There are some very interesting discussions about personality types - people with "openness" and "narcissistic" people, and I enjoyed all that. Gosling's defence of employing "stereotyping" is a little questionable although he may be right that people do act and react to others especially to strangers with some degree of stereotyping. It is probably more enlightening if he cautioned against the dangers of stereotyping, and emphasized the importance of detecting moments when we stereotype people. Ultimately, one has to ask, why do we want to snoop? Should we not get to know a person better by knowing him than by snooping around his bathroom or office to see what he had accumulated?

Disappointing on two levels. Feels as if it was an attempt to write an academic text that was twisted to try to make a "popular" work and ends up being neither. While there certainly are a smattering of momentarily interesting facts scattered through the book, more often it seems full of the obvious. Not really worth the time.

The book has very little substance, it is rather like an essay or research paper that has been expanded with the aim of making it commercially viable. All the conclusions are just common sense, you don't need a PHD to figure out that if someone has a skateboard, a surfboard and a snowboard stacked against the wall of their room then they must be an extreme sports advocate (and if the skateboard, surfboard and snowboard look like new then they are a wannabe extreme sports advocate). The author meanders from one area to the next, never quite satisfying the reader, and ultimatly frustrating him or her. I do not think this book worth the time or the money, and it will not hold most people's attention longer than halfway through.

I enjoyed this book; Gosling is a clear thinker and he provides a accessible overview of interesting personality research. I have seen the results of some of his research in the past, and I admire his creativity and productivity. He is a very talented academic psychologist, and is doing good things for the field. In Snoop, though, he does a nice job of backing off from the strictly scholarly to try and make the work relevant to any curious mind. I found, for example, the discussion of how people use their stuff to make "identity claims" that can be either self-directed or other-directed particularly interesting to think about.

At the same time, I'm not giving the book five stars because it ultimately felt a bit thin in regard to the complexity of human personality. Most of the work discussed is based entirely on the "big 5" personality traits--which Gosling acknowledges are only the surface level of human personality (while he discusses the other levels, such as deeper personal concerns and dynamic narratives of self, they really get short shrift). So at the end of the book I find myself thinking, ok- so I can find some clues, if I triangulate, about whether or not someone is extroverted or conscientious in quirky things such as office pictures or music tastes. But then what does that really tell me that I don't get from just spending time with someone? What really is the whole point of "snooping?" Maybe just that it is kind of fun, and a nice example of an interesting and clearly thought through program of research that has broad appeal. That's probably enough.

The book introduces readers to the art of learning about people by only looking at their "stuff". The author, a tenured psychology professor at a leading university, is clearly an expert in the field. He is apparently renowned for sending teams of students into other students' dorm rooms to analyze their belongings and has been featured on national television. In this book, he summarizes recent research by himself and other academics.

Most of the book consists of common-sense advice (don't let one prominent detail send you off-track - for instance, the research team thought the occupant of one room was female because there was a pair of stilettos on the floor; they actually belonged to the occupant's girlfriend and all the other clues pointed to a male occupant) and basic although interesting comments (if you are going to describe someone using a few adjectives, some positive, some negative, whether you say the positive adjectives first or not influences other people's opinion of that person; I also enjoyed reading about the five traits of personality).

The focus of the author on dorm rooms and the student population, which has been pointed out by other reviewers, was a bit frustrating. For instance, the author explains that college students like to talk about music when they don't know each other, and a good place to snoop would be their iPod playlist. That's all very good, but what about people in their thirties or forties? Not as many have iPods, and they make valid snooping subjects too.

I was also disappointed by the lack of discussion regarding a possible bias in the studies, regarding the fact that the students volunteered to let researchers analyze their dorm room (or their webpage, or their Facebook profile). There is obvious potential for a selection bias. In particular, the author finds that people don't lie on their webpages and instead represent themselves as they are. But those are the people who agreed to be part of his study to begin with. It makes sense that people who want to project an image different from their true self would stay away from research teams, to avoid being found out. I also thought the book should have had one proper chapter about online snooping, since most people don't have easy access to the dorm rooms or offices of potential friends.

Another annoying point is that the author occasionally hints at snooping around the apartment of his love interests; at one point, he also suggests the pictures his friends tagged of him on his Facebook profile are racier than the bland ones he put on himself. He also briefly comments on his use of Internet dating services, and text-messages an acquaintance for information when he finds medication in the medicine cabinet of one of his love interests. Now, the author is in his early forties, and I would have expected behavior more in line with his age. The book would have been stronger if the author had stuck to showing us his professional world.

Overall, "Snoop" is an interesting read. Many best-sellers are a lot worse, and I found it better than "Blink", to which it has often been compared.