Another fun exercise from A Whole New Mind book:

To test your ability to read people, take a look at the following url: www.tinyurl.com/2u7sh

It’s the BBC’s ten minute, 20-question test, based on solid research, to see how good you are at detecting the difference between a fake smile and a real one.

I was quite proud of the fact that I got 14 out of 20 correct. Until I sent this out to my mailing list and got responses from people in my network taking the test. Of 15 people who reported their results to me, the average was 14.9 out of 20.

One person had already done the test and gotten all 20 correct! She also officiates at karate tournaments so I’m wondering if her powers of observation have been enhanced or whether this is a natural talent. One person reported 16 out of 20 and was surprised that she hadn’t gotten more correct. Another person was curious as to why his accuracy was much higher with determining genuine smiles with women than men. I won’t even touch that one. And still another wondered why his score was so much lower than his wife’s. Can you just hear my response to that one?

So feel free to report your score and your reaction to the score here.