Tag Archives: differentiate between friend and foe

TV shows, crime movies and novels sometime contain professional law enforcement profilers who are able to characterize the behavior of individuals through body language, habits, and appearance. But we are all amateur profilers. The primary difference between the armature profiling we do and that of professionals is that the professionals have learned through the accumulated knowledge taught in education the psychological makeup of people and how this relates to their physical appearance and behaviors. But where would we all be if we didn’t characterize various physical characteristics and behaviors in people? Profiling is part of our defense mechanism that has socially been built into us to help us differentiate between friend and foe. The problem is that we often profile people based upon one physical characteristic such as skin color or obesity or shape of nose or eyes or beauty or ugliness. Such profiling fails to look as multiple features and behaviors that flaw profiling as a defense mechanism and sometimes makes foes out of friendly people and friends out of devious people. Continue reading →