He won’t make a judgment about Jost solely based on the fact that he has a book in his office called “Why Men Rebel.” It’s just there because it’s for a teaching demonstration, or a gift for somebody else, or things that aren’t really important, or somebody else left it there.” There could be something here that really doesn’t reflect what the occupant is like. Because any single item could be misleading. The goal, Gosling said, is to “look at the big picture.

Gosling went through drawers, examined pictures, checked the status of office supplies and analyzed the position of Jost’s desk - all providing clues to Jost’s personality. The fellow psychologist didn’t mind Gosling’s snooping and said that while he tidied up his office beforehand, he didn’t do any major organizing.

“Nightline” decided to test Gosling at the office of his friend and colleague, John Jost, at New York University. The first thing Gosling does is sit down in a space and look around, “giving the salient items time to fade away a bit, and the broader themes to come out.” Sharyn Alfonsi and Eileen Murphy wrote a piece, excerpted below, “ The Secrets in Your Stuff What Your Home or Office Reveals About Your Personality, Voting Patterns and More.” Their article, among other things, takes the reader into the office of Situaitionist contributor John Jost. Packed with original research and fascinating stories, Snoop is a captivating guidebook to our not-so-secret lives.ABC’s Nightline had a nice piece on Sam Gosling and his new book, Snoop. Bottom line: The insights we gain can boost our understanding of ourselves and sharpen our perceptions of others.

If you know what to look for, you can figure out how reliable a new boyfriend is by peeking into his medicine cabinet or whether an employee is committed to her job by analyzing her cubicle. What he has discovered is astonishing: when it comes to the most essential components of our personalities-from friendliness to flexibility-the things we own and the way we arrange them often say more about us than even our most intimate conversations.

Gosling, one of the field's most innovative researchers, dispatches teams of scientific snoops to poke around dorm rooms and offices, to see what can be learned about people simply from looking at their stuff. By exploring our private worlds (desks, bedrooms, even our clothes and our cars), he shows not only how we showcase our personalities in unexpected-and unplanned-ways, but also how we create personality in the first place, communicate it others, and interpret the world around us. Does what's on your desk reveal what's on your mind? Do those pictures on your walls tell true tales about you? And is your favorite outfit about to give you away? For the last ten years psychologist Sam Gosling has been studying how people project (and protect) their inner selves.

Snoop by sam gosling