Malcolm Gladwell
You think you can easily read the people around you, but the tools you use to judge strangers are deeply flawed, leading to tragic misunderstandings and systemic disasters.
Humans naturally assume others are telling the truth until overwhelming evidence forces a reassessment, a necessary evolutionary trait that nonetheless blinds us to deception.
We falsely believe in transparency, incorrectly assuming that a person's external demeanor always provides an authentic and reliable window into their internal feelings.
Because we are terrible at judging mismatched individuals, we frequently condemn honest people who act nervous while trusting confident liars.