Jack Neel explains why he trusts words and observable patterns over gut feeling. High neuroticism makes him misread neutral faces as negative, so he studies micro-expressions, body language, and linguistic patterns instead. He admires people with strong intuition but relies on analysis to navigate social interactions.
I would say that I probably trust words and word patterns the most. I can't always trust my intuition, and that's because I have a very strong negativity bias. I know I'm prone to quite a strong negativity bias. I'm also a high neurotic. There are some studies that show that we can misinterpret neutral faces as negative, and so I don't always trust my intention. That's why I read cues, because I know that my intuition is likely more negative than actually what it is. So the reason I got into reading microexpressions, the reason I got into reading cues and even like looking at word patterns, verbal patterns, is because I can trust that more than my intuition. But some people have great intuition about people, and I love those people. I don't know how they have— they smell it, they feel it, it's a vibration thing, I don't know, color aura, I don't know. But like, they are so good at it, and that is not me. I love body language, I love microexpressions, but sometimes you can see an odd red flag that doesn't mean anything. So I like verbal patterns, word patterns, and psychology the most.
