..

This is the first of a six part exercise to read behavior of both sides of a conversation using an incident where police officers were called to a home where there was the report of a potential break in.

(Video Source)

The Workout

  • Context: In the following video, two police officers talk with a man who was reported being seen outside of a home while carrying a shovel.  Because of the length of the video, this exercise will be broken up into a six-part series.
  • Task 1: As you watch the video, your task is to observe both the police officer and the man being contacted to determine what cluster of behavior is being displayed by each and identify the observable indicators that support that assessment.
  • Task 2: Would the behavior of the man who is being contacted attract your attention as being an anomaly or would you assess it as being part of the baseline for this type of encounter?
  • Write your answers on a sheet of paper before viewing our answers

View Our Answers

  • The Man: Displaying the Uncomfortable Cluster at a low intensity.
    • Stands up when the officer approaches
    • Explains that he is at his mom’s house and offers his name and his mom’s name
    • A bit of a stutter with his words
    • He shifts his weight back and forth
    • Use of illustrating gestures and explains how he comes here every day
    • Licks his lips
    • Rocks backwards when the officer mentions that someone reported a break in
  • The Police Officer: Displays the comfortable cluster
    • Laughs as she realizes he isn’t breaking in
    • Simply asks if everything is alright
    • Calm tone of voice
    • Is accommodating – says “ok” a lot
  • When considering the man’s behavior:
    • I would, at this point, assess the man’s behavior as being within the baseline.
    • As a uniformed police officer just approached him and mentioned that they are responding to the report of a break-in, that would likely elicit a threat or stress response.
    • It is at a low intensity because the displays indicating discomfort aren’t overly exaggerated.
  • Add a comment with the assessments that you made, but that we didn’t make, so that we can check for those assessments and provide feedback on those specific observations.  We will add them to our answers in the post itself for future viewings of the exercise.

Enhance The Workout

  • Repeat
    • For each of the observations we have listed above (for each person), re-watch the video and observe each of them multiple times so that the observation and the assessment of each one becomes something you pick up on very quickly and rapidly.
  • Reflect
    • Consider how little time you just had (the entire video was only 70 seconds long) to make a first impression about each person.
    • As the video continues in the future exercises, you will have a much greater quantity of information available to you, but the first few seconds of an encounter are what establish a set of expectations that you will have moving forward and to help you recognize shifts in behavior.
    • As shifts in behavior are very important to identify, having a point of comparison for future assessments is a crucial part of a behavioral approach to recognizing threats, and establishing the initial cluster of behavior observed accurately and rapidly is the first step in the process.
  • Act
    • In this exercise, you are viewing a conversation from a removed perspective.  You are hearing it and observing it (through body camera footage), but aren’t taking part in it.
    • One of the milestones as you pursue mastery in a topic is when you can begin to see yourself interacting with others, as if you are another person.
    • That isn’t always a natural thing to do, so throughout the week, when you’re part of a conversation, but not really active in it, take a moment to observe the other two people deeply and think about how someone else would be observing you in that situation.

Related Content:

  • The Full Exercise