Accurate behavioral reading requires knowing who a person is first

Evidence

That is, one can best code another’s behavior (verbal as well as nonverbal) if one knows “who” he or she is. The more one knows about the other, the better one is able to assess his or her actions. The most accurate readings are of those known personally. Therefore, in the world of strangers, behavioral clues are frequently most useful after an identification has been made, not before. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 611

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Directly parallels the reader’s core thesis with Simmel: behavioral reading inside urban anonymity is only reliable for intimates, so the observing self stays unmoored. Also contradicts the assumption in Julius Cole that behavioral observation can substitute for social knowledge.
• DEEPTHINKING: Inverts a common intuition that behavior is the most universal or observable clue — argues the stranger’s only reliable cues are appearance and location, making the city a place where behavior is illegible unless it confirms prior identification.
• SEED: Article angle: why behavioral cues fail as primary identity signals in public space, and what that means for surveillance-era efforts to infer identity from behavior alone.

Related

• Behavioral coding works best after personal identification is established. (similarity 0.85)
• Appearance and location clues sometimes give way to behavioral coding. (similarity 0.85)
• Location is the single best clue for identifying urban strangers. (similarity 0.81)
• City dwellers read identities and perform behavior from learned repertoires (similarity 0.80)
• Urban dwellers must code strangers accurately using only visual information. (similarity 0.79)