write a podcast intro for:
the podcast name is Social Skills Coaching.
the podcast motto is "where you become more likable, more charasmatic, and more productive."
The author's website is bitly slash Pee Kay Consulting
The first sentence should start with "Hello, Listeners" as well as the date, the podcast name, and the motto.
Include in the opening a shortened version of the book description above, and that the book is available on Amazon, the audiobook is on Amazon, iTunes, and Audible.
Also include the author's website at bitly slash Pee Kay Consulting
The episode title is
And is from the book titled The Science of Likability by Patrick King
The date will be February 05, 2025
i am promoting the book The Science of Likability: 67 Evidence-Based Methods to Radiate Charisma, Make a Powerful Impression, Win Friends, and Trigger Attraction (4th Ed.)
(The Psychology of Social Dynamics Book 12) By: Patrick King with a podcast episode and youtube video.
this is the book description: Utilize the most interesting, shocking, and counterintuitive findings in psychological science to simply make people want to be around you.The Science of Likability takes over 67 seminal scientific and psychological studies and breaks them down into real, usable guidelines and tips to create the presence you have always wanted.
Learn how to subconsciously make yourself likable, trustworthy, and intelligent.
Being likable unlocks the doors to everything you want in life.
Being likable makes you a potential love interest to anyone you want.
Likability is the hidden force that makes people appear to be lucky in life and receive more opportunities than they know what to do with.
These are the topics covered in todays episodes: Chapter 2.
How to Create the Foundation of Friendship Equity Within Relationships Similarity Breeds Liking Three Stages of Friendship
The link to the book is : Hear it Here - https://adbl.co/3BXFuHQ
It’s rude to look at your friendships and evaluate them based on how much you are benefiting from them.
In essence, are your friendships and relationships purely transactional?
Nobody likes to think this way—at least not out loud.
We would love to imagine that we are friends with our friends because they suit us the best, we enjoy their company, and they know us inside and out.
We all inhabit a special place in each other’s hearts because of our unique sensibilities and emotional bonds, right?
It sounds nice to say, and it’s the politically correct version of how to describe friendships, new and old.
But in reality, people subconsciously evaluate their relationships based on how much value they receive.
It’s important to mention that value is subjective and doesn’t necessarily have to be in the form of any material or financial gain.
Of course, we do value people who are valuable connections based on their wealth or status, but we also value people if they make us laugh, make us feel good, or act as our emotional crutches.
We must be getting something out of it if we want to preserve or grow it.
Most value and exchange in a friendship or relationship is usually measured in emotional terms.
If people make us feel positive emotions, they have value to us, and we want them around because of their emotional value proposition.
If they make us feel negative emotions, then we might not want them around, no matter how much they would be able to help our careers.
So it’s fair to say relationships are inherently a bit transactional.
We get what we want from people in some form or fashion, and our friends get what they want from us in a similar fashion.
If you spend time with someone whose company you don’t enjoy, but these events always occur on their private yacht, it might be acceptable because you’re hanging out on a yacht.
But remove the yacht, and what are you getting in this transaction?
Here’s the thing about transactions: they only feel good if they are relatively equal.
We all put a certain amount of effort in, and we have expectations about the matching return.
One-sided deals or relationships feel bad.
Emotionally, we’re happiest when the give and take, or cost and benefit, are roughly equal.
You wouldn’t sell someone your car for $2 because it would be spectacularly one-sided and you’d feel ripped off.
You also wouldn’t buy someone’s car for $2 because you’d feel guilty and immoral.
However, you would sell someone your car for a fair price or trade them for the motorcycle you’ve always wanted.
If a transaction is one-sided, we feel used and taken advantage of or predatory and vicious.
If you always give someone a ride to work and they never return the favor or acknowledge your effort, you aren’t going to feel good about the relationship anymore because the transaction is unbalanced.
It seems cold to categorize relationships thusly, but this is just a prerequisite of being a good person, much less being likable or a good friend.
People pay close attention to what they put in versus what they get out, and it contributes to an overall impression we have about others.
A study showed that people both subconsciously and consciously keep track of the exchange of favors in their relationships—and those are the happiest relationships.
You can use this knowledge to your advantage in becoming a more likable person, as well as one who never gets taken advantage of.
Equity Within Relationships
Walster, Walster, and Berscheid proposed the theory of equal relationships in 1978.
They investigated how relationships rife with inequity functioned and found that the best and happiest relationships have an internal score sheet as to who is sacrificing and serving more.
In these relationships, both sides sought to keep it equal.
More broadly, the study helped define what came to be known as equity theory—the tendency for humans to compare what they have or receive in relation to what others have or receive.
As mentioned, people don’t like to feel like predators or prey.
Rather, they prefer to feel like respected equals, even though this contrasts with our natural inclination to attain as much as possible.
This can range from monetary (“I’ll pay for tonight if you pay for tomorrow”) to emotional tradeoffs (“I’ll be your shoulder to cry on if you do the same for me at some point”).
They found people are often driven by a sense of equality, and if someone gets too much or too little, even according to the set rules of engagement, tension and distress are created in the person’s mind.
The greater the inequality in a relationship, the greater tension and distress.
Therefore, one of the foundations of friendship is a feeling of equality.
Without it, you will never even have the opportunity to bond.
Suppose you are sitting at a table with one friend and there is a small pizza on the table.
You both love pizza, so we both want as much as possible.
Yet we also know that the pizza should be split in half to acknowledge the other person and show goodwill and consideration toward them.
But it’s our favorite type of pizza, and we want all of it and could easily eat it.
What would happen if you accidentally took an extra slice?
You would feel guilty and your friend would probably show restrained annoyance and anger.
What about if you took an extra slice on purpose?
You would probably feel like a heel, and your friend would be supremely unhappy.
This is the case even if our friend were to tell us, “I love this pizza, but take as much as you want.” We wouldn’t want to upset the balance, and most people would still split the pizza in half.
Anything else just feels greedy and inconsiderate.
What does equity theory mean for us?
Should we seek to pull out a scorecard and annotate every time a debt is incurred?
Surprisingly, yes.
If not physically, at least mentally or figuratively.
Keeping score as to the equality of your relationships will make you more likable.
When you externally acknowledge equity theory and make it known you are fighting your human tendency to take as much as possible, people will appreciate your willingness to think about their desires.
If you can keep yourself accountable and actively seek to even the score, you become more likable.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be so direct as, “You bought me coffee last time, so I will buy it today.” Remember, the transactional nature of a relationship doesn’t solely concern finances or material possessions—it is subjective.
To keep the score even, you should also consider emotional support: listening, time, attention, focus, and any and all other aspects that you value.
If someone listens to you for an hour, remember that, in some nebulous way, you owe them a degree of emotional support at another time.
Underlying everything is the fact that people hate feeling guilty (when they take too much) and also hate feeling taken advantage of (when they give too much).
If there is inequality in any measure, both parties will feel one of those emotions.
This point basically boils down to being considerate of others’ needs, which is a lesson that many of us need to retake.
Understand what they want, know what they want to avoid (giving too much and taking too much), and deliver that to them.
Unfortunately, compassion and empathy aren’t second nature to most of us.
If you see any situations where you benefit more, call them out publicly and make sure to rectify them as soon as possible.
This makes the other person know that you pay your debts as soon as possible and are trustworthy and that you actively care about them and don’t want to cheat them.
Of course, this also removes the burden of feeling taken advantage of from their head.
For example, you can eliminate some resentment and injustice when you call out, “I can’t believe that you gave me a ride to the airport and I haven’t repaid you yet!
Dinner’s on me.” Eliminating guilt on the other person’s behalf is trickier because it’s difficult to say something like, “Hey, I got you last time we had dinner.
Want to even that score?” You must tread carefully, because this can sound offensive and entitled.
If you feel that you are suffering an injustice, it’s a matter of giving people a chance to set things right.
If they don’t seize the opportunity, they are failing at creating the foundations of friendship and likability, and they might not be the type of person you want to remain friends with.
People are looking for win-win relationships, and you are proactively creating them.
They can’t help but feel that you are somebody who will stand up for your rights and that you are not a pushover or someone easily taken advantage of.
That’s pretty likable, right?
Equality and equity is one of the first foundations of friendship.
The second foundation of friendship is similarity.
Similarity Breeds Liking
To many, bonding with others is a process that occurs over time or as a function of the passage of time.
But you can be in a dentist’s chair and undergoing a root canal, thereby spending a good amount of “alone time” with your dentist, and this is far from bonding.
To quicken the pace of your bonding (also perhaps known as friendship chemistry, which we will cover later) and become more instantly likable, focus on similarity and familiarity.
You’ve probably heard that a mix of the two breeds liking, and it’s so true that this is something we instinctually do already.
For instance, what are among the first questions we might ask upon meeting a stranger?
· Where are you from?
· Where do you live?
· Where do you work?
· Where did you go to school?
We’ve all experienced the phenomenon where we ask someone where they went to school and then discover they went to school where three of your acquaintances went.
The next question out of our mouths will inevitably be some version of, “Oh, my friends went there.
Jane Smith, Bob Dinn, and John Sane.
Do you know them?” The question may disregard the fact that it was a giant school and they weren’t the same age, year, or major.
Why do we do this?
Yes, it is an easy source of small talk because we get to learn the broad strokes of someone’s identity and background.
But what do we do with that alone?
Nothing.
We do this because we are instinctually seeking out similarities and common ground.
We want to find a connection and point of reference from which to evaluate other people as quickly as possible so we know whom we are talking to.
We make judgments on people very quickly, and if they are similar to us, our judgments will tend to be more positive.
In 1971 in “Interpersonal Attraction and Attitude Similarity” (the first on many studies on the topic), Donn Byrne found that we are more drawn and attracted to people who show greater degrees of similarity to us.
The relationship was found to be nearly linear—the more similarity, the more affection or attraction.
He conducted a simple experiment that asked participants to fill out a questionnaire on their personal traits.
The participants were shown fake profiles of people that had been manipulated to be similar or dissimilar to them, and the more similar the traits of the profiles, the more attractive the participants marked them.
We like similarity, and not just because we tend to have a positive opinion of ourselves and can transfer those opinions into assumptions about the other person.
We like ourselves, after all, so we should naturally like people similar to us.
We also like similarity because it allows us to put our guards down and relax into a state of comfort rather than evaluation.
For instance, let’s say you were born in a small town in South America that has a population of roughly 3,000 people.
Now you live in London, which has a population of roughly nine million people.
How excited would you be at the prospect of meeting someone else from that same small South American town?
Very.
Now, what additional assumptions would you make about them?
· You share the same values.
· You have a similar worldview.
· They automatically “get you” in a way that others may not.
· You are similar in personality.
· You can make inside jokes that no one else will understand.
· You immediately understand the type of person they are.
All of these assumptions are positive.
They might even be true in most instances, but that doesn’t matter.
You think you suddenly have a point of reference through which to view your new friend, which is comforting.
You think you aren’t working with a blank slate anymore, and you generally will know this person’s thought process.
The more obscure, rare, or unique the similarity, the more we like the person who shares that with us because the more special and exclusive it becomes.
These are all important factors in likability.
We like people who are similar to us in background, attitude, and opinions.
Just like in a previous chapter, you can’t wait for the possibility to present itself, such as randomly seeing a university’s mascot in someone’s office and then realizing you went to the same college.
This means we should always be searching for similarities or creating them.
They both take effort and initiative.
We can search for similarities by asking probing questions of people and using their answers as the basis to show similarity, no matter how small.
Ask questions to figure out what people are about, what they like, and how they think.
Then dig deep into yourself to find small commonalities at first, such as favorite baseball teams or alcoholic drinks.
Through those smaller commonalities, you’ll be able to figure out what makes them tick and find deeper commonalities to instantly bond over.
Just as you’d be thrilled to meet someone from that small South American town, you’d be thrilled to meet someone who shared a love of the same obscure hobby as you.
It doesn’t take months or years, and it doesn’t take a special circumstance like going through boot camp together.
It just requires you to look outside of yourself and toward the universal human experience and realize that people share common attitudes, thoughts, and emotions—you just have to find them.
We can create similarities by mimicking people’s body language, posture, voice tonality, rate of speech, and overall manner of appearance.
These are all relatively superficial and surface-level, but they have been proven to work.
This is known as the chameleon effect, or unintentional mirroring, and it comes from a 1999 study by Chartrand and Bargh titled “The Chameleon Effect: The Perception-Behavior Link and Social Interaction.” They recorded increased rates of liking by roughly 10% when even small aspects of people’s physical behavior were subtly mimicked such as a light touch here or there or foot wagging.
They tended to feel more connection and rapport with more mimicry.
It doesn’t sound significant or particularly noticeable, but it still has quite a large effect in likability for something that required little to no effort.
The chameleon camouflages and changes its colors to suit its environment, and we are met with more social success when we do the same.
When you sit across from someone, sit how they sit and arrange themselves.
If you are standing, adopt their same posture and foot stance.
Meet people where they are and match their emotional tone—if they are excited, try to get to that level, and if they are tired, restrain yourself to that level.
Become the chameleon and blend in and meet people’s physical and emotional tones.
It seems that any semblance of familiarity, similarity, and appearing nonthreatening allows us to take our shields down and let out a deep breath of relief—a more relaxed and comfortable state overall.
Sometimes we know we are seeking something similar, but it’s mostly a subconscious signal for us to allow ourselves to open up and relax.
Suffice it to say, it’s probably difficult for likability and friendship to occur if people can’t yet feel comfortable enough to let their guard down.
If you can cultivate feelings of similarity and combine them with an air of equity in your friendships right off the bat, the foundations for friendship will have been laid.
Three Stages of Friendship
The third foundation for a real friendship is to understand what we are actually looking for in our relationships.
Most friendships are tentative or probationary.
You get put on some sort of outer circle of friendship until you prove yourself, at which point you get moved into an inner circle of intimacy.
Other friendships are purely out of convenience, and both parties seem to know it.
Sometimes we confuse acquaintances for friends and assume we are closer than we really are.
Whatever the case, it’s clear people tend to create unofficial tiers of friends in their lives.
In the inner circle are your dearest friends and family members.
In the circle further away from that are your other friends you might see four times a year.
Outside of that circle might be your acquaintances, faded friendships, or business contacts you would only call upon if you had a clear reason to.
Outside of that circle might be everyone else you know and don’t devote any thought to at all.
Suppose people have those same four concentric circles of friends.
It’s clearly easy to get into the first two levels—and even the third level, where you are a friend that is occasionally seen.
But what about that elusive inner circle?
How can you reach that level of friendship quickly and reliably with new and old friends?
In 1970, Bernard Murstein put forth one of the prevailing theories on friendship acquisition called the stimulus-value-role model.
The model describes the three stages of friendship, how we select the people that inhabit each stage, and what is required for someone to make it to your inner circle.
There are specific elements that are important at each stage but may lose relative importance for deeper stages of friendship and relationships overall.
The three stages act as a series of gates: only if you pass one gate are you granted passage to the next.
If you understand which stage you’re currently in, you’ll be able to move ahead more easily because you’ll know what you need to do.
Intentionally going through these steps can, at first glance, seem a bit like you are presenting a fake image of yourself in order to get closer to someone.
But as you go through the steps, you’ll realize that we unconsciously do these things anytime we seek to build rapport and most notably whenever we are dating or trying to create a romantic connection.
The first stage of friendship is the stimulus stage, and in this stage of friendship we are primarily concerned with evaluating people based on their physical attributes and superficial traits.
Think of this stage like the eye test—if by looking at two people you would assume they are friends, that’s the standard people subconsciously use.
We seek people who are attractive but also of a similar age, appearance, and perceived status.
This stage of friendship is shallow and is more about whom we want to be friends with.
If an impoverished 90-year-old is close friends with a rich 20-year-old, we would consider this an unlikely friendship because it doesn’t appear to pass the stimulus stage.
Often, if someone doesn’t fit into the stimulus stage, we will never pursue a friendship with them because it seems too unlikely.
We just dismiss people as “not our type” and move on with hardly a second thought.
The second stage of friendship is the value stage, and in this stage, we are concerned with finding people that share our thoughts and morals.
We are seeking people with similar worldviews and senses of right and wrong.
In essence, compatibility is the main emphasis here.
For an extreme example of a group that concerns itself highly with the value stage, look no further than Habitat for Humanity, a charity organization that travels to foreign countries to perform acts of service and volunteering.
It is clearly built upon a specific set of beliefs that bonds the members together.
We are similarly looking for people who think like us and whom we can ultimately relate to.
We might tolerate being acquaintances with someone who possesses a belief that is vile to us, but we will never be good friends with them.
The more similar values line up, the more there is to discuss and bond over.
The final and deepest stage of friendship, the inner circle, is the role stage.
This stage of friendship is based on how people will complement us in working toward a shared goal.
This means the deepest friendships function in a sense like business relationships—there has to be ultimate compatibility and a sense of benefit for each party.
It’s about reliability and trustworthiness.
There has to be a willingness of roles, duties, and obligations and an implicit understanding of the terms of engagement.
People understand each other, help with weaknesses, and utilize each other in a beneficial manner.
You can work out conflict and generally be compatible in tough situations.
Friendships don’t often occur with people who butt heads over the smallest matters—instead, they assume more complementary roles.
Think about how a married couple must learn to resolve conflict peacefully and come to an agreement on budgeting and finances or how you can learn to coexist with a roommate who doesn’t match your preference for cleanliness.
These are all ways in which a working relationship is necessary to be fully compatible for the inner circle.
Now that you know which factors are immediately important in becoming good friends with someone, you can change your actions and emphasize different aspects of your personality to seamlessly flow from stage one to stage three.
Note that this is about emphasizing different aspects and not becoming a chameleon (in the worst sense) and creating a fake persona for yourself.
Let’s suppose you want to befriend John, an enthusiastic soccer fan.
To gain entry into the first stage, your task would be to appear as if you belong.
As I mentioned, if someone took a picture of you two together, would it appear that you would be friends?
At the outset, it would be beneficial to wear a soccer jersey or at least sporty attire and emulate his general style and appearance.
First, look the part, and John will be open to you.
Otherwise, he may not think that you have anything in common.
Next, your task would be to gently and subtly probe for John’s values about the world, what he sees as right and wrong, and his general life philosophy.
Emphasize what you agree with and downplay what you don’t.
At this point, you have shown yourself to look and think the part.
Finally, to enter the inner circle and pass into the role stage, you would want to show that you share similar activities and you possess the ability to work together without any conflict.
Meeting up for lunch or coffee doesn’t demonstrate an ability to work together, but for instance, helping John organize a soccer tournament would.
If during the planning you differ on too many aspects and argue, you probably aren’t going to pass the role stage.
But if you can successfully plan together and navigate conflict, which are no small feats, you are well on your way to the inner circle and mutual respect.
The three stages of the stimulus-value-role model of friendship are important to understanding how you should act with people.
It may start with simple physical mirroring or attraction, but it ends with the ability to coexist on multiple levels.
You can make the argument this point is to recognize the working relationship as an integral part of any close friendship.
Takeaways:
• Equity and feelings of fairness play a large part in the foundation of friendship.
That is to say, people don’t like the negative feelings associated with either side of unfairness.
They don’t like feeling like they are being used, nor do they like feeling like they are cheating someone.
Therefore, emphasize fair play and equity in terms of the value (which is subjective and can vary widely) you are putting into a relationship or friendship.
• Similarity is another large aspect of the foundation of friendship.
We instinctively like those who are similar to us.
These days, we take similarity to mean a higher chance of bonding and matching worldviews and positive traits.
• Humans are more similar to each other than not.
We all bleed and put our pants on one leg at a time.
Therefore, it is up to you to either search for or create similarities.
You can search for similarities by becoming comfortable with questions and finding similarities to bond over, and you can create similarities using the psychological phenomenon of the chameleon effect—both physically and emotionally.
• Finally, the stimulus-value-role model of social interaction states that to get to someone’s inner circle, you have to show three levels of compatibility: stimulus, value, and role.
To use this model, you have to first understand which stage you are currently at with someone, and then you can understand what you need to do before moving into the next stage.
The deepest level is role: working together, collaborating, and resolving conflict.
write a podcast ending with a call to action for the author's website.
These were the main points covered:
How to Create the Foundation of Friendship
Equity Within Relationships
Similarity Breeds Liking
Three Stages of Friendship
Chapter 2.
How to Create the Foundation of Friendship
The book description is:
Utilize the most interesting, shocking, and counterintuitive findings in psychological science to simply make people want to be around you.The Science of Likability takes over 67 seminal scientific and psychological studies and breaks them down into real, usable guidelines and tips to create the presence you have always wanted.
Learn how to subconsciously make yourself likable, trustworthy, and intelligent.
Being likable unlocks the doors to everything you want in life.
Being likable makes you a potential love interest to anyone you want.
Likability is the hidden force that makes people appear to be lucky in life and receive more opportunities than they know what to do with.
Include that the book is available on Amazon, the audiobook is on Amazon, iTunes, and Audible.