The school of emotion: reading and hiding signals

Judging a player's colour by non-verbal signals is a most powerful weapon at the game table, if it is a trained skill and not a guess with a 50 percent probability. Players who read emotions well are strong with both red and black cards. For example, by seating they can find the real sheriff on the night the mafia meets. The author of "Mafia in the Style of Zen" nevertheless does not advise putting the emphasis on this style: it becomes less interesting for those around to play. The scheme is simple: if at the table there is a player who in 90 percent of cases hits two or three mafia in round zero, you need to find him red and put your hand with him. But what is the point of team play if someone does all the work for you?

Several strong players of the emotional school at one table automatically shift the win percentage toward the civilians if the "readers" are listened to. One way or another, observing non-verbal manifestations always works, even if you do not track it: subconsciously. Stress, beliefs, hormones, openness, moral flexibility and the type of nervous system affect behaviour. Smoothing it out fully is within the power only of Tibetan yogis (by rumour). So people are, for the most part, quite readable.

The main point of the lesson: to learn to defend against "reading" so that the players next to you do not determine your colour only by signals. The lesson will at least insure you against wrong judgments.

The accuracy threshold

If by some sign or person you cannot determine the colour with an 80 percent probability (describe accurately in four cases out of five), then either improve the skill or do not use this kind of judgment at all. A probability below 80 percent, applied to emotions, is guessing.

The percentage and the sample are needed to insure yourself against the error of believing you are right. Many people find it hard to readjust if they have determined a player's colour beforehand. Having once come to believe in blackness where there is none, the subconscious filters out facts that do not agree with the earlier conclusion. If by moves or logic a player cannot be mafia, a sober head will understand it; but when a player has firmly decided he determined the colour correctly, the information may simply not reach him. The result of a game may depend on one distorted observation. So take the reading of non-verbal manifestations by any parameter into account only from 80 percent, and only if it works.

Two kinds of reading

"Reading" is not a very correct word, "scanning" is more precise: a player takes in manifestations with his sense organs and compares them. What to compare with gives the two kinds of play on emotions.

1. Comparing the behaviour of a red and a black card

We analyse a player by comparing his manifestations with those he showed earlier with one card or the other. Not with other people at the table, but with himself from past games.

Example 1. Earlier no. 4 had a mafia card: he spoke quietly, sat calmly, took no part in communication and arguments. Now he speaks loudly to the whole table, gestures a lot, proves something to different players. Judging by the comparison, this time he has a civilian card.

Example 2. Earlier no. 1 had a civilian card: he was detached, took no part in arguments, spoke for himself, was in a bad mood. Now he is energetic, gathers hands against an opponent, is at the centre of events. Is his card black?

By the signs in the examples you cannot say confidently whether the player is black or red, because in comparing behaviour context is incredibly important. In the first case the probability of a civilian is higher, because there are many red manifestations. But for an accurate assessment that is not enough. In the second case much could have affected behaviour: from a headache to a bad mood. Verdict: without correctly accounted context you cannot judge confidently by these signs. The context may be a love of the black card, the mafia coming after a long break, events at home and the like. (The author admits that in the first example he "lied" about the red player, and reminds: check and think, do not take things on faith.)

The read on non-verbal behaviour

The key notion of judgments by differences is the read. It is a poker term: a note on a player's manifestation by which one can judge the strength of a card. For us it is not about strength but the colour of the role. By default we judge by a complex of gestures, but that is often not enough: a person is dynamic. Then a read helps: if a player does some action only with one role or the other (or does not do it), that is just what is needed. Examples from real life:

• An acquaintance wrinkles her forehead throughout the round during all the speeches when she plays mafia. As a civilian she frowns only during her own minute or before the vote, and more often does not wrinkle her forehead at all.
• Another acquaintance as mafia shows open palms during communication and chooses a protecting, soft style. With a civilian card she is cold, there is almost no movement of the hands, the adjusting to the opinion of those around disappears.
• An acquaintance never smiles or jokes when he is mafia.

If a complex of judgments over a group of signs should give 80 percent, a read should give a full 90.

2. Reading emotions, gestures and behaviour

There is no universal gesture that will say "this one is red, and that one black". Still, something works well even without a hundred percent probability. The main and reliable helper is tracking discomfort, and not baseline discomfort but one that arises during the player's minute and communications. It has turned out that the unconscious of people who have not lost their conscience does not approve of lying to oneself: from childhood admonitions "lying is bad" to personal "cockroaches".

The top 4 signs of finding a mafia

1. Congruence. The more natural a person, the more likely his card is red. Clear contradictions between elements of behaviour are a sign of lying, and lying is an indicator of mafia. Examples: a person shouts while the body is calm; a constrained posture and bright gestures; unhurried movements and fast speech.

2. Control and secrecy. The more a person holds himself back, the more likely his card is black. The mafia tries to hide information so as not to give away the colour by a slip: any trifle, open joy, can reveal the role or provoke a conflict. Examples: ending the minute when much could have been said; slowed gesticulation or none at all; absence of emotion on the face, pallor.

3. Distance. Detachment from participation, verbal and non-verbal, as well as an attack in response to positive or neutral communication, is a sign of blackness. For "morally right" people, lying in mafia is something like a rejection of one's own essence: the person cannot show himself as he wants. A withdrawal from oneself in the inner world is expressed outwardly by a similar action towards those around (at the subconscious level). Examples: communicates face to face but avoids eye contact; body movements in a strictly narrow range; darting eyes; breaks in verbal and non-verbal communication; barrier gesticulation (movements that create an obstacle: a hand at the mouth, objects between himself and the table).

4. Holding one emotional mood. A black is busy planning and thinking over the game and the consequences of actions, so over the round his emotional background may jump. A typical example: a player is silent and focused, listens attentively to every speech, but in his own minute starts with fervour, heat and humour to explain a position, and after the speech falls silent again without bright emotions. This shows up inside the minute too: at the start he gestures a lot, by the end he "goes stale", the motor activity thins, the voice loses shades.

The four signs are what really works well.

Stress indicators

There is also a group of signs by which "professionals" interpret colour, confusing stress with blackness, and lose game after game. It is the most extensive group, and it says only that a person is experiencing stress. If there are no grounds for it, the player is more likely mafia. But people get nervous for different reasons.

• How do they perceive me?
• Will I be able to give a good speech?
• Will they remove me from the table?
• What if I chose the wrong sheriff?

Or a person is attacked by two blacks, or a civilian decided to play hard against him and provoke. Does he have a right to stress? Yes. So with equal lines of play, intuition suggests voting against the more constrained and tense one. Putting a hand by stress indicators the author compares to giving an enema for bronchitis.

The signs: a tremor in the voice; stroking oneself (soothing behaviour); rocking on the chair; jiggling a leg; tapping fingers on the table; fast speech; a raised tone; biting the lips; frequent blinking; a nervous tic; sweating. You must not confuse the manifestations of being mafia with stress, although they often go side by side, but not as clearly as many would like.

Three types of reaction to irritants

Knowing the types of reaction helps interpret behaviour more accurately and understand yourself better. The author links them with evolution (in his account, a legacy of the time when we were fish), and every person's reaction is one of three. This classification is presented as the author's model, not as a scientific fact.

1. Freezing. Stupor, a wish to hide so that the threat passes by. It can be checked by pressure: if a player withdraws into himself and falls silent, his reaction is this one. As mafia he speaks quieter and slower, hides his presence, lowers motor activity, takes a passive waiting position, avoids conflicts. (The author notes: "By the way, my type.")

2. Flight. It can be worked out by seeing the player in the role of mafia or by reconnaissance in force. A player as mafia tries to take as little time as possible, sags badly in distance, often "drifts", speaks in raised tones in a defensive position, speeds up his speech, does not like to attack with a black card. ("To drift" means to give a speech accompanied by poor emotion and also to make slips; the word has no strict definition, so always clarify what the interlocutor means.)

3. Attack. The rarest type (fewer than 10 percent of people, by the author's estimate), from which, with the right approach, the best players come: they have the highest natural gifts for influence. The first reaction is an increase of return aggression, more powerful than the stimulus. These are usually "solid-bodied" people with a hard gaze. In mafia the dynamics of their gestures grow, the voice rises, under stress such a player attacks the weaker. They are hard to remove at nine, because few have the nerve to gather votes against them. With a red card they are, as a rule, calmer and more balanced. The plus of the type is that they find it easy to balance their non-verbal behaviour: it is enough to calm down.

Internal and external manifestations

Look in the mirror and compare the left and right sides of your face: which is livelier, where are the corners of the lips higher, is the height of the eyebrows the same, where are the reddenings, where is the facial expression better? The author refers to the Chinese art of Ming Xiang (physiognomy): the left half of the face tells about the person's inner world, the right about how he presents himself to society. For the mafia, watch first the harmony and synchrony of the halves of the face, and second the left side, since analysis by it is more precise. This is the author's opinion; it is not subjected to strict testing in the book.

What to do after the chapter

The author does not advise playing by emotions. But they are part of the game, and it is worth guarding yourself against erroneous judgments. So the main thing: begin balancing and levelling your own behaviour so that you cannot be "read". Be aware of your manifestations and smooth them out.

Application

1. Balance your manifestations in every item.
2. Bring your emotion toward the red so that it is interpreted as "civilian".
3. Give a good "reader" as a black check. If your emotional lines are not balanced, you must play against such players. Players with little experience simply kill the "scanners" at night: that is weak play.
4. Be natural in your deception. Nothing will happen to you for it.

Self-check questions

1. How many times have you made decisions on the basis of emotions? In what percentage of cases were you right?
2. Which techniques of reading emotions do not work at all?
3. How do stress indicators differ from the techniques that determine lying fairly accurately, and how are they alike?
4. Look through the two examples from the start of the lesson, knowing the types of reaction. Did the judgments change?

Practice

Over five games in a row, write down not a conclusion but an observation: the sign, the situation, the colour at the end. At the end, check. A sign that did not give 80 percent, do not use.

Typical mistakes

• Confusing stress with blackness.
• Judging a player by one game without context.
• Running the game on a single emotional observation.
• Ignoring your own manifestations.

Source of the idea. The chapter "Playing by non-verbal behaviour: emotion" from Dmitry Novik's book "Mafia in the Style of Zen" (2020). The percentages, the classification of reaction types and the physiognomy belong to the author and are not confirmed by scientific sources.