“The Gift Of Fear,” a psychology book written by Gavin De Becker, is an extremely useful and informative read. It gives valuable advice about how to act upon human intuition, how to recognize threats, and defines what real fear is and it’s purpose. I found the book to be extremely interesting. This book provided me with a sense of understanding on violence and fear and I feel much better prepared when it comes to recognizing dangerous situations.
My favorite part of the book was the warning signs to know when a stranger is a potential threat. This was fascinating to me because I’ve been told since I was just a little boy to beware of strangers. But with all these warnings about strangers I had never been told how to recognize when a stranger was being genuinely helpful and friendly, or trying to harm me in any way. I found some of the warning signs intriguing such as a method called Forced Teaming. Stranger’s use forced teaming to create a sense of trust. They team themselves together with their victim by saying “we” and making it seem like they’re closer than they really are to their victims by pairing them together. Other warning signs were fairly obvious such as Discounting The Word No. This means that the stranger won’t leave when you ask him to. However, something I did learn by reading about this was that if you let the stranger get away with discounting the word no just once you have given them control. They feel as if you are weak and can be easily convinced. The proper thing to do is to stick to your No, don’t negotiate. Be stern and show you’re in control and not them. I feel like out of all the things I read, this will stick with me the most. Strangers often converse with me and this information about saying no and sticking to it has the potential to save me from an extremely dangerous situation
The most interesting part of the book was when the author