Rapport Audiobook By Emily Alison, Laurence Alison cover art

Rapport

The Four Ways to Read People

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection of titles.
Yours as long as you’re a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for $8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Rapport

By: Emily Alison, Laurence Alison
Narrated by: Emily Alison, Laurence Alison
Try Standard free

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.62

Buy for $15.62

Brought to you by Penguin.

Get what you want from even the most difficult characters

All of us have to deal with difficult people. Whether we’re asking our neighbour to move a fence or our boss for a pay rise, we can struggle to avoid arguments and get what we want.

Laurence and Emily Alison are world leaders in forensic psychology, and they specialise in the most difficult interactions imaginable: criminal interrogations. They advise and train the police, security agencies, the FBI and the CIA on how to deal with extremely dangerous suspects when the stakes are high.

After 30 years’ work – and unprecedented access to 2,000 hours of terrorist interrogations – they have developed a ground-breaking model of interpersonal communication. This deceptively simple approach to handling any encounter works as well for teenagers as it does for terrorists. Now it’s time to share it with the world.

Rapport reveals that every interaction follows four styles: Control (the lion), Capitulate (the mouse), Confront (the Tyrannosaur) and Co-operate (the monkey). As soon as you understand these styles and your own goals you can shape any conversation at will. And you’ll be closer to the real secret: how to create instant rapport.

© Emily and Laurence Alison 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

 Communication & Social Skills Developmental Psychology Personal Development Psychology Psychology & Mental Health

Critic reviews

Laurence Alison is one of my academic heroes. He does what every writer longs to do. He makes the difficult clear – without losing his rigour. (Malcolm Gladwell)
They are quietly revolutionising the study and practice of interrogation… Their findings are changing the way law enforcement and security agencies approach the delicate and vital task of gathering human intelligence. (Guardian)
Rapport is fantastic at helping us to understand other people, and showing how we can work with them to increase our own cognitive power (Hannah Critchlow, author of The 21st-Century Brain)
Practical Communication Advice • Well-researched Content • Author Narration • Clear Explanations • Actionable Frameworks

Highly rated for:

All stars
Most relevant
Excellent book if you want to improve your interactions with others. This book has great advice, techniques, and guides.

Excellent book if you want to improve interactions

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a really good one to listen to, as it's applicable to your life immediately.
As an example:
I listened to the first few chapters the evening I purchased the Audible book. The next morning I had an encounter with a transient that had entered the property/area of my employment. I talked with the individual, and within a few moments he calmly left on his own accord without incident.

It was a very pleasant way to start a busy work day!

Better than you think it will be.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very helpful and we'll written but without access to the diagrams and questions, the audible listener can either also buy the paperback or move on.

where are the pdf's?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Emily & Laurence Alison have done fantastic work at adapting their model of working in a high professional context with challenging people to how we can model their thinking and style of interaction in everyday contexts. A very workable model for both the beginner and more advanced communicator and interviewer. Essentially they are helping create workable steps to being a better modeler and listener - helping teach people how to view, understand, empathize with others from their model of the world rather than our own and, when needed, retain our own outcomes and needs in the interaction.

The drawback to the Audible version is that beginning in Chapter 5, the authors talk extensively about diagrams that we should use ... that include circles and answering questions -- and do not provide any PDF either with the audible download or online (anywhere I could find). This leaves the listener hearing about circles and using them for comparisons, and drawing lines .... with no visual context at all - making the Audible version less valuable as it leaves a huge portion of what is trying to be achieved by the authors, our introspection and self-modeling of our communication methods, out. This is frustraiting to say the least.

Great Model for Better Listening & Understanding

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The book uses stories and examples in a way that makes their messages click. The rapport acronyms mentioned are something I could see myself using at work and even in my personal life.


As I listened, I found myself thinking of specific people in my life who I could connect better with if I used the book’s lessons.

This book was recommended to me by a friend and after finishing it I’m glad I took the time to listen

Real approaches for real life

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews