Which profession has the best understanding of human vanity?

News anchor. I met one in person and he was a jerk . We were told not to applaud in a game show and he had canned appualse.

Prostitutes – they understand about men thinking so highly of their virility

Cosmetics salespeople – feeding into peoples’ vastly inflated self-images. Cosmeticians observe and feed into human vanity.

Plastic surgeons. They see people that want face lifts, butt implants,etc for vanity sake. And then they see the patients who have been disfigured by accidents or intentionally. Children with cleft palates that need surgery just to be able to eat and speak.

You don’t have to look further than Trump, applauding himself, and calling those who don’t “treasonous.” Maybe he doesn’t understand this. But he puts it on full display…

Medical professionals!!

I’m going with advertising. Next would be bartending or possibly espionage.

My bet is advertising and psychology are neck and neck for the lead when it comes to understanding vanity and all other drivers of human behavior. Advertising is THE paradigm of applied psychology.

Advertising because the better you understand someone’s psychology the more likely you are to convince them to buy something.

Writing, because writers are observant and can imagine what it is like to be someone else. Writers are the best at understanding and describing vanity from a variety of angles.

Do con artists take advantage of people’s vanity, or is it their naiveté or perhaps a combination of the two?