BodyLingual

I’m often asked about the body language tells that signal deception, and my answer often disappoints. The problem is there’s no one thing done that gives a liar away, much of the things we think we know are wrong, and we are much better liars (and much worse at detecting a lie) than we think. This article will focus on how the words we use (and avoid), and how we say them, may indicate deception.  Before turning specifically to the verbal sounds of lying, I must note that body language is also important to consider, especially as liars are more likely to rehearse their words than their gestures, but I’ll save the tells for another day. Most people may be better off listening to liars and not looking at them if they want to detect deception, as what comes out of a liar’s mouth is often more important than their body language. When questioning a liar, it’s useful to first get a vocal baseline, asking safe questions and attending to responses. When hearing those responses, h...

When it comes to body language, portraits paint an interesting picture. Decisions are made, but by whom? Is it the artist that chooses each pose, picks the expression and choregraphs gestures, or the artist's sitter? And, if the latter, are these decisions made consciously or not? Whilst we don’t usually have the answers, we do know that these decisions reveal much about status and how it is projected. Art can tell us something about the body language of that time. It may be culturally interesting or shine a light on the era’s attitudes, and it’s likely to have been created to represent the sitter in a manner that they (or the artist) wants them to be seen, often this is as a person of high status. Having a quality portrait painted was usually the privilege of the upper classes and artists had ways of representing this position, using the subject’s nonverbals to tell a story. Dominant, high status people take up space, and this includes vertically through an erect posture, a...

After parting from our ape cousins some six million years ago, us humans have evolved easily readable faces. Hairless where we need them to be - the forehead and area around the eyes - we are able to recognise one another, read each other’s emotions and spot intentions, helped by our elongated eyes with their exposed sclera (the white bit) making gaze direction visible. We also use our easily readable faces to emit our own feelings to others. However, we wrongly use people’s faces to make snap judgments about their character , it’s a mistake we can’t help. Our brains have not adapted to our age.   Konner (1982) [1] suggested that our interest in faces originally adapted to unravel kinship. In other words, from an early age, we are on the lookout for the presence or not of shared ancestry. It’s true that babies are drawn to faces, and from two-days-old they can recognise their mother’s face, staring longer at it (and a caregiver’s) than a stranger’s, as demonstrated by Bushnell e...

Looking out at an audience, do you see legs being stretched? (as the audience loses interest) or perhaps chins are being lightly stroked, heads titled? (signs of contemplation). Let’s look at how to decode an audience. In a normal conversation, the speaker hears audible back-channelling signals such as ‘uh-huh’, ‘yeah’ and ‘mmm’. When addressing an audience however there may be muted audible back-channelling, especially if the talk elicits no laughs, but the back-channels are being used, you just need to know what to look for.  First off, It is important to acknowledge that any audience is made up of a group of individuals, each with different interests, attention spans and moods. To that end, any one action, even an individual falling asleep, is a distraction best ignored by the speaker. Instead, they should be looking for patterns of behaviour that can help them understand the predominant feeling of the group, allowing for adaptation.  And, as with de...

G Gait A person's manner of walking. A person’s walking style reflects their mood, attitude and personality, and alters to reflect changing emotions, so it’s worth looking at changes in gait. Expect a livelier gait when in the presence of a sexually attractive person. When feeling confident and assertive strides have more purpose with a firm but relaxed gait. Swinging arms, especially that rotate across the body, shows youth, vigour and masculinity. Rolling hips show female sexuality. If a person is sad or worried you can almost see the weight on their shoulders. Even when speaking on the phone whilst walking, people tend to base their gait upon the tone and rhythm of the conversation.  Gaze behaviour High status people engage in more eye contact. In conversation, most people make more eye contact whilst listening (70% of the time) and less when talking (30%). We generally like eye contact, a show of attention, but making eye contact can be stressful so when taxed we ten...