Can I Trust You? How To Use Body Language To Create Trustworthiness
Christopher Philip
Research led by Dr. David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, has found the key nonverbal cues which we use to detail a person who is trustworthy and who is not.
Until recently, how and why we trust others has relied on speculation and observation. Not being able to tease apart one cue from the next in an objective way has created a deficit in our ability to distinguish the types of body language gestures which help build trust.
To take this one step further, it was commonly thought that touching the nose and hiding the hands such as stuffing them into the pocket, were definitive cues that a person was lying.
Turns out, though, that this might indeed be the case.
In the study, Dr. DeSteno had participants play an economic game which could be played cooperatively, selfishly or in a distrustful manner. Half of the games were played face-to-face and the other half played remotely over the Internet. Those participants who interacted face-to-face were videotaped from three camera angles.
Overall, the two groups were comparatively similar in levels of cooperation experienced regardless of how they interacted. However, accuracy of perceived trustworthiness was much greater for those interacted while facing each other.
The researchers then broke down the gestures which tended to predict lack of trustworthiness to come up with four main cues:
1. Bringing the hands together
2. Touching your own face
3. Crossing your arms
4. Leaning away
The more each of these gestures were performed, the less a participant was trusted.
To reaffirm the findings and to eliminate any confounding variables which may have arisen due to other nonverbal cues, he enlisted the help of a robot called Nexi.
One group of participants then viewed Nexi programmed to display the gestures associated with lack of trust, while another saw more neutral gestures.
The results showed that the aforementioned cues were indeed predicative of lack of trust.
“Certain nonverbal gestures trigger emotional reactions we’re not consciously aware of, and these reactions are enormously important for understanding how interpersonal relationships develop,” said Frank. “The fact that a robot can trigger the same reactions confirms the mechanistic nature of many of the forces that influence human interaction.”
Let’s break down each cue a little further:
1. Hand Touching. This cue has been frequently cited as a cue of dishonesty. Bringing the hands together is a way to cut the body off from others as a shield. It has also been tied to a lack of confidence as in the needing of a security blanket or to comfort the self as a self-soothing gesture.
2. Face Touching. This cue is another one that has been routinely linked to distrust and also lack of self-confidence. When people are unsure of themselves, they will frequently perform self-adjustment and self-soothing gestures which often involve auto manipulation of the face, ears, nose and so forth. Regardless of their predictive values, touching the face does not create the impression of trustworthiness.
3. Crossing Your Arms. Crossing your arms has been shown to boost persistence and performance on difficult tasks. However, as viewed from an outsider, this might be seen as defiant and distant as it blocks the visceral organs of the body. When compared to outstretched arms or arms that are neutral at the sides of the body, we see the noticeable difference.
4. Leaning Away. Leaning away shows other people that we are not engaged and desire to flee. On the other hand, when people lean in, they show that they are immersed in the conversation or task. This is a classic way people show that they are to be trusted.
Overall, the research shows that we ascribe moral intentions to body language. Amazingly, this is so regardless of whether we are viewing real people or robots. This shows just how deeply rooted our sense of nonverbal communication is set into our cognition.
Resources
DeSteno, D.; Breazeal, C.; Frank, R. H.; Pizarro, D.; Baumann, J.; Dickens, L, and Lee, J. Detecting the Trustworthiness of Novel Partners in Economic Exchange. Psychological Science. 2019. 23, 1549-1556.