Tag Archive for Control

Setting Someone Up To Be Read

by  • March 6, 2013 • 0 Comments

The following is a sequence by which lying can be more effectively read as outlined by Joe Navarro in his book What everybody is saying. Navarro follows a more interrogative style which will work in some circumstances, but it limited in others.

When trying to read someone for truth-telling, have an open view of their body to be able to see any signs of comfort and discomfort as they may arise.

When trying to read someone for truth-telling, have an open view of their body to be able to see any signs of comfort and discomfort as they may arise.

1. Get a clear unobstructed view of the person you wish to read so you don’t miss any pacifying behaviours. If possible put people in an open space.
2. Expect some nervous and stressful body language especially pacifying behaviours. People are expected to calm themselves at all times even when no lying is being done.
3. Expect initial nervousness. When someone is questioned they will feel tension regardless of their level of guilt.
4. If possible have the person you wish to read to first relax. With time everyone relaxes, even guilty people so if you can put off asking important questions or build rapport, do so.
5. Look to establish a baseline. This is especially important if you don’t know the person you are questioning all that well. Look for cues they use normally especially mannerisms and pacifiers.
6. As you begin questioning, watch for an increased use of pacifiers. This will be especially telling when they seem to increase dramatically during specific questions or when certain topics arise. When they arise, it will provide clues as to which information requires further investigation.
7. Pause frequently after asking questions. It is important to avoid putting out too many questions all at once because it will only serve to create stress. Give the person you are trying to read enough time to think and answer questions so as to avoid false positives.
8. Stay on task and maintain focus. When people feel stress they often want to change the subject matter or avoid questions. If a person gets the opportunity to change the subject their will emit fewer nonverbal tells of deception because when people speak they get to choose and control the topic.
9. Chatter is not truth. Listening to one side of the story often produces a bias and on the surface, the more we listen to people, the more we tend to trust and believe what they tell us. Advertising campaigns work through a similar mechanism as the more we hear the message, the more we think it to be true. Eventually, if we hear messages enough time, they work into our subconsciousness to become “ours”, they re-write our reality. When people present a huge amount of information about a topic, they appear to be telling the truth, however this is not always the case as even creative liars can go at lengths to produce elaborate and believable lies. It is not the amount of information provided that matters, but rather the accuracy of the information which can only come through verification of the facts.
10. Stress in and stress out. There are two times when stressful nonverbals are emitted, once when the question is asked which can appear like distancing behaviours such as arms and foot withdrawl and then again when pacifying is needed to calm. These come out as neck touching, stroking the hair and so forth.
11. Isolate the cause of stress. Is stress due to being asked stressful questions, or because someone is being interrogated. Not all stressful nonverbal language is due to lying and often people that are honest, show nervous language.
12. Pacifiers tell us a lot. Pacifying body language tells us when someone is stressed which tells us which scenarios, questions or information has created it. It therefore follows that pacifying cues tell us which areas require more thorough investigation.

Deception Causes Arousal, Generally

by  • March 6, 2013 • 0 Comments

While he COULD be lying, it's much more likely that he's actually anxious. We instinctively (and wrongfully) link anxiety with lying, when in fact good liars often feel no anxiety whatsoever when they lie, and honest people feel anxiety when they think they will be disbelieved.

While he COULD be lying, it’s much more likely that he’s actually anxious. We instinctively (and wrongfully) link anxiety with lying, when in fact good liars often feel no anxiety whatsoever when they lie, and honest people feel anxiety when they think they will be disbelieved.

It is a widely held belief that emotional arousal and stress, is strongly tied with lying. It is also at the heart of the polygraph or lie detector. Here, autonomic responses which happen in our bodies without our conscious control such as sweating or ‘skin conductivity’ is measured as well as increases in heart rate and breathing. It is assumed that when lies occur, stress related behaviours increase. Lie detector machines measure a baseline, that is, they take readings when lying is known to occur and compare it to readings when lying is thought to occur. By reading the differences, lying should become obvious.

We can use similar methods to read arousal without the help of the polygraph. Watching for an increase in adaptors, shifting, subtle movements, touching or scratching the face, neck or nose can show us that someone is uncomfortable. What it won’t show us is the reason for the discomfort. By grilling someone for the truth, this is often enough to cause someone to feel stress thereby creating the behaviour instead of uncovering it. Other clues to an increase in stress includes an increase in eye blinking, changes in posture, avoiding eye contact and foot and leg movement. It is important to always put fear of lying and arousal into context. Someone with little fear, little to gain or loose, or in other words, ‘when the stakes are low’ wont show any of these signals. Aside from this lack of tell, it is important to realize that body language cues, especially lying language is not a result directly of lying, but rather an indication of the stress, fear and anxiety that may or may not be present when lying.

Other Complex Seating Arrangements

by  • March 6, 2013 • 0 Comments

See text for explanation.

See text for explanation.

It is possible to create a highly influential seating arrangement when we wish to influence a particularly important, but as yet undecided individual. The first person or the main presenter (Pr) should sit head-on with the “object” in the face-to-face competitive position (Ob). This competitive position aligns the “object” with the person he most expects to object with. Next, we add an affiliate (Af) to the objects left or right, that is, at the casual corner position to act as a friend, or to their side in the cooperative position (Co). The subconscious effect can be powerful if the positions are matched with the outlooks they should hold. That is, the cooperative position should play the advocate against the competitive position in cooperation with the object, except (of course) showing a bias towards agreement with the competitive position.

The affiliate can also “bait” the competitive position and control the conversation by giving up relevant points without sounding pushy. This person can demonstrate ‘the other side of the coin’ and work through the dialogue saving the object from having to voice negative positions himself. This saves him from going through counterproductive mental reasoning that can prove a damaging exercise. Powerful negotiators can use the affiliate to blow the argument out of proportion thereby forcing the object to side with the competitor and bridge the original argument. Obviously this isn’t a simple strategy and requires some advanced preparation, but when it is an important matter it is justified, not to mention fun!

Relaxed Body Language

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

We relax when we don't feel an immediate threat.

We relax when we don’t feel an immediate threat.

Identifying relaxed body language helps us find people that belong, or that feel they belong, in a given situation. Those that are relaxed do so in environments they “own” and control and the higher is a persons’ status, the more diverse will be these environments, although situational novelty also plays a major role in comfort. Even low status people have a variety of locations in which they feel relaxed because being relaxed is a function of feeling that no threat is present and this is based largely on experience. Someone ridding a subway for the first time, for example, will be tensed and show rigid body postures like a coiled spring. They will be looking around at the subway signs and various indicators, and the people around them. It is impossible to be and look relaxed when the senses are on alert, when we’re keen to watch for signals of danger suspecting that all noises around us could indicate imminent danger. Someone that rides the subway daily won’t notice the signs and sounds around them, just like a highway driver zones out for the majority of the drive only to find out somehow he has arrived at his destination. Subway riders might even be so relaxed that they doze off on their route or become engrossed in a newspaper or magazine and miss their stop.

Relaxed body language is any body language that lacks muscle tension, the body is loose and the arms and legs move freely and naturally swaying with any motion. The torso may sag slightly to one side, or slump, but is not held by irregular tension. Thus, the body holds regular open body postures, with the arms and legs uncrossed. A leg might even be tucked under the body, to be sat on, showing that one is not prepared to leave and doesn’t expect to be caught off-guard. Breathing is steady and slow and can even become deep showing even more relaxation. Smiles happen in coordination with the eyes and the lips are not simply stretching across the face. The eyebrows are stable or move along with speech rather than frowning and the eyes gaze rather than stare and blink at a regular rate. The forehead will have no tension and we should watch for wrinkles which is an easy give-away to tension. Lines and wrinkles in the forehead quickly showing fear. Lastly, the skin colour is normal, not red showing embarrassment or anger, and isn’t pale with fear.

Space And Eye Contact

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

Eye contact avoidance tells others that we aren't interested in what's being sold.

Eye contact avoidance tells others that we aren’t interested in what’s being sold.

You can imagine that strangers walking about in public want to maintain a certain degree of separation between one another. This can and is achieved through eye contact. Reducing or preventing eye contact is a way to tell other people that they wish to maintain their space and privacy, and do not wish to communicate with others. Eye contact is a function of intimacy and has been referred to as part of the equilibrium state. That is, eye contact is one component that controls the degree of intimacy, the other is distance. By controlling one or the other, or both, we can control aspects of our equilibrium state, or intimacy, such as whether it will start at all, and how or when it should end. You can imagine that full intimacy can not happen at great distances although telephones and web technology attempt to do otherwise. Each fails miserably and does intimacy no justice.

As distance increases, intimacy decreases so you can imagine that strangers would feel freer to glare at others from say, across the road, but as they near the point at which they intersect they will drop or avert their eyes so as to eliminate intimacy. Therefore, that which gives permission for staring is distance and that which protects intimacy is eye contact. To have real intimacy both proximity and eye contact must be present. By this argument, city people aren’t rude at all, they are just doing what is normal, avoiding unwanted intimacy from strangers. Rural settings where there is a real possibility that you actually know the person on the street, or know a relative of the person is large, so intimacy is not only permitted by also safe. Eye contact in the city can send the wrong message to the wrong person inviting unwanted contact.

To illustrate this point imagine a women who is happily married but otherwise attractive to men. Upon entering a coffee shop, she turns the heads of men. When she notices that she is being watched, she averts her gaze and instead of making eye contact she ‘looks over the heads of others’ or possibly even looking down her nose at them by tilting her head backward showing disapproval. She sends a disinterested message, an “I’m taken.” If startled, she might inadvertently make eye contact with a stranger but she will instinctively drop her head and avert her gaze sideways, being careful to make no emotion facial expressions. In doing so, she avoids emitting the wrong message and therefore prevents unwanted solicitation. Men are often victims of assuming any eye contact is flirtatious, even if it happens by accident, thus women are generally careful of whom they look at directly. Some women learn this through a bad experience; others seem to know it instinctively. Men can test this out for themselves by trying to secure eye contact with women as they pass them on the street. Men are rarely able to secure eye contact from strangers and it’s usually not for a lack of trying.

Adaptors

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

Is he hot under the collar or is the collar simply uncomfortable?

Is he hot under the collar or is the collar simply uncomfortable?

Adaptors are movements or gestures that are used to manage our feelings or control our responses. Adaptors include movements done to improve comfort or reduce stress and often happen at such a low level they usually escape awareness. Adaptors include movements such as shifting in a chair or postural changes, crossing the legs, pulling at a shirt collar, adjusting a tie, loosening clothing and so forth.

What is interesting to researchers is that some adaptors serve a real purpose and others indicate stress. For example, sometimes our pants really are uncomfortable so we scratch our legs, other times the stress from outside pressure causes us to scratch in an effort to displace energy and distract us. Crossing the legs toward your date might be read as an indicator of interest, but might instead serve to alleviate numbness from loss of circulation. Children will rub their eyes repeatedly when tired, but this is not because they become itchy!

Scratching the nose is another example of an adaptor and could be misread as an indicator of a lying or might actually serve to relieve an itch. Another common adaptor used by adults is the head-grooming gesture where the hand messages the back of the neck or head to relive stress. This gesture is not an authentic gesture motivated by a physical purpose. Rather it used as a method to achieve comfort when facing discomfort applied from the outside. Just about every cue related to body language can be an adaptor. Arm crossing, leg crossing, scratching, fidgeting, twitching, rubbing the eyes, and so on, are all part of the human repertoire and not all have hidden meaning all of the time.

A gestures that indicates anxiety rather than a targeted scratch.

A gestures that indicates anxiety rather than a targeted scratch.

It is the job of the body language reader to decide which movements are motivated by a real physical purpose and which are motivated by an underlying emotional purpose. Usually stress release methods are person specific so once they are detected can be reliable as predictors in future encounters. Some might pull an ear lobe, rub one’s throat, pull on a collar or scratch the back of the hands. I will say that it’s usually pretty obvious when a gesture like scratching is real because it is targeted, quick, non-repetitive and provides instant relief, but when it’s as a response to emotional trauma, it show opposite characteristics. It is general in nature, perpetual, repetitive and provides no discernable relief (at least not instantaneously). The context, meaning high or low stress environment provides strong clues to the purpose of the adaptors. All proper body language reads should take context into consideration.

As we see, movements or adaptors come in two forms. They either have hidden meaning, or they do not. Plenty of emphasis has been given by researchers on these subconscious clues on the grounds that they would unlock secrets. However, the importance placed on adaptors is probably overstated and oversimplified. The real goal of the body language reader is to decipher the difference between adaptors with no meaning and movements and gestures that have actual meaning. Adaptors in cross-cultural meetings can also be potential landmines. For example, emblems, specifically because they are culturally engrained, are emitted without conscious thought. Many Arabic countries see the sole of the foot or the figure-four-leg cross as offensive and rude (an emblem of sorts to them) so they may classify a Westerner as something they intent not to be. It is clear to the Westerner that they wish only to take up a more comfortable seating position. The take-away message is to treat adaptors with the care they deserve instead of jumping to inaccurate, embarrassing or even disastrous conclusions.

The Benefits Of Subconscious Mirroring

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

If you haven't yawned yet, you've at least had to suppress it!

If you haven’t yawned yet, you’re active mind is working hard to suppress it!

The more attention we give to an action during observation, the more likely we are to copy the behaviour. Take traveling abroad, for example, where a constant exposure to accents eventually sees us adopting it presumably to fit in better. It’s been shown too, that the more we imitate other people, the more we tend to like them and presumably the more they like us. It works in reverse as well since the more we like them the more we imitate them. Mirroring and imitation therefore is a salient characteristic in our nonverbal communication and shows others that we like and are connecting with them.

In 2000 Swedish researcher Dr. Ulf Dimberg exposed volunteers to frowning, smiling and expressionless faces. They were then told to react to them in various ways. When they saw a smiling face, they were sometimes asked to smile back and other times to frown back. The researchers found that it was difficult for the subjects to remain expressionless to a face that appeared happy or angry and even more difficult to smile at sad faces or make sad faces at laughing faces. The theory was advanced that our unconscious minds exerts much more control over our faces then we think. While it was somewhat possible to control the subject’s reactions, it required a great deal of mental power to reverse their natural tendencies. The study showed that even when we could control our emotions, minute spontaneous twitches still revealed true responses, and in every case, mirroring was the natural tendency.

The research on the reasoning behind the mirror reflex remains obscure for the moment, but this doesn’t mean we should ignore it. In fact, we should be very careful about our facial expressions and gestures since they will necessarily have a profound effect on others. Our expressions and body gestures illicit similar responses from others, so if we want to make people happy, we should smile more and use more expressive body language. In turn, others around us will naturally mimic our gestures.