Update on Nonverbal Communication and Lie Detection
A quick word first
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Back in March, I posted a cautionary article about the difficult challenge of detecting lies. Plain and simple, most of us are bad at it. And that makes us vulnerable twice over. We may fall for swindlers who make empty promises and distrust others who are being completely honest with us.
In that piece I recommended the work of Paul Ekman who shares that view, backed up by his lifetime of research.1 Yesterday he posted a new blog explaining how three types of behaviors are commonly misread:
Manipulator gestures are movements in which one body part “manipulates” another part of the body (scratching, grooming, massaging etc.)
Illustrator gestures provide emphasis while people speak. As Paul puts it, they draw pictures in the air.
Emblem gestures are movements that have precise meanings known within an ethnic, cultural, or group. Emblems are used as consciously as spoken words. They even can be substituted for speech.
The shrug in this picture suggests, without any text, “I don’t know. Why are you asking me?” As it happens, that person is Charles Darwin, author of (among other things) The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
Back to Paul Ekman. In his blog he reports that truthful people who show many manipulator gestures are often mistakenly judged as liars. One error is failing to account for individual differences in behavior. Some people are just more physically expressive than others are. Moreover, correctly spotting an emotion doesn’t tell you what triggered it. Someone may be anxious because they’re lying, but it could that they’re being truthful yett sense that you don’t believe them.
Paul’s blog is relatively short, maybe a three or four minute read, including a brief video. Check it out. Here’s the link again for the blog.
Survey reminder!
The survey for the “Rock and a Hard Place” scenario (about using a hardball bargaining tactic) closes Sunday midnight, June 27. Once again I’m seeing a big split among readers on what’s the right thing to do. Here’s the link where you can enter your choice and add comments (anonymously if you like). I’ll report and analyze the results in Tuesday’s article. Thanks! Mike
I’ve met Paul once and never have had a business relationship with him. I have used some of his training materials in my MBA course, with great success.