Body Language in Business Part 9

2. Note disparities between the verbal and nonverbal behaviors. Consider possible explanations for their occurrence, but remember that lying is not the only possible one.

3. If you know a person well, pay attention to any changes that do not match their normal behavior. Consider reasons for such differences. Again, bear in mind that lying is not the only explanation for these deviations.

4. Lying should only be concluded if all other explanations have been successfully rejected.

5. The person in question should be allowed to talk. It will help you to look for those verbalnonverbal mismatches, thus confirming or disconfirming hypotheses. It also makes it harder for the suspect to monitor their behavior as when talking they have to attend both to what they are saying and to how they saying it, thus giving the game away. However, Vrij warns that the very act of questioning might produce changes in behavior.

6. Most frequently cited nonverbal cues of deception, such as gaze aversion or restlessness, have not been confirmed as very dependable deception markers. Vrij suggests using them as a guide to lying, but reminds us to take into account individual differences. Some people will show more of the "cla.s.sic" cues when lying, while others may not exhibit any of them at all.

THE CLUES TO DECEIT.

People communicate using verbal, vocal and visual cues. The words they choose, their voice quality and numerous body cues all provide information about their emotional and cognitive state, and whether they may be lying. The lie-catcher needs to notice and interpret these manifold and subtle cues. Expert, professional lie-catchers differ from the (often misguided) amateur by the cues they look for, the trust they have in these, and the way they are interpreted.

Liars leak deceit. Most try hard to cover up their deceit, but it is difficult to control words, voice, face, feet and hands all at the same time. The voice and the face carry important cues. Vrij (2000, p. 33) has identified seventeen nonverbal behaviors that may be directly related to lying: Overview and descriptions of the nonverbal behaviors: Vocal characteristics 1. Speech hesitations: use of the words 'ah', 'um', 'er', and so on.

2. Speech errors: word and/or sentence repet.i.tion, sentence change, sentence incompletions, slips of the tongue, and so on.

3. Pitch of voice: changes in pitch of voice, such as a rise or fall in pitch.

4. Speech rate: number of spoken words in a certain period of time.

5. Latency period: period of silence between question and answer.

6. Frequency of pauses: frequency of silent periods during speech.

7. Pause durations: length of silent periods during speech.

Facial characteristics 8. Gaze: looking at the face of the conversation partner.

9. Smile: smiling and laughing.

10. Blinking: blinking of the eyes.

Movements 11. Self-manipulations: scratching the head, wrists, and so on.

12. Ill.u.s.trators: functional hand and arm movements designed to modify and/or supplement what is being said verbally.

13. Hand and finger movements: non-functional movements of hands or fingers without moving the arms.

14. Leg and foot movements: movements of the feet and legs.

15. Head movements: head nods and head shakes.

16. Trunk movements: movements of the trunk (usually accompanied by head movements).

17. s.h.i.+fting position: movements made to change the sitting position (usually accompanied by trunk and foot/leg movements).

Vrij (2000, p. 104) also gives seven specific verbal indicators that often relate to lying (see Table 5.1).

Experts in the area, such as Ekman (2001), have stressed facial clues to deceit and how facial expressions can serve a lie, but also provide manifold, and very subtle, cues to the truth. He argues that the face can show which emotion is being felt: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, distress, happiness, contentment, excitement, surprise and contempt can all be conveyed by distinctive expressions. The face can also show whether two emotions are blended together often two emotions are felt and the face registers elements of each. The face also shows the strength of the felt emotion each emotion can vary in intensity, from annoyance to rage, apprehension to terror and so on (p. 125).

People, through growing up, learn facial display rules. But to the skilled observer there are a range of micro-expressions which yield the emotions behind them. There are a number of technical terms that help to describe expressions. For example, a "squelched" expression is where one (possibly natural) expression is masked or covered by another. Experts look for asymmetrical facial expressions which show up on only one side of the face, the exact location of these expressions, the timing of the expression (with both words and other expressions).

TABLE 5.1 Seven specific verbal indicators that often relate to lying To experts such as Ekman, the face really is the mirror of the soul. He believes one can distinguish between eighteen different types of smile from the contemptuous, dampened and miserable to the flirtatious, embarra.s.sed and compliant. He also doc.u.ments some of the characteristics that often accompany particular lies. False smiles are often inappropriate (when they occur, how long they last); they are often asymmetrical, they are not accompanied by the involvement of the many muscles around the eye, and they only cover the actions of the lower face and lower eyelid.

Ekman (2001) concluded: The face may contain many different clues to deceit: micros, squelched expressions, leakage in the reliable facial muscles, blinking, pupil dilation, tearing, blus.h.i.+ng and blanching, asymmetry, mistakes in timing, mistakes in location, and false smiles. Some of these clues provide leakage, betraying concealed information; others provide deception clues indicating that something is being concealed but not what; and others mark an expression to be false.

These facial signs of deceit ... vary in the precision of the information they convey. Some clues to deceit reveal exactly which emotion is actually felt, even though the liar tries to conceal that feeling. Other clues to deceit reveal only whether the emotion concealed is positive or negative and don't reveal exactly which negative emotion or which positive emotion the liar feels. Still other clues are even more undifferentiated, betraying only that the liar feels some emotion but not revealing whether the concealed feeling is positive or negative. That may be enough. Knowing that some emotion is felt sometimes can suggest that a person is lying, if the situation is one in which except for lying the person would not be likely to feel any emotion at all. Other times a lie won't be betrayed without more precise information about which concealed emotion is felt. It depends upon the lie, the line taken by the person suspected of lying, the situation, and the alternative explanations available, apart from lying, to account for why an emotion might be felt but concealed. (p. 161).

Experts, pundits and researchers they are not necessarily the same are often called on by the media to help a.n.a.lyze whether a (famous) person is telling the truth. The recent public inquiry into the war in Iraq has seen many high-profile politicians being scrutinised on record. Usually, all the experts have to rely on are brief video-clips.

There are some facts that are clearly true about lying: 1. You can observe stress signals produced by the autonomic nervous system: dry mouth; sweaty palms; shallow, uneven breathing; "tickly" nose and throat; blus.h.i.+ng or blanching. These are observable when someone is under stress whether he or she is lying or not. It is very easy to confuse the two. Most people in interviews are, initially at any rate, anxious. Psychopaths are brilliant liars because they don't suffer guilt and thus do not become anxious when lying.

2. People are less conscious of their feet or legs: the further you are from the face the nearer you get to the truth. Sudden changes in foot-tapping, pointing feet to the exit ("I want to get out of here"), and simultaneous tight arm and foot-crossing have all been taken to indicate lying. Yet active extroverts fidget more, as do young children. Foot movements may be as reliable an index of boredom as they are of lying. The frequent crossing of legs may simply indicate an uncomfortable chair. It is critically important to look at the synchronicity between what is being said and changes in nonverbal behavior during the conversation.

3. Posture is more sincere than gesture: it can be seen to be more unnatural and more forced when people lie. Because people seem less aware of their total posture, they may secretly signal various desires (to leave, for example) or that they are holding back the truth. However, the shape and comfort of furniture naturally have something to do with it.

4. Give-away, expansive gestures decline: because they feel they may be caught out, liars tend to sit on their hands, fold their arms, clasp their hands together. The lack of spontaneity may be an index of lying or fear the fear of being caught. And some people are simply not as gesturally expressive as others.

5. s.h.i.+fty gazes: when children are lying they look down or away. They look guilty but do not look you in the eye. Many an innocent person has been accused of lying because they avoid eye contact. But people avoid eye contact for many different reasons perhaps they feel uncertain about their opinions, they are trying to remember facts, or they feel social embarra.s.sment. Indeed, it is impolite in some cultures to look someone in the eye. And as we shall see, some liars are caught because, knowing this "rule", they stare too much. In this sense they "protested" too much and hence got caught.

Considerable and impressive research has been carried out on lying. The research may involve video-taping people when they are known to be lying as well as when they are known to be telling the truth. From an a.n.a.lysis of their "normal" non-lying interpersonal style, one can see the difference when they are lying. And one can vary the type of lie involved to see whether this makes any difference. One can perform these studies on men versus women, professionals versus tradespeople; those labelled neurotic versus the stable and so on, to look at individual difference patterns.

However, there is no hard and fast practice regarding catching liars. At interview it is good to relax people (to get them off their guard) and then to talk as much as possible. The more that is said, the greater the number of opportunities to be caught.

Collett (2003) used the concept of "tell" to specify signals or actions that "tell you" what somebody is thinking, even if that person does not know it themselves: * Detection Tells. Whereas most people believe they are good at detecting lies, the opposite appears to be the case. They seem to fail at this all-important skill for five reasons. First, people prefer blissful ignorance, not wanting to admit that the other person is lying. Next, people set their detection threshold very high, but highly suspicious people might set it very low. Third, people who rely on intuition and "gut feelings" do not do as well as those who look for clues to deception. Fourth, people forget that all behaviors have multiple causes and that there are few single, simple indicators of lying. Finally, people look in the wrong places and for the wrong cues fidgeting as opposed to smiling, for example. Collett then considered cla.s.sic lying tells: * Eye tells. People know about gaze patterns and control them, but continuous rapid blinking and unusually intent staring may be signs of lying.

* Body tells. Despite popular belief, hand movements and fidgeting are under conscious control and therefore unreliable indexes of lying. However, other neglected things such as leg and foot movements and self-touching are better indicators. Further, just as many liars appear to freeze rather than become increasingly animated when lying.

* Nose tells. Touching the nose really represents covering the mouth. The "Pinocchio syndrome" may simply be a result of anxiety and it remains unclear whether vasoconstriction (blood draining from the face/nose) or vasodilatation (blood increasing in the face/nose) occurs when people lie.

* Masking tells. These are masks (often smiles) that people use to cover or mask their negative feelings about lying. The straight or crypto-relaxed face masks seem to work best.

* Smiling tells. Smiles are used extensively by experienced liars because they both make others feel positive and also tend to make others less suspicious about the liar. But there are many types of smile blended, miserable, counterfeit. Clues to the counterfeit smile lie in the duration (they last longer), a.s.sembly (they are put together and dismantled more quickly), location (confined to the lower part of the face) and symmetry (they are less symmetrical).

* Micro tells: These are very fast, short-lived, micro-momentous expressions that are difficult to see live but can be seen on a secondby-second videotape playback. They may relate to tension release or anger, or a whole range of emotions a.s.sociated with lying.

* Talking tells. Despite the fact that most people believe nonverbal cues are better than verbal cues to lying, in fact the reverse appears to be true. Collett (2003) lists eleven of these: 1. Circ.u.mlocution: beating around the bush with long-winded digression.

2. Outlining: broad-brush, detail-free account. Liars rarely expand when asked, while truth-tellers do.

3. Smoke-screens: confusing, non-sensible statements.

4. Negatives: liars are more likely to use negative statements.

5. Word-choice: fewer self references (I, me) and more generalizations (everybody, always).

6. Disclaimers: excessive use of "I know this sounds strange", "Let me a.s.sure you" and "You won't believe this, but...".

7. Formality: becoming more tense and formal, liars say things like "do not" instead of "don't".

8. Tense: liars use the past tense more to distance themselves from the events they are describing.

9. Speed: liars slow down because of the strain on their various capacities.

10. Pause: liars pause more, with more traditional dysfluencies, like "um" and "er".

11. Pitch: this rises with emotion.

Collett (2003) provides the would-be lie-catcher with some good advice see the box below.

Although there is no guaranteed method of detecting lies, there are certain things that you can do to increase your chances of spotting a liar: * To detect a lie successfully you need to set your criteria so that they're neither too high nor too low. That way you'll avoid coming to the conclusion that n.o.body ever tells a lie, or that everybody lies all the time.

* Where possible, the actions that someone performs while they are supposedly lying should be compared with how they behave when they are telling the truth.

* To be a good lie detector you should also concentrate on behavior that falls outside conscious control or that people are likely to ignore.

* Given the opportunity, focus your attention on what people say and how they say it, rather than on what they do.

* It's important to work out whether the lie is likely to be spontaneous or rehea.r.s.ed, and whether it's a high-stakes or a low-stakes lie. When the stakes are low or the lie has been rehea.r.s.ed, the task of detecting the lie is much more difficult.

* To spot a lie you should always focus on a broad range of behavioral and speech clues. If you think you can spot a liar on the basis of a single clue, you're deceiving yourself. (Collett, 2003, pp. 23940) Despite numerous popular books and articles available that seem to imply you can "read people like a book" and it is relatively easy to catch liars, experts in the field say the precise opposite. One's ability to detect lies is multifaceted and problematic. In short, it depends on the nature of the lie, the personality and experience of both the liar and the person trying to detect the lie, and the context/situation in which the lie is told.

Ekman (2001) sums up ways of unmasking a liar (see the box below).

Success in distinguis.h.i.+ng when a person is lying and when a person is telling the truth is highest when: * The lie is being told for the first time; * The person has not told this type of lie before; * The stakes are high most importantly the threat of severe punishment; * The interviewer is truly open-minded, and does not jump to conclusions quickly; * The interviewer knows how to encourage the interviewee to tell his or her story (the more words spoken the better the chance of distinguis.h.i.+ng lies from truthfulness); * The interviewer and interviewee come from the same cultural background and speak the same language; * The interviewer regards the clues as hot spots, marking where it is important to get more information, rather than as proof of lying; * The interviewer is aware of the difficulties of identifying the truthful, innocent person who is under suspicion of having committed an offence. (Ekman, 2001, p. 8) From other research, Furnham (2000) pointed out that there are both verbal and nonverbal cues to deceit and that, contrary to popular belief, verbal (those related to the actual message) and vocal (those related to the quality of voice) cues may be as accurate and sensitive an index as body language. Indeed, it is precisely because liars believe there is more potential to catch them through their body than their voice that they concentrate too much on their body language and not what they are saying or how they are saying it.

How do professional lie-catchers (such as the police, customs officers) go about catching liars? Vrij (2000, p. 80) lists the cues police detectives typically pay attention to when trying to catch liars: * Appearance, such as being untidily dressed * Publicly self-conscious * Socially anxious * Display increased hand movements * Are less cooperative * Smile less.

There are some simple but important points to bear in mind when trying to catch liars: * Establish base-rate behavior. What is the person like when they are normal, relaxed and telling the truth? Give people time to relax and see what they are like when it is unlikely that they are lying. Some people fidget more than others. Neurotic people are more anxious than more stable individuals most of the time. There are numerous idiosyncratic but stable nonverbal behavioral differences between individuals. It is too easy to mistake particular signs, such as sweating or avoiding eye gaze, as a betrayal of anxiety and a function of lying when it is perfectly normal everyday behavior for that person.

* Look for sudden changes in verbal, vocal or visual behavior such as movements. It is when behavior noticeably alters that it is most meaningful.

* Note any mismatch between what is being said and how it is being said, as well as any differences in anxiety level as certain topics are raised. When the eyes, the voice and the words spoken are not in emotional synchrony, it may well be a very good sign of lying. A forced smile or laugh to accompany the carefully prepared verbal line can be a powerful indicator that "something interesting is going on".

* Formulate a hypothesis as to the cause: what is the person lying about; what is the sensitive issue? Not everything is a lie. Why should they be lying about some issues and not others?

* Test the theory by bringing up a particular topic (in the area of the lies) and see if the nonverbal pattern recurs. If there are persistent indicators of discomfort when particular topics are reintroduced into the conversation, one may a.s.sume a stronger possibility of lying.

The bottom-line, however, is that, even for the trained expert, it is often very difficult to detect lying. There are video-tapes of famous spies lying; of murderers who pretend to be victims appealing for help; of politicians telling bare-faced lies in video close-ups, and they succeed in fooling hundreds of people. Even the mechanical lie-detector can be relatively easily fooled. Studies using it have shown that when misdiagnosis occurs it is much more likely that an innocent person is judged to be guilty than the other way round. So beware the person who claims to be good at spotting liars at interview. It could be true ... or itself a self-delusional porkie!

But experts caution against feeling confident, particularly in the hard job of distinguis.h.i.+ng between "disbelieving-the-truth" or "believing a lie". Clearly, the absence of a sign of deceit is not evidence of the truth. One problem, as noted above, is ever-present idiosyncratic individual differences. See the comments by Ekman (2001) in the box below.

It is not deviousness that causes some people to be judged lying when they are truthful but a quirk in their behavior, an idiosyncracy in their expressive style. What for most people might be a clue to deceit is not for such a person. Some people: * Are indirect and circ.u.mlocutious in their speech; * Speak with many or short or long pauses between words; * Make many speech errors; * Use few ill.u.s.trators; * Make many body manipulators; * Often show signs of fear, distress, or anger in their facial expressions, regardless of how they actually feel; * Show asymmetrical facial expressions.

There are enormous differences among individuals in all of these behaviors; and these differences produce not only disbelieving-the-truth but also believing-a-lie mistakes. Calling the truthful person who characteristically speaks indirectly a liar is a disbelieving-thetruth mistake; calling the lying smooth-talker truthful is a believinga-lie mistake. Even though such a talker's speech when lying may become more indirect and have more errors, it may escape notice because it still is so much smoother than speech usually is for most people. (Ekman, 2001, p. 166) How easy is it to determine whether somebody is lying? Which factors make it easier for the liar to avoid detection, and which make it easier for the detective to catch the liar? Essentially, the hardest lies to tell are those when the liar has to try to conceal many strong emotions while telling the lie. Table 5.2 supplies a checklist for the detection of lying.

Some researchers and pract.i.tioners have begun to look carefully at the structured interview and a careful a.n.a.lysis of the content and qualities of statements. These are called criteria-based content a.n.a.lyzes and look systematically at things like the structure of the logic, the quant.i.ty of details, reproduction of conversations, information about the mental state of the different parties involved, admitting to lack of memory and so on. They often look for inappropriateness of language and knowledge, inconsistency in statements and so on.

CONCLUSION.

Training and experience do help in the business of lie detection, but even then it is by no means simple or foolproof. Because we are all used to lying, it is an everyday occurrence and to a large extent socially acceptable. People have quite different beliefs about when one can, should and should not lie. And they have considerable personal experience of catching out liars. However, many people are not well informed and, as we have seen, either look for or misinterpret the lies (or truth) they observe. Hence the ability of many liars to get away with it!

There is considerable consistency and overlap between reviewers' and researchers' conclusions in this area. They show that many "lay theses" that is, the theories of ordinary people are wrong: almost dramatically opposed to popular belief. They also admit that it is not an easy business. Those who have made it a lifetime research project to study the nature of lying admit that even they can often get it wrong. But they also offer good advice.

Ekman (2001) offered nine specific suggestions that help people who are trying to detect lies to do a better and more reliable job. These are: 1. Once the suspicion is raised, try to think of logical explanations for your intuitive feelings. Consider which nonverbal clues influenced your judgment. By recognizing and working on your errors, you will be able to avoid overly confident decisions.

2. There are two different types of mistakes: "disbelieving-the-truth (judging a truthful person to be lying) and believing-a-lie (judging a liar to be truthful)". You need to antic.i.p.ate the implications of making either of these.

3. Truth does not equate with the "the absence of a sign of deceit". Remember than people differ in their ability to "truthfully lie". The reverse is, however, also true: some people have a lower affective threshold and experience stress even when telling the truth. That is why establis.h.i.+ng the base line is paramount.

4. a.n.a.lyze your own judgment. Is there any preconceived bias? Also, avoid making a judgment on the spur of the moment. Sometimes a.s.suming that someone is lying is the easiest option, but the wrong one, especially if there are no other possible explanations for the situation.

5. Acknowledge the fact that sometimes emotional leakage is a sign of "how a truthful person feels about being suspected of lying". Reduce the weight of this evidence if the emotional signs could be explained by the personality of the person in question, the nature of your relations.h.i.+p, or suspected person's expectations.

6. Remember that some clues are a.s.sociated with more than one emotion. Again, these should not be taken too much into consideration.

7. Does the person know they are suspected of lying? What do they achieve or lose if discovered?

8. Create and use a Guilty Knowledge Test if you are aware of some information the suspect could only know if s/he were lying.

9. Do not make the ultimate judgment of untruthfulness based only on nonverbal signals. These should activate alarm bells and encourage extra research rather than form the basis for the final conclusion.

6.

APPLYING THE THEORY: WORK CONTEXTS.

A great amount of any person's business is involved with communication. Managers have to persuade and delegate, negotiate and motivate, buy and sell. They have to make presentations to the board, chair small committee meetings and counsel individuals. Others have to "delight" customers, get on with colleagues and set a good example.

But business is about more than putting across one's message skilfully and sensitively. It is also about reading the signals of others. Negotiators, like poker players, have to try to distinguish bluff, bravado and bravura from the true position of their "opponents". Small nuances and subtle changes over time are eagerly scanned for evidence of a change in position. Understanding how an employee is reacting to a negative appraisal can be helped greatly by body language. As, of course, is the watching for signals in a potential buyer an important part of the successful salesperson's job.

Equally vital is that organizations realise that the physical environment can have an important impact on communication patterns and ultimately on the productivity of employees. Being seated at a square, oval or a round table inevitable affects eye-contact patterns. Having meetings standing up gives clues about posture. And where meetings are held that is, on whose territory can make partic.i.p.ants feel less or more confident. Communicating by letter or e-mail has different consequences from making telephone calls, and these are different again from those of face-to-face teleconferencing.

The practical application of a thorough "scientific" knowledge of body communication is supposedly that various techniques can be learnt to read others' "secret" thoughts and motives, and hence to have some control over them. Some people believe that salespeople are trained in these techniques to enable them in some way to manipulate a possible customer into buying a product against his/her better judgment. This is simply not true. Salespeople are taught various techniques, but these are aimed more at relaxing potential customers and playing down anxieties. However, there is some limited evidence that salespeople's ability to "read" their customers' body language correlates with the number of sales they make.

COMMUNICATING DOMINANCE, IDENt.i.tY AND STATUS NONVERBALLY.