How Well Can You Spot Body Language Contradictions?

People everywhere have developed a fascination with the body
language of politicians because everyone knows that politi-
cians sometimes pretend to believe in something that they
don't believe in, or infer that they are someone other than who
they really are. Politicians spend much of their time ducking,
dodging, avoiding, pretending, lying, hiding their emotions
and feelings, using smokescreens or mirrors and waving to
imaginary friends in the crowd. But we instinctively know that
they will eventually be tripped up by contradictory body lan-
guage signals, so we love to watch them closely, in anticipation
of catching them out.

What signal alerts you that a politician is lying?
His lips are moving.

For another television show, we conducted an experiment with
the co-operation of a local tourist bureau. Tourists entered the
bureau to ask for information about local sightseeing and
other tourist attractions. They were directed to a counter
where they spoke with a tourism officer, a man with blond
hair, a moustache, wearing a white shirt and tie. After a few
minutes discussing possible itineraries, the man bent down out
of sight below the counter to get some brochures. Then,
another man with a clean-shaven face, dark hair and wearing
a blue shirt appeared from beneath the counter holding the
brochures. He continued the discussion from exactly where the
first man had left off. Remarkably, around half the tourists
failed to notice the change and men were twice as likely as

women to completely miss the change, not only in body lan-
guage but in the appearance of a completely new person!
Unless you have an innate ability or have learned to read body
language, the chances are you're missing most of it too.

Read More

How Well Do You Know the Back of Your Hand?

Sometimes we say we know something 'like the back of our hand' but experiments prove that less than 5% of people can identify the back of their hands from a photograph. The results of a simple experiment we conducted for a television programme showed that most people are generally not good at
reading body language signals either.
We set up a large mirror at the end of a long hotel lobby, giving the illusion that, as you entered the hotel, there was a long corridor going through the
hotel and out the back of the lobby.  We hung large plants from the ceiling to a distance of 5 feet above the floor so that, as each person entered the lobby, it looked as if another person was entering at the same time from the other end.

The 'other person'  was  not  readily  recognisable  because  the  plants covered their face, but you could clearly see their body and movement. Each guest observed the other 'guest' for five to six seconds before turning left to the reception desk. When asked if they had recognised the other 'guest', 85% of men answered "'o'. Most men had failed to recognise themselves in a mirror, one saying, 'You mean that fat, ugly guy?' Unsurprisingly, 58% of the women said it was a mirror and 30% said the other 'guest' looked 'familiar'.

Most men and nearly half of all women don't know what they look like from the neck down.

Read More

All Things Are Not What They Seem

The ability to work out what is really happening with a person is simple - not easy, but simple. It's about matching what you see and hear in the environment in which it all happens and drawing probable conclusions. Most people, however, only see the things they think they are seeing.

Here's a story to demonstrate the point:

Two men were walking through the woods when they came across a big deep hole.
'Wow ... that looks deep,' says one. 'Let's toss a few pebbles in and see how deep it is.'
They threw in a few pebbles and waited, but there was no sound.

'Gee - that is a really deep hole. Let's throw one of these big rocks in. That should make a noise.'
They picked up two football-sized rocks and tossed them into the hole and waited, but still they heardn othing.

'There's a railway sleeper over here in the weeds,' said one.

'If we toss that in, it's definitely going to make some noise.'

They dragged the heavy sleeper over to the hole and heaved it in, but not a sound came from the hole.

Suddenly, out of the nearby woods,  a goat appeared, running like the wind. It rushed towards the two men and ran right between them, running as fast as its legs could go. Then it leaped into the air and disappeared into the hole. The two men stood there, astonished at what they'd just seen.

Out of the woods came a farmer who said, 'Hey! Did you guys see my goat?'

'You bet we did! It was the craziest thing we've ever seen! It came running like the wind out of the woods and jumped into that hole!'

'Nah,' says the farmer. 'That couldn't have been my goat. My goat was chained to a railway sleeper!'

Read More