Former FBI Agent Answers Body Language Questions From Twitter

You can put your elbows on the table.

And that fell, so I'm reading his body language,

which is saying that sucked, and so we go right back to it.

I'm Joe Navarro, author, former FBI agent.

And this is Body Language Support.

[rhythmic instrumental music]

@erikadestiny asks, Why does eye contact

intimidate the [beeps] out of me?

Well, the fact is that it's not just you.

A lot of us are intimidated by eye contact.

In fact, all primates avoid making

too much eye contact with each other.

Apes will look at the alpha.

He has the ability to look over everybody.

But everybody else tries to avoid

making too much of a direct eye contact.

And we humans are much the same.

When the eye contact is too direct,

too intense, it is intimidating.

And this is something that obviously poker players

have used for decades to intimidate each other.

It really creates a subconscious instability

that often drives them to change their behavior.

Because they're not aware that

they're being intimidated at a subconscious level.

Here's a question from @ilikeslicedpear.

Can eye contact and long silence gazes

be love language cause shidddd?

When it comes to courtship, when it comes to dating,

most of the decisions that we make is non-verbally.

And eye gaze behavior is very powerful

when we are in the presence of someone we enjoy.

It can certainly be indicative

of I liked this person very much.

And I would certainly pay close attention to it.

So, onto the next question.

It comes to us from a friend of mine, @ericgoulard.

Hey, Joe, what do you think about people

who take off their glasses in the middle of a meeting,

interview, or on important points?

That's a great question.

And it often manifests in different ways.

Sometimes people take the glasses off,

and they rub the bridge of the nose.

Or they may massage the back

of the ear, where the glasses rest.

And that is to accommodate themselves.

They may also take their glasses off to pacify.

You'll often see people put them

in their mouths as they're thinking.

This is no different than a pacifier.

Other people use it almost like a baton

to demark a point as they're talking.

While others are using it basically

to create novelty to get other people's attention.

@esrahamood asks, How do I improve my poker face?

The easiest way to improve your poker face

is something that I taught Phil Hellmuth a long time ago.

Just keep in mind, you can improve

your poker face, but not your poker body.

So, sometimes we'll reveal things somewhere in our body.

But put your elbows on the table,

bring your thumbs together.

And you perch your chin on the thumbs.

and then you interlace the fingers.

And they block your mouth.

You look straight ahead, but slightly down.

And what happens is you virtually disappear.

Because there's nothing there for anyone to see.

So, after a while people will avoid looking at you

because there's nothing new there, there's no novelty.

@SciSuburb asks, My question is when you see

the eye twitch of irritation,

how do you use body language to help

the other person feel more comfortable

without directly addressing the fact

that you saw them appear irritated?

A lot of times we display discomfort through our eyes.

We'll squint, we may look away.

We may cover the eyes when something is bothering us.

And the easiest way to make other people

more comfortable without saying anything

is to move slightly away and angle yourself.

Humans tend to approach each other directly.

What we don't realize is that this

actually minimizes face time.

The closer we get the more intense the look.

This can act as an irritant.

One of the best things that we can do anytime

is when we approach each other, and we sense

that there's some sort of irritation

or a psychological discomfort, is always to move back.

And then always angle yourself so that you're looking

at each other at angles rather than directly.

This, whether you're in business

or in interpersonal relationships,

this actually minimizes face time,

where by angling this increases face time.

Because it contributes to psychological comfort.

@jessicabasic2 asks, Is duping delight them pretending

to experience delight, or is it like narcissistic smirk?

So, in 1986, Paul Lachman coined the term, duping delight.

And basically, what that looks like

is you have this little smirk on your face

like you're getting away with something.

I would say it's like showing off.

You can take great pleasure in getting away with something.

But when you exercise duping delight it's sort of

like telling the world, yeah, I got away with it.

Here we have a question from @Artemismoongodd.

And he asks, are there body language

differences among different cultures?

Do people of different countries

display different body language cues?

Yes, in other cultures they say hello differently.

We tend to wave our hands high and above.

And other cultures, they may do it more subtly.

We tend to say, oh, everything's okay.

And yet in other cultures

that's considered a phallic symbol.

So they don't do the okay sign.

We like to shake hands.

And we do so all over the United States.

But interestingly enough, we have cultures within cultures.

So in New York you may have more of a strong grip,

where in the Midwest it might be

just a quick touch of the hands and movement away.

It's always good to consider the culture that you're in.

Because when we mirror these behaviors

it lets others know that we respect them

and that we are in synchrony with them.

And of course, as I've always said, synchrony is harmony.

Here's a great question from @to_believe_yes.

Can body language be submitted

as admissible evidence in court?

Absolutely, in the famous 1967 case of Terry v. Ohio

the Supreme court considered this.

And they said if a police officer can articulate

with particularity the body language

that he or she observed it can absolutely be used

in court to justify the actions of a police officer.

To answer your question again, absolutely, yes.

@johnrobison asks a very important question.

And it's directed at me.

Most of your FBI profiling career Joe

was before today's more widespread autism awareness.

But did you interview known autistics, were they different?

My approach was always to deal with the person

that was in front of me, however they manifest.

There were some people who were on the autism spectrum.

And as an interviewer it's not my job

to figure their behaviors out other than to note them

and say, how do I get around this?

You deal with each human as they present.

And you try to work with them to establish communications.

And if that means stepping back,

if that means handing them a piece of paper,

if that means not making eye contact, then so be it.

@Daleroxxu asks How can I end a conversation politely

with someone that talks forever without just walking off?

Tried looking at the watch with no luck.

Dale, I've been there.

You try to give off signals.

You look at your watch two or three times.

But let's face it, with some nothing may ever work.

The first one I like to do

is I orient my foot towards an exit.

A lot of people catch that

and sense that I'm moving away slightly.

There's other times when no amount

of body language gets through to these people.

So what I do is I put my hand on their arm and I say,

buddy, I'd love to stay, but I gotta run.

Take care, must go, so long.

Oh, this is one of my favorites.

@Sinisterwaltz asks, hey Joe, what does it mean

when people shake their leg while sitting?

Well, I'm glad you asked that

because I do that all the time.

Shaking the leg, or the hands,

or the feet is a repetitive behavior.

And just like twirling the hair, strumming the fingers,

anything that's repetitive is a soothing behavior.

I do it all the time, and it's just to calm me down.

Here we have a great question from @OssannaF.

I have a question.

It maybe more difficult to answer,

but if anyone can do it, it's Joe.

My question is, why do some people tend to divert

their eyes to the mouth of the person they're speaking to.

Very simple, lip reading.

A lot of us take comfort in reading each other's lips

as we're talking to each other.

And that's one of the things we found out

when we started masking up for COVID-19

is how much we do this and didn't realize we were doing it.

@JollyCX asks a very important question.

With the rise of AAPI hate many Asian Americans

are being attacked both verbally and physically.

What can we do to pinpoint specific body language actions

in which one appears hostile and to avoid conflict?

There is no specific body language

that might indicate hostility,

other than things that are quite visible.

But we know from studies done in the 60s

that there are things that we can do

by the way we carry ourselves, making ourselves

both physically visible, but making ourselves larger.

Something so simple as walking with a greater stride,

looking around, making eye contact with everybody you see.

The other one is get off the phone, look around.

Don't bury your head down.

And just be aware of everybody around you.

And hopefully that will help.

Here's an interesting question from @shutuptogna.

What body language do I have to use to tell the people

at the next table that I find them really interesting

and would love to be friends with them?

Why are you waiting for body language?

Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to say I find

what you're talking about fascinating.

Do you mind if I join you?

And that's often good enough.

From @khloekardashian.

I've always been intrigued watching interrogation videos

and looking for clues in their body language.

So have I.

There's so much information that we give

away while we're being interviewed.

Our reactions, for instance,

to the question that's being asked.

I think you're onto something, Khloe.

The fact is that we use body language

to evaluate how people do in interviews

not to detect deception, but to look for their reactions

that might indicate psychological discomfort.

So, @Andrea, and then there's a B97951440.

How many others could there be without that number?

Anyway, I'd love the verdict of the professional

body language expert on Meghan.

She twitched, shook her head

the wrong way, did not make eye contact,

a good performance from a trained actress.

So, I believe this question has to do

with the interview with Oprah and Meghan Markle.

Anytime we see an interview you really

don't know what's behind the camera.

And that affects everything in front of the camera.

You don't know how many people are there

providing lighting, sound, how many producers

are present, who's moving around, and so forth.

The second thing that you don't understand

is the context of everything that has happened

before the camera is turned on.

So, what I tell people is this.

Look, when you listen to an interview listen

to the words that are said,

and then just compare it with what we know.

The fact of the matter is we don't know what was going on.

Because we only saw what was in front

of the camera, not behind the camera.

@yinificent asks, Is mirroring someone's

body language equivalent to flirting?

Not necessarily, you can certainly do it to flirt,

but it's not always indicative of flirting.

@superstarcomms asks, is mirroring body language

in confrontational situations

always beneficial or ill-advised?

You know, I think the better question

is how do we use body language

to either improve a situation or to diffuse it?

Because certainly, we don't want to escalate it.

If someone's angry, and posturing, and yelling,

and screaming, and puffing their chest out,

and you do the same thing, that's counterintuitive.

That's just gonna get you to be angry,

and agitated, and so forth.

My philosophy is one of you has to calm things down.

And the easiest way to do that is not mirror the behaviors,

to step back, angle your body, tilt your head,

lower your voice, avoid the eye contact,

and take greater control of yourself

so that the person that's out of control

will look ridiculous, while you look

like you have mastery over yourself.

Replying to @gigipoo_, she asks a great question.

Give me an example of a power pose.

Most of us are familiar with the arms akimbo,

elbows out, everybody knows that.

But we can actually do a power pose

by placing our elbows on the table.

And rather than placing them near us,

place them further apart, and then steepling.

Steepling is the only behavior that we humans share

that is indicative of confidence.

@TheAidanHunt asks, you ever see two people

sitting together at Starbucks and wonder

if it's a first date or a job interview?

Yes I have, in fact.

Job interviews and courtship behavior,

dating, have a lot of similarities.

Both are out drinking coffee at the same time and so forth.

So, what I look at is are there differences?

Are they truly mirroring each other in a social way?

Or are they mirroring each other in a more intimate way.

But also, keep an eye on the feet?

Because when people like each other

their feet will go near each other.

@jarzeam asks a very timely question.

I'm required to wear a face mask

to do my job interview tomorrow, but I can't decide

if it's good for me or it's bad for me.

We often think that the whole face is communicating,

But the fact is your whole body's communicating.

Use your eyes to express sentiments.

So, use the eyebrows as exclamation points.

Tilt your head when it's appropriate.

Use your shoulders to communicate.

Your whole body communicates, put it to good use.

@newsanceandgg asks, if body language is important,

why aren't we taught it at school?

That's a good question, it should be taught in school.

We are born without the ability to speak.

So, we must be able to read the baby

in order to take care of that baby and feed it.

Number two, we assess for danger non-verbally.

And number three, courtship behavior, we use body language.

So, to your question, why isn't it taught in schools?

I would argue that better schools do.

So, here's a question from,

I don't make these up folks, @1h3ll0k,

as in kilo, one, tt as in tango tango, one.

You can tell a lot about a person

from their eyes and body posture.

You can see if they are confident or not.

And by the eyes I can always tell

when it doesn't match the smile on their face

Well, congratulations, this is one

of the things that I always look for,

is do all the clues that come

from the body say the same thing.

Sometimes you get mixed answers.

For instance, a person will say, yeah, I really like that.

But as they're saying that,

for instance, the lip will pull up.

So, it'll look like this.

Yeah, I really like that, no, they don't.

To look for the synchrony in all

the body language that you read.

So, congratulations, @1h3ll0,

K as in kilo, one, tango tango, yankee.

It's no surprise to me that people

are both interested and captivated by body language.

It's the primary means by which we communicate.

We may not know all the terms of art,

but boy we're interested in the eyes, and the mouth,

and the chin, and everything else about us.

This is why we study and we examine body language.

Because innately we know this is really the number one way

that we humans communicate with each every day.