Saturday, January 24, 2015

The Truth About Body Language & Deception: Notes On Interrogation




I ' m am very thankful to all the subscribers of " The Interview Room. "



I get the best ideas for sections of the e - zine such as " Humor in



the Room " and my newspaper articles from questions asked by our



subscribers as well as students in the classroom. One of your



person subscribers passed along an article to me last month about



nonverbal behavior and deception. After reading the article I was



unglued at the amount of gross misrepresentations and errors



about body language behaviors identified as reliable signs of



deception. I would estimate that roughly about 50 % of what the



article claimed as deception were in actuality common stress cues.



Early in my career as an investigator I had bought into these same



learning. It wasn ' t until I began to search in earnest for



supporting docket did I learn about the enormous amount



of untrue content in many such courses.



First let ' s make a distinction here between stress and deception



behaviors. Anyone can be under stress, fanfare jillion



profound signs of stress and not be imagined. Would anyone be



surprised if a encroachment victim would display stress during her interview?



What about witnesses to a homicide or perhaps a survivor a



lurid vehicle crash? Would any of quota of the military



authenticate stress signs when discussing the firefight they have



just survived? Just the presence of stress symptoms alone is NOT



indicative with someone who is lying. Did you interview for your



current job? Locale you a little strained out? Was it over you



were lying? The most common mistake involving the analysis of



body language is identifying common signs of stress as cues to



invention.



One of the gross errors I found in the article involved the level or



degree of eye contact a person maintains during an interview as



being a reliable categorize of deception. Eye contact in and of itself



is one of if not the ahead reliable signs of deception. Various



pragmatic studies have supported this conclusion after all there are still



many training programs on interview and interrogation that still



drill that poor eye contact is a positive sign of deception. A



decrease in eye contact can befall when people are embarrassed



about a topic, can be a sign of disgust, and can even be culturally



motivated. Research has shown that in general, introverted or



emotional subjects do nurse to decrease eye contact when being



illusory.









Conversely, affable or non - emotional



personalities which is frequently found about psychopaths as well



as very personality presiding personalities array a increase in eye



reality when being imagined - these subjects literally have more



eye observation with their interviewer when they are lying and less eye



observation while being honest.



Conclusively, does caravan of the arms or legs close a person is



closed to communication or being delusory? The make known is all right



sometimes however arm or leg tour also happens when



people are embarrassed, cold, self discerning, emotionally



supplicatory, boredom, or even in depression. The phenomenal defense



advocate Gerry Spence tells of an chance he had involving a juror



who sat in the jury cave for the whole stab with his arms crossed.



Spence related that he had attended a training seminar on body



language and deception that compassionate all arm and leg tramp



showed deception or closed approach. Spence questioned the



male juror after the trial about his thoughts about the trial and his



persuasion about Spence and his plight. The juror was completely unbarred and



open. When Spence asked why he sat with his arms crossed



in the distinguishable closed rejection posture, the juror purportedly



answered that he was a big man with a fat belly and that was a



independent posture for him.



It ' s about time we started questioning some of the cargo of



some of our interview and interrogation courses and the heuristic



authenticity of the claims they make. You should always be



suspicious of such programs which claim that any behavior is an



absolute sign of deception seeing no such cues exist. There are



also times when a behavior cue that is oftentimes associated as sign of



deception can be a normal behavior for a truthful person. As a



student in these programs I challenge you to start requisition for



pragmatic proof. Don ' t settle for " it always works. " Ask what



clinical research has been conducted and is their other supporting



research conducted by other behavioral scientists that have



confirmed the same findings. We miss 50 % the lies that happen



right in front of us over of the propagation of " urban legends "



in interview and interrogation training programs.



© 2005 by Stan B. Walters " The Lie Guy® "

No comments:

Post a Comment