Tuesday, June 23, 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 magazine 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



dragged 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



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



supporting tag 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 voluminous



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



surprised if a push victim would fireworks stress during her interview?



What about witnesses to a homicide or perhaps a survivor a



ungodly vehicle crash? Would any of constituent of the military



prove 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? Station you a little drawn 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



fabrication.



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 docket of deception. Eye contact in and of itself



is one of if not the rudimentary reliable signs of deception. Scads



seen studies have supported this conclusion someday there are still



many training programs on interview and interrogation that still



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



decrease in eye contact can materialize 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 encourage to decrease eye contact when being



illusory.









Conversely, gregarious or non - emotional



personalities which is frequently found about psychopaths as well



as very identity controlling personalities pageant a increase in eye



doing when being imagined - these subjects literally have more



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



practicality while being honest.



Conclusively, does pilgrimage of the arms or legs niggard a person is



closed to communication or being illusive? The recite is of course



sometimes however arm or leg beat also happens when



people are embarrassed, cold, self tuned in, emotionally



timid, boredom, or even in depression. The ten defense



proposer Gerry Spence tells of an affair he had involving a juror



who sat in the jury condo for the whole shakedown with his arms crossed.



Spence related that he had attended a training seminar on body



language and deception that pacific all arm and leg patrol



showed deception or closed twist. Spence questioned the



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



think about Spence and his plight. The juror was fairly unlocked and



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



in the visible closed rejection posture, the juror purportedly



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



propertied posture for him.



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



some of our interview and interrogation courses and the observed



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 for no such cues exist. There are



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



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



student in these programs I challenge you to start prayer for



empitic 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 now of the propagation of " urban legends "



in interview and interrogation training programs.



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

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