Former FBI Agent Answers Body Language Questions From Twitter...Once Again

Hi, I'm Joe Navarro,

and for 25 years, I was chasing spies.

And today, we are looking at questions that you have asked

on Twitter,

and this is Body Language Support.

[upbeat music]

From orngeflavor,

Don't they say mirroring body language is a sign

of attraction?

Yes, they do say that,

but actually, mirroring behaviors are a sign of comfort.

If there is psychological comfort,

we will tend to mirror each other,

both in cadence,

both in sitting styles,

breathing rate, and so forth.

And so you'll see a couple at a cafe,

and maybe they're looking at each other

by both having their hands on their on their cheek

as they look at each other.

They're truly mirroring each other,

once again,

because of high psychological comfort.

@quinnrachelll ask,

Do power poses work for interviews also?

That's an interesting question.

You have to understand what is the purpose of a power pose.

You're not there to dominate.

When we are in an interview setting,

we're actually in somebody else's domain.

Rather than a power pose, I would say,

why don't you use behaviors

that show good manners?

So turn yielding,

letting somebody walk ahead of you,

using your hand to signal

where they can sit versus pointing,

which is always negative,

and being confident,

using gestures that are smooth

rather than gestures that are jittery,

not clearing your throat a lot,

not ventilating every time you're asked a question,

not acting nervous,

and so forth.

With questions like this,

let's get away from these power poses,

and let's look at the poses that say I am confident,

I'm reliable, I am trustworthy,

and that, I think, is more important.

From at @Phill59316885,

Smirking when confronted

with serious matters!

Watch out for it.

It's a disarming body language used by liars.

Well, I would have to disagree.

First of all,

there is no single behavior indicative of deception.

Do people who smirk

do so because they're lying

or they're getting away with something?

Perhaps.

But just keep in mind that smirking is sometimes used

when you notice that somebody has gotten something wrong,

or you have something up on somebody else.

What I'd like to do is I like to note the behavior,

and if that behavior makes me feel uncomfortable,

A, I need to be more careful,

or B, I need to ask more questions.

@JenniferTilly ask,

Why is it that when we hear or see bad news,

we often cover our mouths?

Jennifer, this goes back millions of years.

When we were surrounded by predators at all times,

we had to communicate silently.

We developed three behaviors to deal with that,

and the first one was the freeze response.

If we saw something that was a threat, we froze.

Why?

Had we run in face of a threat,

we would've been chased, tripped, and bitten,

so we learned to freeze.

Everybody that froze, the animal kept going.

Anybody that ran, got eaten.

They didn't get to pass on the genes.

The second behavior we did was to cover our mouths.

Number one,

predators listen for people breathing,

for animals breathing,

and by covering our mouths and our noses,

we prevented all these particulates

from getting into the air,

which then the animals can seek out.

And then the third behavior

that we still have is the covering of the neck.

That when we are deeply concerned, when we are troubled,

when we're bothered, when we're insecure,

when we feel our safety is compromised,

we cover our neck.

We cover the suprasternal notch.

This little area right here.

Three behaviors,

millions of years old,

that have been brought along with us and help us every day.

And so the next time you find yourself being shocked

by something,

[Joe gasps]

always remember that's

because there was a feline out there somewhere trying

to pick up on your scent.

@mephisto_kur ask,

Thinking about practicing my genital framing techniques.

When we talk about genital framing,

you're talking about tucking your thumbs inside your pants.

Humans tend to hide their thumbs

when we have fears or concerns.

So when it comes to thumb behaviors,

we want to keep in mind

that some behaviors say I'm strong and confident.

And if you want those,

then we use behaviors where the thumbs are out,

they are up,

and they look powerful,

rather than hiding them away

inside our pants.

So @Liz88233601,

she asks, Are facial movements

and expressions a part of sign language?

I noticed that all signers seem to use them.

And the answer is yes.

Not only do they use the hands to signify specific letters,

we know that the face is capable

of nearly 4,000 separate behaviors

that can also communicate,

and that can give context,

emphasis.

It can serve to describe.

It can also serve to articulate the message

that is being given.

So @ukeebythesea ask,

Doesn't crossing your arms

in body language mean you're being defensive?

No.

No, absolutely no.

In fact, we cross our arms

because it's a comforting behavior.

It's a self-hug.

And even when you're angry,

the fact that you do this is to self-comfort yourself.

Here you have two arms pressing against your visceral side,

which provides a lot of comfort

via the vagus nerve.

So there's a lot of myths out there

that this is a blocking behavior,

or it's a defensive behavior.

It absolutely it is not.

It is a comforting behavior,

and it needs to be recognized as such.

@latitia16 ask, What is body language?

What is proxemics?

What is chronemics?

What is kinesics?

What is haptics?

Proxemics is a study of distances,

what we prefer,

such as our intimate space, personal space,

social space, and public space,

and it varies with everybody.

What is chronemics?

Chronemics has to do with time.

We all have, for instance, a circadian rhythm,

and the circadian rhythm accounts

for things like why we get up in the morning,

why there's so many heart attacks,

for instance, early in the morning,

why we lose energy late in the day, and so forth.

What is kinesics?

Kinesics has to do with how I move my arm

or how I move my fingers.

And what is haptics?

Haptics is the study of touch,

how we touch ourselves, how we touch others,

how we touch the screen on our computers,

how we touch, for instance, the buttons on a jet aircraft.

This is studied through haptics.

@RavidJustin ask,

Does peacocking actually work?

I remember in the 70s to be a peacock meant

to always be the center of attention.

If he's talking about showing off,

if he's talking about wearing clothing

that makes you stand out,

if he's talking about behaviors

that make you look different, act different,

or present differently,

then obviously, it does.

Our brains are hardwired to detect anything

that deviates from, let's say, a norm.

Our brains love novelty,

but the question is who's gonna be impressed by it?

Now, we know that during the courtship years,

about 15 to 25,

in almost all cultures,

we engage in behaviors that we might consider peacocking.

We will wear different clothing.

We may wear makeup.

We may change the way we walk,

the way we wear our hair,

and so forth.

So we can say that these things work,

but they work within limits.

If you go too far afield,

you can literally become an object of ridicule

if you go overboard.

@DrIsmail_VIOS ask,

Does nonverbal communication affect

the virtual consult experience?

I have to say that the virtual world,

it may be a good way to collect information

that in no way it can approximate what we can see

when we're in the same room.

It does impact on our ability to communicate effectively

across all cultures.

The power of the shaman,

the power of the healer is based on four things.

The first one is the visual.

Right?

So the shaman usually dresses differently,

performs differently,

has different attire.

In Western medicine,

you have the white lab coat,

and you have the stethoscope.

You have the visual,

and then you have the vocal.

And so you have the intonation of the voice,

some sort of incantation,

a dance or a performance,

and the words are meant to somehow heal you.

And then lastly,

you have the actual application of the medicine

through bodily contact,

touch, and so forth.

Think about what the virtual environment does.

It limits the visual,

it limits the vocal,

it limits the verbal,

and it limits the haptic.

My fear is that in a virtual world,

you don't get to share these things.

So thank you again.

Thank you for your questions.

Hope to get some more in the future.

You've been watching Body Language Support.

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