Former FBI Agent Answers Body Language Questions From Twitter...Once Again | Tech Support | WIRED

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 [Music] from orange flavor don't they 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 at Quinn Rochelle asks 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 really 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 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 Phil five Niner 316885 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 get 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 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 at Jennifer Tilly asks 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 have 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 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 super sternal 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 always remember that's because there was a feline out there somewhere trying to pick up on your scent at Mephisto Kerr ass 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 at Liz 88233601 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 add Yuki by the Sea ask doesn't crossing your arms and 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 uh 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 at Leticia 16 asks what is body language what is proxemics what is chronemics what is kinesics what is haptics proxemics is the 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 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 tactics at rabbit Justin asked does peacocking actually work I remember in the 70s to 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 going to 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 and 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 uh if if you go overboard at dressmail biosass 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 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

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