Body language

[Member_of_STARS]

Im reading this amazing book by Allan Pease called "Body Language". Studying body language has been quite a long idea for me, always being put in the backburner for various reasons. I stumbled across this in my search for some people-reading tips and strategies and Ive been hooked. Its pretty cool to observe people after youve picked up on some *obvious* hints in their body language.

I just wish I was the kind of person who picked these hits up subconsciously, that would be pretty cool.

The most useful general idea so far that Ive read was very simple- if someones words and body language contradict each other, they are telling a lie. I could throw in a few other bits of info here if someone is interested.

[Dan Corson]

This is the first thing that popped into my head when I saw this topic...

Anyway, learning about the things people do without knowing is fascinating. Please, do share more!

[Member_of_STARS]

I just passed the chapter dedicated to "see no evil, say no evil, hear no evil" or something like that. Its about lies and started with drawing a parallel to how a 5 year old kid would give a verbal sign of his/her insincerety, by covering his/her mouth after telling a lie. As people grow older, these signs get more sophisticated, but the principle remains.

When people tell a lie, they either rub the skin near their eye, touch their nose, scratch their neck, rub their ear, pull their collar, or guard their mouth (put some of their fingers across the mouth, which looks a lot like a gesture of interest to some).

Theres quite a few more, Ill throw down a few interesting ones in a minute.

[EDIT] The main idea is that these gestures of doubt, deceit and lies come in bundles. So just a noserub isnt enough to tell that someone is telling a lie. There are, however, negative thoughts entering their mind, so you need to take context of the situation and words into account, along with other hints.

I´ll test this out in a poker match tonight. Im going to keep pounding on someone I suspect to have a good hand. If hes going to feel relaxed, sitting back, Im going to ask him if he has a weak hand and if he says yes, Im going to expect him to do something. And some more stuff like that.

The general theory goes as this, when telling a lie, nerves in highly sensitive areas begin to tingle, which sparks a reaction. Sounds reasonable.

[missvalentine]

That is some really interesting and helpful stuff man, Does it have anymore in the book? I'm very interested.

[Carnivol]

This is the first thing that popped into my head when I saw this topic...

This came to my mind.


Anyway, like many other things that involves "understanding" people... it's not really something people can fully learn from just reading a book about some of the common basics. Things like these usually require a terrible natural talent, years of observation of different people and impressive awareness.

A typical "trap" someone runs into when they try to "read" someone is that they have no idea what their own body language says or simply don't understand the situation (as it is seen from the other person's eyes), and/or the other person somehow realizes/thinks something is up and either just straight out plays you or gets nervous somehow and displays signs of insecurity (or whatever) for all the wrong reasons (Is that guy planning to rape me? Does he think he has a better hand than me? Is he trying to flirt with me?)

[Daargoth]

I like the whole "if a girl likes you" body motion deal. Very interesting stuff

[Member_of_STARS]

You know, you really do talk so much shit at times. Like the things you say are things that no-one would ever care about, like poker or some obscure Russian military training regimen.

Im sorry about your mother, but do you really think that this is the right place and the right time for your venting?

Ive usually been able to detect your jokes, and considering that this here is 180 off of your usual repertoir... Correct me if Im wrong, please.

--------

Carnivol, youre right about most people not being able to learn this skill by just reading a (few) book(s). However, the concept is so simple, the hints are so obvious, and you can easily distinguish them from each other if you know what to look for. And thats whats it about- knowing where to look, when to look, how to provoke a reaction. You can easily get the basics down by just one book, everything else depends entirely on your own interest in the subject. And, like I said, tells usually come in bundles, so one needs to take everything into account.

[Stars1356]

Usually when a girl plays with her hair that means she likes you or is at least interested in you. They say physical contact is the best indicator that a girl is interested. Always found the signs a female likes you threw body language interesting. As far as people lieing, well that is easy for me to detect because most people I deal with know I will find out some how so they get real nervous when they are lieing to me. MOS anymore about body language?

[Enetirnel]

Quite an interesting topic, another obvious one is a slight change in stance, pupil reactions unrelated to light sources nearby (which a lot of people attempt to avoid by talking with their eyes closed, blinking or not blinking due to lack of control of this natural reaction), breathing differences as well as many other things. Of course it can depend on the situation, the timing and if you don't take note of any influences from the surroundings then one could easily misread a simple movement as... for example, a person trying to avoid you could be the misinterpretation of a person feeling threatened by someone/something by them moving to protect their vulnerable side.

I've never honestly read any studies on body language, and just have gotten a bit on my own as I normally observe people and pick up on a few of them, however everyday situations won't always provide a great deal of variety in all sorts of body language as some from trained jobs have alternative body language patterns to throw the everyday person off.

This really interests me, STARS - would you care to share some more from the book? (At this rate, I'll probably go and order it when I get paid).

[Member_of_STARS]

I will, definitely. Im rereading the most important parts of the book and making notes, so I´ll be throwing them down here shortly. There are significant parts about male/female sexual and social bodylanguage, aswell as how to intimidate people and how to make them feel more relaxed and more open. My friend and I had a laugh yesterday on a lot of those concepts as we put them to the test.

[Enetirnel]

Thanks for that STARS. I'm going to try and order that book myself.

It really does quite interest me, and I would personally like to try some of those motions described in the book.

[missvalentine]

Usually when a girl plays with her hair that means she likes you or is at least interested in you. They say physical contact is the best indicator that a girl is interested. Always found the signs a female likes you threw body language interesting. As far as people lieing, well that is easy for me to detect because most people I deal with know I will find out some how so they get real nervous when they are lieing to me. MOS anymore about body language?

That's some valuable and interesting stuff man.

MOS please do share some more on this. I'm thinking of looking for the book myself now.

[Member_of_STARS]

My friend asked me to take part in a small conference-meeting between employers and highschool students today. I assume he picked me for the task because I know a lot about these gatherings and my experience on both fields helps me to break the ice faster and help students pick up the pace and in the same time take the guarded and restrained position and attitude off the adults. I went there to test out what Ive learned and oh my f*cking god... Its like an entirely different world existed between and around people. It was a real eyeopener and I was in a constant "WTFawesome!" state.

I did three things.

1. Observe
2. Open up the interviewees and make them feel more relaxed, so they would share and be more enthusiastic
3. Apply pressure, then releave pressure
Bonus- try to spot male and female courtship gestures, spot how women react to men around them and see the transition of attention from one person to another.

Here are my notes.

Gestures noticed:

Critical thought
Boredom
Restlessness
Critical judgement
Restraint, which was immediately followed by questions
A LOT of female/male courtship gestures, varied by who was the center of attention
Critical disagreement

Courtship gesture experiment. Positive gestures, open palms, smile, raised eyebrows and pointing the foot was IMMEDIATELY responded to.

Putting pressure on someone who was in front of everyone. First, open and sincere gesture and position, changed to critical evaluation, guarded and semi-agressive position. 15 seconds later the person took a very defensive stance with restlessness and holding themselves in grip/back. Changing back to positive gestures relaxed the stance almost immediately.

Theres a lot more. I wouldnt have believed it if I never knew about it. Remember, most of this stuff is taking place on a subconscious level, and people never really notice this. A woman working in the bureau of employment was giving her presentation, and I was able to make her more relaxed, then make her nervious and then make her relaxed again. Im going to test and try this out as much as I can to see if it was just a coincidence or if I missed a couple of other factors, but what I saw today was definitely promising.

One of the most powerful gestures I used a lot today was a combination of interest and sincerety.

I had my palms open, my body tilted slightly towards the interviewee, body pointed towards him, I made sure there were no objects between me and him/her and that I wasnt sitting across the table (no barriers) to him/her, I also tilted my head a little to the side to show interest and kept my chin straight (keep face up to show arrogance, keep face down to show negativity) and believe it or not, even the kind of questions that would usually put people in a little uncomfortable position were smooth and they never took a guarded stance.

I feel so stupid and ignorant because this never existed for me before and this is all so simple that its embarassing that I never knew about any of this (I mean, subconsciously we might pick it up, but Ive never done this consciously to achieve a certain result).

There were two pretty women in their late 20s there aswell and it was fun to watch their reaction to other people.

I also utilized "business-" and "social gaze" to either intimidate or open/calm people.

Like I said. All of this is so simple, basic and rudimentary that I feel stupid. And most of all, some of this works so well that you can observe it real time. You just need to be careful and take context into consideration. You need to see and watch out for factors that will make someone feel, react or make gestures that are not related to the situation they are in or people they are interacting.

[EDIT]

I was able to spot one thing on two occasions. When people disagreed with what they heard, or wanted to share their opinion on the matter, they took the "selfrestraint" position with their legs and kept their hands/fists clentched, fingers crossed. I was able to predict on one occasion that the man was going to speak the second the presenter paused for a second. The other person kept himself back but what happened was that his point of view / interest was answered/ represented so he took a relaxed pose immediately after that happened. The process passed with the "evaluation, positive interest" gesture aswell.

[EDIT2]

Im still writing down notes and I havent gotten to the female/male coutrship gestures yet (most important notes of about 30% of the book written down).

However, something to keep people interesting.

You can get peoples attention towards you if you make the right entrance. There are certain, specific things you can do to get subconscious attention from females (straighten your tie if youre wearing one, set the collar of your shirt, take a slightly "bigger" posture to make you stand out from the crowd). If youre in a conversation with a group of people, you can observe the following traits- see where their legs are pointed to. Women (and men) point their legs towards people they find interesting, note that this can change, depending on whom she finds interesting at that current moment. Heres how you find out if shes *really* interested in you.
- her she is pointed towards you, shes REALLY interested in you if shes in an "open" posture (hands arent crossed and she doesnt have a dsguised "closed" posture with one hand, or an object, like a purse, basically- no barriers between the two)
- her body is pointed towards you, open towards you
- her legs are crossed and her shoe is pointed towards you (really interested)
- if she smokes, she exhales the smoke upwards (selfconfidence and "yes")
- shes playing with her hair, sliding her hand across some parts of her body
- her wrists are uncovered, the more her wrists are open and uncovered (from clothing), the more shes interested
- sideways gaze towards you without critical head posture (head tilted down)
- head tilted sideways (shes interested in what youre saying)
- pupils are dilated (note, if its dark, the pupils are dilated anyway, dont mix it up)