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Body Language + Baselines = Negotiation Success

Business Man - Body Language + Baselines =

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Andrew Boughton, a managing partner of Edge Negotiation Group and Humintell’s affiliate, spoke with Psychology Today and broke down the main points of being a successful negotiator.

Boughton also wrote a chapter in Dr. Matsumoto’s latest book; Nonverbal Communication: Science and Applications. In Boughton’s chapter as well as in his other work, he discusses how paying attention to nonverbal communication is a crucial skill for many business professionals and for communicating in today’s diverse world, “Nonverbal communication can provide a huge advantage in any negotiation.”

Paying attention to body language can help you to read someone emotionally. One of Boughton’s tips is to look for signs of the seven universal facial expressions of emotion (7 in total: anger, happiness, disgust, contempt, fear, sadness, and surprise).

He especially encourages people to look for happiness above the other six,
“You have to constantly look for happiness leaking out of the other party indicating acceptance or at least pleasure with your proposal.”

The leakage Boughton refers to is the unintentional, subconscious expressions of emotions, which “leak” out very quickly via a person’s facial expressions even if they are trying to conceal how they truly feel.  Boughton explains that in order to pick up on facial “leaks” one must have a baseline for the person they are observing.

A baseline of people’s regular behaviors and actions is essential.   A baseline can be established by having a small talk before a negotiation or interview.  Ask non business questions in order to see how the person responds. Once in the interview phase, you will have something to compare their body language to.

“People lie when they negotiate.  They exaggerate their strengths, conceal their weaknesses, and omit pertinent details in order to get a better deal.”

Detecting Deception tips:

– Establish a Base Line

– Look for Leakage in the form of the seven universal facial expressions of emotion – Microexpressions and Hot Spots

– Partner Up- One person can be there to observe the actions while the other person handles the responses.

When trying to detect deception it is important to not rush to conclusions. 

Be efficient and quick if you need to but do not rush! You could miss out on important signs.

Forget the Poker Face…It’s All about the Poker Arms

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Everyone always says don’t forget your “poker” face, but a new study suggests that leaving the poker face behind and concentrating on your “poker arms” might have a better pay off.

“Even though professional players may be able to regulate their facial expressions, their arm movements could betray the quality of their poker hand,” the researchers wrote in the journal Psychological Science.

The Telegraph goes on to report on this study that says the are movements of poker players arms can delineate if they have a winning hand.

Researchers, from Tufts University, found that confident poker players (i.e. due to a good hand) were smoother as they placed their bets and 0bservers were able to spot this in only 2 seconds.

Participant’s, non-experts, guesses were poorer than random when based on the player’s faces.  However, based on players’ arm movements the participants were able to be more accurate when detecting deception.

Learn more about emotions and Poker in our past blog  “Are Anxious People Better Poker Players“.

Do you believe you can tell a players hand better from their arms than their face?

Digital Deception

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With smartphones dominating social interaction, texting has become a new way of communicating and for the younger generation it is pretty much the only way of communicating.  Phone conversations are a thing of the past and quick, witty vernacular via texting has taken over communication.

But, can we really believe everything that is texted to us – My phone died, I’m almost there, I’m working right now call you later?

A new Study published this week in the journal ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems purports that there are tell tale signs that a person is probably lying when they text.

Time Health & Family reports that researchers at Brigham Young University delved into the topic of digital deception in their “texting” study that tested over 100 college students.  Tom Meservy, co-author of the study commented,

“Digital conversations are a fertile ground for deception because people can easily conceal their identity and their messages often appear credible.  Unfortunately, humans are terrible at detecting deception. We’re creating methods to correct that.“

The Brigham researchers findings are backed by a 2011 study that suggested people are more likely to lie, stretch the truth and omit important information in written communication opposed to face-to-face interactions.

The participants of this study were asked to respond to 30 questions, via text, that were generated by a computer.  The students were directed to lie in half of their responses.   After collecting 1,572 deceitful and 1,590 truthful chat-based responses, researchers found the false responses took 10% percent longer to create and were edited more than the honest messages.

In a past post “The Future of Deception”  Jeff Hancock talks lies as a relationship that we are all involved in and where they will take us in the future.

Do you ‘Stretch the Truth‘ when texting?