Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

The Nonverbal Sleuth

Most detective procedures center around hard physical facts and evidence, but what is the role of detecting nonverbal behavior?

A new study in the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior sought to challenge conventional wisdom that emphasized physical facts over nonverbal behavior. By replicating a previous study with slightly different variants, Dr. Eric Novotny and his team sought to fold in the role of nonverbal behavior detection in developing suspicions and driving along initial investigations into criminal wrongdoing.

The paper points out that much previous research actually casts doubt on the use of nonverbal detection in investigations. While there is a great deal of research finding that nonverbal detection can be effective, such research casts doubt on the claim that this is actually relied on by police investigators or even laypeople.

However, they contend that a distinction must be made between “discovering” and “suspecting” a lie. When we discover a lie, we have finished an investigation and concluded that a lie has taken place, but what causes us to initially suspect a lie?

The central contention is that suspicion does not depend on hard evidence because it is inherently the act of intuiting or suspecting that hard evidence would exist. Thus, suspicion has a critical role in leading to the investigation in the first place.

This is where behavioral cues and nonverbal detection come into the picture. It is in noting deviations from a behavioral baseline that individuals often come to conclude that something is being hidden or that deception is taking place.

In replicating previous work that emphasized the role of hard evidence, the current study asked not just what factors led participants to “discover” a lie but, in the treatment group participants were instead asked what led them to “suspect” a lie.

Each participant was asked to recall a previous time where they had caught somebody in a lie and to explain exactly what factors led to that conclusion. They did in fact find that most participants relied on hard evidence in order to discover lies, but the story for suspicion was very different.

Over forty percent of respondents pointed to nonverbal behavior as the stimulus for them beginning to suspect a lie, with only nineteen percent pointing to physical evidence.

This presented compelling evidence for the role of nonverbal behavior in beginning to suspect deception. To further drive home these points, the paper continued by conducting an additional study, this time asking more explicitly whether lies were discovered/suspected via hard evidence/behavioral evidence, dividing participants into a total of groups.

Again, their results confirmed the main hypothesis. People cited behavioral evidence much more often for determining suspicion, while they prefer non-behavioral evidence for discovering the truth.

This research helps contribute to the very important role of non-verbal assessments in deception detection. As has often been discussed, this is hard to do, so if you want to act on these conclusions, come check out Humintell’s own training programs on deception detection.

How to Read Microexpressions and Improve Your Observation Skills

This special blog showcases an interview recently done with Humintell’s own Dr. David Matsumoto.

The online behavior lab, Science of People, asked him to delve into the question of how we can use observational skills to determine other people’s intent and to assess the possibility of deception, as well as his own personal background.

Science of People emphasized Dr. Matsumoto’s recent research finding that microexpressions can be helpful in detecting deception. In fact, we blogged on this just recently! They also walked readers through the universal basic emotions, which is of course a staple for those who follow this blog.

However, Dr. Matsumoto consented to give a little bit more insight into what he means by “observational skills” and into his vision for the future of relevant research.

Specifically, he emphasized that the observational skills necessary for effective deception detection are not just something that we passively or naturally do. Instead, we have to actively try to employ these abilities, thus developing our skills.

Quite simply, he said, “If you want to get better at this skill, observe.”

As an exercise, Dr. Matsumoto suggests counting the number of times the interviewer, Vanessa, gestured with her right hand during the interview. Can you count the final number? The correct answer is revealed at the end of the video!

Or, if you are more ambitious, he recommended watching interviews with politicians and celebrities. When these are off script, you can see how people’s subtle expressions betray their emotions, and you can begin to learn to see those same patterns in everyday conversation.

Of course, there is no one thing that can betray somebody’s emotion. Instead, clusters of nonverbal behavior are incredibly important, albeit understudied. This can include changes in the type or frequency of gestures or in how their speech changes. Not only does this depend on the specific emotional context, but it depends on the individual too.

It is those sorts of behavior clusters that Dr. Matsumoto expressed interest in studying going forward. How do a combination of factors uniquely specify emotional states?

Not only does microexpression research demand that sort of synthesis, but Dr. Matsumoto went further in emphasizing the need for even higher level coordination amongst relevant researchers.

Because this field demands that many individual pieces come together, the current state of study suffers from a “Humpty Dumpty” problem where the disparate findings must be put together. This can be challenging and underlines the need for increased coordination.

Do Power Postures Work?

It is pretty popular for people to explore the idea of taking power postures to achieve success in interpersonal interactions, especially negotiations, but is it empirically valid?

A recent study by Drs. Joseph Cesario and David Johnson wades into this debate with a resounding rejection of the idea of power postures’ efficacy. In a series of experimental studies, they test whether taking a power posture in realistic situations accomplishes anything. Their null results fly in the face of some established precedent.

Humintell has previously blogged on power postures, including on research finding that taking on such postures can make people feel more powerful. It is logical to assume that such a feeling will manifest in more confident behavior, but it is likely this implication that Drs. Cesario and Johnson would dispute. In fact, they situate their research as a response to the same work by Cuddy which we blogged on!

Despite the popularity of TED talks devoted to power posturing, the current study delves into the evolutionary arguments in favor of power posturing. They conclude that it would make little evolutionary sense for an animal to act differently just because it is presenting the illusion of expansiveness or power.

In order to assess these claims, they conducted a series of experiments. The first of these asked participants to watch a TED talk video on power poses and attempt to consciously hold power poses.  These were contrasted with two studies where participants were not told why they should hold such a pose, and two of these studies were conducted with multiple participants in the same room.

Each participant was then brought together to compete in various tasks involving gambling, abstract thinking, and negotiation. These were intended to see if using the power pose would actually enhance abilities or competence in any of these tasks. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they found that the participants who had been exposed to the TED talk did reliably utilize the power posture in these exercises.

Overall, there did not seem to be any evidence that power poses had beneficial effects. This should cast doubt on a lot of the established literature. The study authors note that their sample sizes were generally larger and that there were consistent problems in replicated past findings.

They even asked participants to record whether their power pose led them to feel greater senses of power, and this again failed to predict much success in terms of outcomes.

This is an exciting and emerging field of research, so it is pretty natural that there would be disparate results and contradictory findings. We are definitely hoping that future researchers continue to delve into this question!

In the meantime, there are some pretty tried and true tactics for better negotiating and reading people. Check out some of our training tools here!