Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Body Language + Baselines = Negotiation Success

Business Man - Body Language + Baselines =

Photo Courtesy of StockVault

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

stockvault-playing-cards129094

Photo from StockVault

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?

Teaching Lies in Order to Spot Them

Stan Walters, an interview and interrogation expert, is back in our blog with information on the untruths in deception detection courses.

In the video below, he discusses the various ways in which certain courses being taught on deception detection are full of lies themselves.  He focuses on one particular course and goes through the various ways in how their information is not only misguided but false.

His advice:  “Look for empirical evidence…[and] Look at what is [actually] being taught..“

Remember the importance of knowing  exactly where your getting your information from and make sure that it’s credible.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Have you seen impostors out there, and if so what kind of information were they trying to pass off as credible?