An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields
Psychologists have scientifically proven that one of the greatest contributing factors to overall happiness in your life is how much gratitude you show. So take today (and everyday) to tell and show people how thankful you are to have them in your life!
Happy Thanksgiving from Humintell!
A great deal of popular discussion of how to detect deception rests on specific, isolated factors like eye contract, but the reality is a bit more complex.
This is the case that Humintell’s Drs. David Matsumoto and Hyisung Hwang made in a 2017 study published in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology. In this experimental analysis, they had participants engage in a simulated investigative interview which, after being recorded, was analyzed to see which deceptive nonverbal behaviors were exhibited and, most importantly, in what combinations.
Importantly, while many previous studies have found that certain nonverbal behaviors are reliable indicators of deception, these findings have often been difficult to replicate. These studies have focused on vocal fluctuations, body language, and gestures, all of which do demonstrate underlying emotions.
However, Drs. Matsumoto and Hwang emphasize that, because of the complex emotions involved in deception, analyzing just one behavior at a time seems problematic. This is why, in the current study, they sought to see whether looking at clusters of behaviors may help solve this puzzle.
In order to do this, they recruited a series of participants who were all asked to engage in a mock crime simulation. These participants were given the opportunity to “steal” a $100 check, with some told to do so and some to refrain. Both groups were then assigned to mock interviews where they were either told to lie or confess.
With this premise set up, the exciting analysis work began. Each interview was recorded and then analyzed, frame by frame, with machine-learning informed algorithms which sought to categorize individual frames based on certain emotions, including many basic emotions like anger, disgust, fear, happiness, etc.
This allowed the researchers to calculate exactly which emotions tended to be the most common during the interview. Then, they hand coded a series of nonverbal behaviors, including head shakes, nods, and shoulder shrugs. This analysis was then combined with sophisticated assessments of vocal pitch and volume, helping create a comprehensive account of the subtle behaviors involved in the interview process.
When comparing these behaviors to whether or not the interviewee was lying, Drs. Matsumoto and Hwang found that it was clusters of non-verbal behaviors that most reliably predicted deception. Liars tended to have fewer head nods and greater changes in vocal pitch, though with a lower average.
Importantly, the types of questions, be they open-ended or more closed had significant impacts. Liars tended to have even lower pitches during open-ended questions, for example.
These findings have significant ramifications for anybody attempting to detect deception. While many of us are told to focus on individual behaviors, like eye contact or closed postures, these alone cannot fully explain the situation.
Instead, deception seems based on these clusters of behaviors which can be even more difficult to determine. This is definitely on reason why Humintell offers advanced deception detection classes which can be helpful for anyone, but especially any of you who make it your business of conducting lie detection interviews.
Reading nonverbal cues is not just about understanding psychology or threat detection. It can also help us get a job!
In an exciting 2010 study, Drs. Dana Carney, Amy Cuddy, and Andy Yap discuss the concept of “power posing.” Essentially, this involves using certain postures to appear more powerful. This can lead an interviewer or other interlocutor to see you as more worthy of a job, promotion or other benefit, according this insightful blog. However, Humintell’s Dr. David Matsumoto has a few words of caution.
Fundamentally, this notion of power posturing is related to evolutionary cues, where individual animals and humans seek to demonstrate their power in order to gain a greater share of available resources. Our posture greatly determines both our levels of testosterone but also our stress, both of which help convey, in very subtle ways, an impression of power.
So what is this power posture? According to Dr. Carney’s team, it involves expansive and open postures, such as spreading one’s limbs and otherwise appearing to be larger than one is. This is contrasted sharply with a slumped posture, where the body is constrained in a form of self-defense.
The details of these postures may be intuitively familiar, as many readers will probably notice. When we stand straight with arms wide, or if we lean forward, we feel and evince a sense of power. On the other hand, if we fold arms in the lap to hug our own torsos, there is a sense of meekness and submission.
Dr. Matsumoto cautions us that this does not necessarily work if we are feeling conflicted emotions: “Engaging in such postures or gestures or facial expressions would not necessarily trigger the experience in individuals who already are experiencing an emotion, especially a strong one.”
However, this does not mean that posture cannot amplify or affect our postures. As the aforementioned study explains, our posture can result in different chemical configurations being manifest in our brain. But can this actually help us seem competent and get a job? The answer, according to Dr. Matsumoto, is a little mixed.
On the one hand, there is certainly a lot conveyed through a sense of powerful posture. Not only can it make other people, such as an interviewer for a job, conclude that we are self-confidant, but it can even make us feel more self-assured and competent. This is not to be downplayed.
That said, it does not actually make us competent. Dr. Matsumoto cautions the aspiring power posturer against overreliance on these tactics:
“My advice would be to first gain actual competence in your field. The last thing anyone should want is to look confident and not really be competent. Once one has a certain degree for a lot of competence, adopting certain body postures may help to feel even more confident and powerful … but they’ve got to believe it and be able to back it up with real competence.”
Still, it is good to be aware of the power of postures. As we have noted in previous blogs, certain postures, such as that of triumph, are universal and deeply rooted in our evolutionary roots. When we are trying to read other people, moreover, it is very helpful to be able to read their posture: do they seem anxious? Confident? Powerful?