nonverbals are anything that
communicates but is not a word the
public knows them as body language how
we dress how we walk have meaning and we
use that to interpret what's in the mind
of the person my name is Joe Navarro and
for 25 years I was a special agent with
the FBI my job was to catch spies most
of my career I spent within the National
Security Division a lot of it had to do
with looking at specific targets and
then it was about well how do we get in
their heads and how do we neutralize
them our security is based on nonverbals
we look at the person through the
peephole we look at who's behind us at
the ATM machine we know from the
research that most of us select our
mates based on nonverbal so we may think
we're very sophisticated but in fact we
are never in a state where we're not
transmitting information there's a lot
of myths out there the ones that stand
out is if you cross your arms that it's
a blocking behavior that's just nonsense
even when you don't like the person that
is in front of you this isn't to block
them out it's actually to self-soothe
because in essence it's a self hug when
you're sitting at a movie and you're
watching you're gonna cross your arms
you're waiting for somebody you tend to
do this what's interesting is we do this
behavior more in public than in private
the other one that really stands out is
as we think about something we may look
in a certain way as we process the
information we may look in another way
it's certainly not indicative of
deception and it really shouldn't be
used that way all we can say is the
person is processing the information the
other misconceptions are that if the
person clears her throat touches their
nose or covers their mouth they're lined
we do these behaviors as self soothers
they're they're pacifying behaviors
scientifically
and empirically there's just no
Pinocchio effect and people who prattle
that and say well we can detect
deception because the person touches
their nose or covers their mouth
that's just sheer nonsense we humans are
lousy a detecting deception espionage
work is often nowhere near what we see
in movies and in one of the cases we had
information from another country saying
you have an American we think is
actually a mole who somehow entered the
United States is able to pass as an
American but he's here working for a
hostile intelligence service and just
fortuitously he was videographed
coming out of a flower shop we're
looking at the video and everybody in in
our small unit we were saying well
there's not much there you know he's
coming out of the shop getting in his
car and I said stop the film right there
just as he came out of the shop he took
the flowers and most Americans tend to
hold the flowers buy the stock so the
flowers are up this individual took them
and grabbed the stock and then held the
flowers so that they were facing down
and I said that's how they carry flowers
in Eastern Europe rather than confront
him about are you a spy I decided to do
what's called a presumptive so as I sat
there with him and I said would you like
to know how we know and he had this look
on his face and and I said it was the
flowers and then he confessed when I
came into law enforcement I thought it
was all about the confession it's really
about face time in my 25 years in the
FBI
it was a rarity that a person didn't
eventually reveal what I needed to know
because we would sit down and have these
very lengthy conversations I look at
behaviors to do an assessment what is
this person transmitting in relations to
any stimuli
further questioning comes from my
observing these behaviors the first
thing I look at is I look at the hair
does it look healthy does it look
well-groomed the forehead is very
interesting because a lot of times we
reveal stress a lot of the things that
we have gone through life are often
itched in the forehead I look at the
eyes to see if they're red or not enough
sleep this small area here between the
eyes called the glabella it's one of the
first areas that reveals information to
us most often when we don't like
something we do that bunny knows of I
don't like we don't really know what our
lips look like and we tend to compress
them when something bothers us when
something really bothers us we tend to
suck them in the mandibular and look at
the cheeks we may do something like this
will will rub our tongue against the
inside of the cheek but when we try to
hide it then it tells me that this
person is trying to do some perception
management and if they are I want to
know why at the neck I want to see if
there's any head tilt because head tilt
the person is more relaxed the minute
the head tilt goes away there's usually
some issue I'm looking at the shoulders
you ask somebody a question and they
don't know both shoulders shoot up very
quickly
and then when I look at the hands too
when something's troubling us we tend to
stiffen our fingers interlace them and
almost like a teepee we move our hands
back and forth very slowly this is to be
differentiated from when we do the
steeple which we do in this position
when something's at issue we tend to put
our hands on our hips and we become very
territorial this is called arms akimbo
but look how it changes when we put our
thumbs forward and then it becomes one
of more of I'm inquisitive but I also
look for any behaviors of ventilating
because men
to ventilate at the neck and we do at
the very instant something bothers us
and then I look at the legs to see if
there's any brushing of the legs with
the hands which is again to pacify and
then the feet do I see any behaviors
such as wiggling of the feet kicking of
the feet if I ask a question and all of
a sudden the feet withdraw and are
crossed
perhaps the person feels a little
threatened by that question so when we
study nonverbals it's not about making
judgments
it's about assessing what is this person
transmitting in that moment it really is
looking at an individual and saying what
are they transmitting we're all
transmitting at all times we choose the
clothes that we wear how we groom
ourselves how we dress but also how do
we carry ourselves are we coming to the
office on this particular day with a lot
of energy or are we coming ins with a
different sort of pace and what we look
for our differences in behavior down to
the the minutiae of what is this
individual's posture as they're walking
down the street are they on the inside
of the sidewalk on the outside can we
see his blink rate can we see how often
he's looking at his watch I know your
blink rate is around eight eight times a
minute
but you don't know that you're not
sitting there counting all these things
factor in because they're transmitting
information now it's up to us to then
use that information to say okay we need
to marshal resources to be on that
individual right now
so in most Western cultures the first
time people touch is when they shake
hands touching becomes that important
because we can always remember a time
when we shook hands with someone and we
didn't like that it's also the first
time when our bodies release these
bonding chemicals that say I like this
person or I don't like this person so
hand shaking is both necessary and
essential in most cultures ladies hi I'm
Joe Navarro Laura how are you and you
are Katina how are you let me ask you
this let's back up a little bit is this
comfortable for you yeah it's a little
bit more comfortable but it's not for
you is it all right thank you all right
so keep talking what we've done here is
we've talked about the importance of
space and comfort they don't realize is
how much further apart they are now
standing and it's because we have
brought this subject up to make them
comfortable about saying hey it's okay
to be comfortable at your perfect
distance and so now we see when they
rock they rock away from each other and
they create this space if you notice
their feet tend to move around more
there's a dynamic going on here where
they're kind of trying to find well what
is the perfect space what is the perfect
distance and we know that they're
unsettled because of the high degree of
movement that's that's going on
pokers an interesting game the
similitudes
of sitting across from a spy or sitting
across from players it's their reactions
to a stimulus we have behaviors
indicative of psychological discomfort
that we use at home at work or at the
poker table so we're gonna take a look
at poker players and some of the body
language that you'll find at a typical
poker game so we'll pause it right there
so one of the things that you first
notice is that when a table is called
this is the first time any of them see
each other this is a great opportunity
to be looking for behaviors indicative
of discomfort we're gonna see the
individual shifting in his chair we're
gonna see one individual reaching over
and grabbing his shoulder the woman in
this case her shoulders are rather high
this is a great opportunity even before
the game starts to collect poker
intelligence so we'll stop right there
look where their hands are at here we're
looking at player number two and number
three and we notice right away that
their hands are on top of the cards some
players will cage their cards some
players will put their hands directly on
top and press them down and they may do
that because the cards have now
increased in value player number one
tends to keep his hands very close to
his body player number four she's
actually withdrawn her hands from the
table because when we like things we
tend to move our hands forward when we
don't like things we tend to move the
hands away so as we look at player
number three I'm often asked about
players who shuffle their chips what
you're really doing is self soothing and
this just helps you to make it through
the game and that's really all we're
looking for
okay so we'll stop right there player
number five is sitting there arms
crossed you don't see a lot of activity
that doesn't mean he's not transmitting
a lot of information on down the line I
want to see where those thumbs of his
are because he holds them very close
when nothing's going on but does that
change as the game evolves if you're
looking at nonverbals it's often useful
to look at them at double the speed
because all the nonverbals that are
critical jump out at you as though it
were a caricature all right so stop
right there the woman in position number
four you see her head moving around
quite a bit
player number three you see of a lot of
activity with his hands when we look at
player number five now his hands are
fully out this is as far as we've seen
them before at this point we know that
he's engaged and that he's interested
now the game is out in the open
75 to 80 percent of the information we
need is sitting out there what you often
see is everybody's looking at their own
cards or looking at the community cards
rather than looking around you should be
looking around to see what was the
reaction because you're gonna see that
reaction again you know in poker we used
to say that you can have a poker face
but I encountered you can't have a poker
body somewhere it's gonna be revealed
when I was in college in the early 70s
there were really no courses on
nonverbal communications you quickly
realize that to a great extent it's
really about what you can interpret from
behavior and so we talk about non
verbals because it matters because it
has gravitas because it affects how we
communicate with each other and when it
comes to non verbals this is no small
matter we primarily communicate
non-verbally and we always will