Former FBI Agent Explains How to Read Body Language | Tradecraft | WIRED — Transcript

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1. 0:00nonverbals are
2. 0:02anything that communicates but is not a
3. 0:04word the public knows them as body
4. 0:07language how we dress
5. 0:10how we walk
6. 0:11have meaning and we use that to
7. 0:14interpret what's in the mind of the
8. 0:17person
9. 0:17[Music]
10. 0:24my name is joe navarro and for 25 years
11. 0:27i was a special agent with the fbi my
12. 0:30job was to catch spies
13. 0:33most of my career i spent within the
14. 0:35national security division a lot of it
15. 0:37had to do with looking at specific
16. 0:39targets and then it was about well how
17. 0:42do we get in their heads and how do we
18. 0:44neutralize them
19. 0:45our security is based on nonverbals we
20. 0:49look at the person through the peephole
21. 0:51we look at who's behind us at the atm
22. 0:53machine we know from the research that
23. 0:56most of us select our mates based on
24. 0:59non-verbal so we may think we're very
25. 1:01sophisticated
26. 1:03but in fact we are never
27. 1:05in a state where we're not transmitting
28. 1:08information
29. 1:10there's a lot of myths out there
30. 1:12the ones that stand out is if you cross
31. 1:15your arms
32. 1:16that it's a blocking behavior that's
33. 1:18just nonsense even when you don't like
34. 1:21the person that is in front of you this
35. 1:23isn't to block them out it's actually to
36. 1:25self-suit because in essence it's a
37. 1:27self-hug when you're sitting at a movie
38. 1:29and you're watching you're gonna cross
39. 1:31your arms you're waiting for somebody
40. 1:33you tend to do this what's interesting
41. 1:35is we do this behavior more in public
42. 1:37than in private the other one that
43. 1:40really stands out is as we think about
44. 1:43something we may look in a certain way
45. 1:46as we process the information we may
46. 1:48look in another way it's certainly not
47. 1:50indicative of of deception and it really
48. 1:53shouldn't be used that way all we can
49. 1:54say is the person is processing the
50. 1:56information the other misconceptions are
51. 1:59that if the person clears their throat
52. 2:01touches their nose or covers their mouth
53. 2:04they're lying we do these behaviors as
54. 2:07self-soothers their their pacifying
55. 2:10behaviors scientifically
56. 2:12and empirically there's just no
57. 2:15pinocchio effect and people who prattle
58. 2:18that and say well we can detect
59. 2:19deception because the person touches
60. 2:22their nose or covers their mouth that's
61. 2:24just sheer nonsense we humans are lousy
62. 2:27at detecting deception
63. 2:30espionage work is often nowhere near
64. 2:33what we see in movies and in one of the
65. 2:35cases we had information from another
66. 2:39country saying you have an american we
67. 2:41think is actually a mole who somehow
68. 2:45entered the united states is able to
69. 2:47pass as an american but he's here
70. 2:50working for a hostile intelligence
71. 2:52service and just
72. 2:54fortuitously he was videographed coming
73. 2:57out of a flower shop we're looking at
74. 3:00the video and everybody in the in our
75. 3:02small unit we were saying well there's
76. 3:04not much there you know he's coming out
77. 3:06of the shop getting in his car and i
78. 3:08said stop the film right there
79. 3:10just as he came out of the shop he took
80. 3:13the flowers and most americans tend to
81. 3:15hold the flowers by the stock so the
82. 3:18flowers are up this individual took them
83. 3:22and grabbed the stock and then held the
84. 3:25flowers so that they were facing down
85. 3:27and i said that's how they carry flowers
86. 3:29in eastern europe rather than confront
87. 3:32him about are you a spy
88. 3:34i decided to do what's called a
89. 3:36presumptive so as i sat there with him i
90. 3:39said would you like to know how we know
91. 3:42and he had this look on his face and and
92. 3:44i said it was the flowers
93. 3:46and then he confessed
94. 3:49when i came into law enforcement i
95. 3:51thought it was all about the confession
96. 3:54it's really about face time
97. 3:57in my 25 years in the fbi
98. 4:00it was a rarity
99. 4:02that a person didn't eventually
100. 4:05reveal
101. 4:07what i needed to know
102. 4:09because we would sit down and have these
103. 4:11very lengthy
104. 4:13conversations
105. 4:15i look at behaviors to do an assessment
106. 4:19what is this person transmitting in
107. 4:21relations to any stimuli my further
108. 4:25questioning comes from my observing
109. 4:28these behaviors
110. 4:30the first thing i look at is i look at
111. 4:32the hair
112. 4:33does it look healthy does it look well
113. 4:35groomed the forehead is very interesting
114. 4:37because a lot of times we reveal stress
115. 4:41a lot of the things that we have gone
116. 4:42through life are often etched in the
117. 4:45forehead i look at the eyes to see if
118. 4:47they're red or not enough sleep the
119. 4:50small area here between the eyes called
120. 4:52the glabella it's one of the first areas
121. 4:55that reveals information to us most
122. 4:58often when we don't like something we do
123. 5:00that bunny nose of i don't like we don't
124. 5:04really know what our lips look like and
125. 5:06we tend to compress them when something
126. 5:09bothers us when something really bothers
127. 5:11us we tend to suck them in
128. 5:13the mandibular and look at the cheeks we
129. 5:16may do something like this we'll
130. 5:18we'll rub our tongue against
131. 5:21the inside of the cheek but when we try
132. 5:23to hide it then it tells me that this
133. 5:26person is trying to do some perception
134. 5:28management and if they are i want to
135. 5:30know why
136. 5:31at the neck i want to see if there's any
137. 5:33head tilt because head tilt the person
138. 5:36is more relaxed the minute the head tilt
139. 5:38goes away there's usually some issue i'm
140. 5:40looking at the shoulders
141. 5:42you ask somebody a question they don't
142. 5:44know both shoulders shoot up very
143. 5:45quickly and then i look at the hands
144. 5:48when something's troubling us we tend to
145. 5:51stiffen our fingers interlace them and
146. 5:54almost like a teepee
147. 5:56we move our hands back and forth very
148. 6:00slowly this is to be differentiated from
149. 6:03when we do the steeple which we do in
150. 6:06this position when something's at issue
151. 6:09we tend to put our hands on our hips and
152. 6:11we become very territorial this is
153. 6:14called arms of kimbo but look how it
154. 6:17changes when we put our thumbs forward
155. 6:20and then it becomes one of more of i'm
156. 6:22inquisitive but i also look for any
157. 6:25behaviors of ventilating because men
158. 6:29tend to ventilate at the neck and we do
159. 6:32at the very instant something bothers us
160. 6:35and then i look at the legs to see if
161. 6:37there's any brushing of the legs with
162. 6:40the hands
163. 6:41which is again to pacify and then the
164. 6:44feet
165. 6:45do i see any behavior such as wiggling
166. 6:49of the feet kicking of the feet if i ask
167. 6:51a question and all of a sudden the feet
168. 6:53withdraw and are crossed perhaps the
169. 6:55person feels a little threatened by that
170. 6:57question so when we study nonverbals
171. 7:00it's not about making judgments it's
172. 7:03about assessing what is this person
173. 7:05transmitting in that moment
174. 7:09it really is looking at an individual
175. 7:13and saying what are they transmitting
176. 7:15we're all transmitting at all times
177. 7:18we choose the clothes that we wear how
178. 7:21we groom ourselves how we dress but also
179. 7:24how do we carry ourselves are we coming
180. 7:27to the office on this particular day
181. 7:29with a lot of energy or are we coming in
182. 7:32with a different sort of pace and what
183. 7:35we look for are differences in behavior
184. 7:37down to the the minutia of
185. 7:40what is this individual's posture as
186. 7:43they're walking down the street are they
187. 7:45on the inside of the sidewalk on the
188. 7:48outside can we see his blink rate can we
189. 7:51see how often he's looking at his watch
190. 7:53i know your blink rate is around eight
191. 7:55eight times a minute but you don't know
192. 7:57that you're not sitting there
193. 7:59counting all these things factor in
194. 8:01because they're transmitting information
195. 8:04now it's up to us to then
196. 8:06use that information to say okay we need
197. 8:09to marshal resources to be on that
198. 8:12individual right now
199. 8:24so in most western cultures the first
200. 8:26time people touch
201. 8:27is when they shake hands
202. 8:29touching becomes
203. 8:31that important because we can always
204. 8:33remember a time when we shook hands with
205. 8:35someone and we didn't like that
206. 8:37it's also the first time when our bodies
207. 8:41release these bonding chemicals that say
208. 8:44i like this person or i don't like this
209. 8:46person so handshaking is both necessary
210. 8:51and essential in most cultures
211. 8:56pigeons are supposed to be like dirty
212. 8:57birds
213. 9:00ladies hi i'm joe navarro i'm laura
214. 9:03laura how are you and you are
215. 9:05cathedra how are you okay let me ask you
216. 9:08this
217. 9:09let's back up a little bit
218. 9:12is this comfortable for you yes yeah
219. 9:16it's a little bit more comfortable
220. 9:18but it's not for you is it
221. 9:21all right thank you all right so keep
222. 9:24talking
223. 9:26what we've done here is we've talked
224. 9:28about the importance of space and
225. 9:30comfort
226. 9:32they don't realize is how much further
227. 9:34apart they are now standing and it's
228. 9:37because we have brought this subject up
229. 9:41to make them comfortable about
230. 9:44saying hey it's okay to be comfortable
231. 9:47at your perfect distance
232. 9:49and so now we see when they rock they
233. 9:52rock away from each other and they
234. 9:54create
235. 9:56this space if you notice their feet
236. 9:59tend to move around more
237. 10:01there's
238. 10:02a dynamic going on here
239. 10:05where they're kind of trying to find
240. 10:07what what is the perfect space what is
241. 10:09the perfect distance and we know that
242. 10:12they're unsettled because of the high
243. 10:14degree of movement that's
244. 10:16that's going on
245. 10:23poker is an interesting game the
246. 10:25similitudes of sitting across from a spy
247. 10:28or sitting across from players it's
248. 10:31their reactions to a stimulus we have
249. 10:35behaviors indicative of psychological
250. 10:38discomfort that we use at home at work
251. 10:42or at the poker table
252. 10:45so we're going to take a look at poker
253. 10:46players and some of the body language
254. 10:49that you'll find at a typical poker game
255. 10:56so we'll pause it right there
256. 10:59so one of the things that you first
257. 11:01notice is that when a table is called
258. 11:04this is the first time many of them see
259. 11:06each other this is a great opportunity
260. 11:09to be looking for behaviors indicative
261. 11:12of discomfort we're going to see the
262. 11:14individual shifting in his chair we're
263. 11:17going to see one individual reaching
264. 11:19over and grabbing his shoulder the woman
265. 11:22in this case her shoulders are rather
266. 11:25high this is a great opportunity even
267. 11:27before the game starts to collect
268. 11:30poker intelligence all right guys button
269. 11:33is good clinton is good so we'll stop
270. 11:36right there
271. 11:37look where their hands are at
272. 11:39here we're looking at player number two
273. 11:41and number three and we notice right
274. 11:43away that their hands are on top of the
275. 11:45cards some players will cage their cards
276. 11:48some players will put their hands
277. 11:50directly on top and press them down and
278. 11:53they may do that because the cards have
279. 11:55now increased in value player number one
280. 11:57tends to keep his hands very close to
281. 11:59his body player number four she's
282. 12:02actually withdrawn her hands from the
283. 12:05table because when we like things we
284. 12:07tend to move our hands forward when we
285. 12:10don't like things we tend to move the
286. 12:12hands away
287. 12:15so as we look at player number three i'm
288. 12:17often asked about players who shuffle
289. 12:20their chips
290. 12:21what you're really doing is
291. 12:23self-soothing and this just helps you to
292. 12:25make it through the game and that's
293. 12:28really all we're looking for
294. 12:30oh come on
295. 12:32okay so we'll stop right there
296. 12:35player number five is sitting there arms
297. 12:37crossed you don't see a lot of activity
298. 12:40that doesn't mean he's not transmitting
299. 12:42a lot of information on down the line i
300. 12:45want to see where those thumbs of his
301. 12:47are
302. 12:48because he holds them very close when
303. 12:51nothing's going on but does that change
304. 12:53as the game evolves
305. 12:55if you're looking at nonverbals it's
306. 12:57often useful to look at them at double
307. 12:59the speed because all the nonverbals
308. 13:01that are critical jump out at you as
309. 13:03though it were a caricature
310. 13:08all right so stop right there
311. 13:10the woman in position number four you
312. 13:12see her head moving around quite a bit
313. 13:15player number three you see a lot of
314. 13:18activity with his hands when we look at
315. 13:21player number five now his hands are
316. 13:23fully out this is as far as we've seen
317. 13:26them before
318. 13:28at this point we know that he's engaged
319. 13:30and that he's interested
320. 13:32now the game is out in the open
321. 13:3575 to 80 of the information we need is
322. 13:38sitting out there what you often see is
323. 13:41everybody's looking at their own cards
324. 13:43or looking at the community cards rather
325. 13:45than looking around you should be
326. 13:47looking around to see what was the
327. 13:49reaction because you're going to see
328. 13:50that reaction again
329. 13:53you know in poker we used to say that
330. 13:56you can have a poker face but i
331. 13:58encountered you can't have a poker body
332. 14:01somewhere it's going to be revealed
333. 14:05when i was in college in the early 70s
334. 14:08there were really
335. 14:09no courses on
336. 14:11nonverbal communications you quickly
337. 14:13realized that to a great extent it's
338. 14:16really about what you can interpret from
339. 14:18behavior and so we talk about
340. 14:20non-verbals because it matters because
341. 14:23it has gravitas because it affects how
342. 14:25we communicate with each other when it
343. 14:27comes to nonverbals this is no small
344. 14:30matter
345. 14:31we
346. 14:32primarily communicate
347. 14:34nonverbally and we always will