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Trump Body Language in His Mugshot



You see his glare formed by his upper eyelids pushing down slightly his eyebrows drawn together pointing downward towards his nose along with the position of the head, jutted down and forward, and his upward glare he is giving a sociopathic stare.  




Though the main "tell" of this stare is typically the whites showing under the pupil his highly dilated pupils provide a usual cover for that tell. His large pupils are his baseline,  He has had enlarged pupils in most of the speeches, interviews, and photos I have analyzed since he first ran for president. Typically in nonverbal analysis enlarged pupils, can indicate low lighting in the environment, a sign of brain injury, a sign of someone having a stroke, or active drug use. Again, Though you don't see the whites of his eyes under his pupils in every other way this resembles a sociopathic stare. 


Notice the inner corners of the eyebrow going down and the outer part of the outline going sharply up he forms what is called the devil's horns, and how his forward wrinkles on the you, the viewer's left side mimic that horned shape. The brow and forehead lines are sharp-edged. Our limbic brain 'reads" sharp edges in silhouette, gestures, and facial expressions as dangerous. They indicate someone is not feeling normal healthy peaceful happy emotions that appear smooth rounded. In addition, his face shows a lack of symmetry. The left side of the face is different than the right side, even the eyebrows and the forehead wrinkles are different. A lack of facial symmetry also is "read by the limbic brain as a danger sign. I go deeper into the lack of symmetry later in this article. 


Notice how his lips are slightly pressed together and appear thinner than normal indicating his anger. 

 

Look at this photo. How do you feel? Typically when somebody views a face expressing emotion of anger their limbic system responds very quickly with a strong emotion such as fear or corresponding anger and may go into the the freeze flight fight fall or faint response. 

 

I’ve analyzed perp walk courtroom behavior and mug shots for years, it is unusual to see the mug shot of a white-collar criminal with such obvious anger. 


It’s also interesting to see the difference in the right and left side of his face. 

When someone is feeling conflicting emotions their limbic system may show it on one side of the face before they can fully control it so you see a lack of symmetry on the left and right side of the face of someone who’s feeling conflicted emotions. 

Though he is clearly angry, if you as the viewer put your hand over the right side of the face you see the full complete facial configuration of the emotion of anger. If you put your hand over the left side of the space you can see slight traces of sadness at the mouth. As the outer corner of the lips is turned down slightly. But it’s not true sadness because his eyebrows and forehead still are in that focused downward motion of anger. So what he’s truly showing is the mouth expression that people make signaling their disbelief or negation of what’s going on. 

 

Also, note his extreme pupil dilation. While it’s highly unusual in most people and a signal of possible stroke or brain injury or drug use. He has Jonas unusually large pupil dilation from the very first time I read him for the international news just before he ran for president the first time. 
















Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.