Michael Jackson's Body Language. Anxiety and Cover Cues

Link to article:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6650103/Michael-Jackson-squirms-nervously-giggles-jokes-hes-questioned-molesting-boys.html?fbclid=IwAR0efxaGP-qOG1ZVhZT_dHPahJYQwkIRcvkOGBUjiCQGSC3OWdHx02yIxbg

I have always been hesitant reading Michael Jackson's body language. Nobody wants to know the music star of their youth, the person that they were listening to, the person that they were dancing to, the person who’s lyrics they were singing in their cars could possibly do horrible things. These are the rough notes from my read of MJ for the media when this new tape came out last night.

I’ve analyzed interrogation videos for law-enforcement and the media and I teach interrogation, interviewing and profiling techniques. One of the basic tenets of a good read is to know what somebody’s baseline, what is their normal behavior. So you can see how certain circumstances may cause them to show cues that are not normal for them. Michael is hard to read because Michael normal it’s not like anybody else’s. Another basic tenet is to examine "normal." What would most peoples behavior be in the same context, situation?

What would normally be in this situation? You might be upset quiet crying and angry. What striking is that he’s been interrogated about sexually abusing young boys.
If you were in that situation and were innocent how would you respond?

What we see in Michael Jackson is someone who is acting like it’s a game. His behavior looks and feels bizarre. In part, because he seems to be to on the surface, with his artifice, to be having a good time. That he is amused and it's not a big deal. He appears to be in another world, distant from reality.

At the beginning of the video he’s asked some very specific questions and instead of doing what other people would do and look at the person at asking you questions his gaze goes to the front to the camera, he is more concerned about his performance and how we look. I have seen that strange not looking at the questioner behavior in a few defendants on the stand in murder trials, and in all those cases that defendant was a Psychopath or a sociopath. I haven't seen it in this kind of interview before.

We see him laugh quite often. That's interesting because laughter and strong anger can be a cover for lying. Under stress you are in your limbic system if you don't want to show strong emotion, you may go to other strong emotions to cover up the feelings you are trying to hide. Sometimes that means the person is trying to hide their feelings of guilt and shame. Note that he is highly uncomfortable indicated by the fact that it is "anxiety laughing" ( high and quick laughter his slow stress yawn the “comfort cues” such touching ear.

He smiles, but It’s not a normal smile it’s a smile but paste itself on the face rather than move across the face in a way of any natural spontaneous way that shows joy. At times, in fact, it clearly looks like a mask.

Also, one point the hand goes to the back of his neck indicating fear his behavior seems bizarre and uncomfortable is because it is bizarre.
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I see indications of anxiety and deception. When asked about the abuse, he gives a lip withholding where he presses his lips down and pulls them inside that is an attempt to pull back his true feelings to suppress what he really feels I always suggest in my interrogation programs that you watch when that occurs and note what happens after it stops and if the person speaks the very next thing out of their mouth tends to be the lie because they have suppressed the truth symbolically with their lips to keep that truth in and give them time to think of the right "lie."

The other thing that I think makes this interview so uncomfortable for us is that some of his behaviors are similar to a little girl, The tilt of his head the high feminine voice that goes up higher the end of a sentence... I study and speak on gender-based differences so those cues jump out. But I think there’s the other part of the fact that he was loved and adored by the public for being a child and so his nonverbal behavior remained that of a chid

Here’s another thing as you’re watching this most people are going to feel extraordinarily uncomfortable. That’s because he is not doing the normal non-verbal cues of someone who’s telling the truth when you’re telling the truth you feel the emotion of the truth how you feel in that moment you show it with your nonverbal cues and then you say it with your words.
Bizarrely this megastar who is music Who so well known for his beat at his rhythm is offbeat out of rhythm and that actually affects our central nervous system as we watch him. We become out of sync out of rhythm.

In a Jane Fonda interview years ago where she talks about Michael Jackson sleeping on her sofa while she was making on Golden Pond and she lifted the earphones from his head as he lays sleeping on her sofa and heard a motivational tape that said I am a good per

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.