How to detect lies through body language

Here is a homework assignment for my Deception Detection class: read a novel by Aaron Elkins then use your class workbook and notes to figure out whether his forensic anthropologist protagonist could have figured out the clues he did from the evidence presented.

Real smiles vs. fake smiles

I am giving a deception detection workshop tonight. One of the techniques I will discuss is how to tell a real smile from a fake smile. Different parts of the brain are responsible for real and fake smiles. The unconscious part of the brain is responsible for a real smile, while the conscious part of the brain creates a fake smile.As well as making the mouth muscles move, the muscles that raise the cheeks in a smile also contract, making the eyes crease up. There are few key features which distinguish a real smile from a fake one. In a genuine smile the fold in the fleshy part of the eye between the eyebrow and eyelid moves downwards and the corners of the eyebrows dip slightly. Real smiles are all about the eyes. I did research on smiling as the national spokes person for The Natural Dentist. I will be blogging about this more tomorrow in the meantime here’s a great link from the BBC which provides a test to determine if you can determine a genuine smile from a fake one through recognizing micro expressions: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles

Being an Attractive Female Helps Your Speaking

In studies of female speakers, unattractiveness in the speaker caused a more negative reception of her views. Even when the unattractive speaker gave the more well reasoned, well constructed speech, the participants were more persuaded by the attractive female's poorly reasoned and ill-constructed speech.

College Program

This week I spoke at a convention in Phoenix, Arizona for the career counselors of the Top MBA programs in the country. The audience of more than 400 professionals was wonderful! As I was preparing I was concerned that I would be preaching to the choir about body language as MBA career counselors are constantly coaching their MBA students on the topic. But thankfully the program was a huge hit and they came up afterward and shared their surprise about so much that they'd learned: how important the handshake is and the importance of gender differences in body language and much more. You can learn more about my college programs on the College Programs portion of my website.

Signs a Guy Likes You

I remember when I was a little girl my friends and I would pick wild flowers in the field behind my house. I would hold a flower and think of a guy I liked and pick off petals saying, "He loves me. He loves me not." Now you don't have to pick the petals off a flower to tell if a guy likes you. You can watch his body language.

Animals like to show off and make themselves look good when they are attracted to the opposite sex. It's called preening. You may preen by touching or gently twisting your hair around your fingers when you are with a guy you like. Guys preen as well.

When a guy likes you he may:

• Slick back his hair with his hand
• Smooth out his eyebrows.
• Straighten his shirt collar
• Smooth out the "invisible wrinkles in his pants
• Adjust his belt or pull up the waist of his pants

A man may also signal he like you by:

Turning his toes towards you when he is talking with you. (Notice especially if the toes stay pointed towards you when you are talking.) We naturally tend to point our toes towards people who interest us -- It's like a compass pointing towards true north.

The rest of his body may show he is into you as well. He could be talking to someone else, but if he notices you and he is attracted to you, he may angle his feet, his lower torso and/or his heart towards you and may not even realize it.

Notice his eyes to see if he is into you. When he looks you in the eye, his pupils (the black circles in the middle of his eyeballs) will get bigger if he likes you. If he likes what he sees he wants to see it well so the pupils dilate to take you in. Pupil dilation happens automatically when you are attracted to someone. Since a guy cannot control it, it is a great 'tell'. However it can also occur when someone is drunk or drugged or in low lighting so don't automatically whoop and say, "He loves me!" when a man's eyes dilate.