Body language after a threatening experience
I hope you can use the body language tips we covered this week. I find it endlessly informative to watch people’s non-verbal communication, and today’s 2 Minute Tip is something I use all the time to help me understand what people are really thinking.
Joe Navarro, author of What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People tells us that to help ensure the survival of our species, the limbic brain works to keep us feeling secure – not just by avoiding danger and discomfort, but also by seeking safety or comfort whenever possible. These micro-actions come out without the person even knowing, which gives us clues to their thoughts.
Humans will often follow a threatening experience, even an emotionally threatening one, with pacifying, or self-soothing behaviors.
Just as we naturally soothe crying babies, rock ourselves back and forth, or hug an upset friend to calm them down after an unpleasant experience, we also do this to ourselves.
Just watch people at the airport when a flight is canceled or delayed.
Forms of self-soothing include:
Neck touching and/or stroking
Face stroking, particularly the forehead or chin
Playing with hair or jewelry
Rubbing cheeks or lips with our tongues
Ventilating, such as pulling a collar away from the neck or rolling the shoulders back in a circle
Slow exhale, especially with puffed cheeks
Rubbing, stroking, or holding hands or other body parts
Rocking back and forth
Touching the suprasternal notch.
One of the most common areas to touch when self-soothing is the suprasternal notch -- the dimple in the breast bone below the Adam's apple. Men might adjust their ties. A woman might play with her necklace.
According to Navarro, these behavioral clues can be used to detect, among other things, discomfort.
Self-soothing can also include stroking an ear or earring, or a move called “cleansing” where a seated person pushes their hands along their thighs or arms. These may be prolonged movements, or just be a brief touch.
These “stroking” behaviors don’t help us to solve problems; rather, they help us to remain calm
in response to a negative stimulus such as a difficult question, an embarrassing situation, or stress as a result of something heard, seen, or thought.
More unconscious, self-soothing, pacifying behaviors.
When you see pacifying behaviors, stop and ask yourself, “Why is this person pacifying?” It’s important to have already established a baseline.
I was once in a meeting with a high-powered, strong executive. We were discussing branding, an area she admitted she did not have a lot of experience. When I asked her a direct question, she twirled her hair, something I had never seen her do before.
Could it have been something unrelated to the conversation, or even unrelated to work? Absolutely. My point is that I knew she was uncomfortable, and to pay attention closer attention to try and figure out why.
The ability to link a pacifying behavior with the specific stressor that caused it can help you guess at a person’s thoughts, feelings, and intentions more accurately.
But it’s just a guess.
None of the 2 Minute tips this or next week can tell you if a person is lying, or anything else definitive, for that matter.
Deception is notoriously difficult to detect, but pacifying behaviors indicate the person is bothered by something, and your job, as an observer of nonverbal communication – a collector of signals – is to find out what that something is.
The greater the stress or discomfort, the greater the likelihood of pacifying behaviors will follow.
Don’t forget our principles of baseline and congruence.
And go back to where we started, paying attention to what doesn’t “feel right” to you.
Next week, the 2 Minute Tip will continue discussing body language, with a focus on reading people during virtual meetings and on our devices.
Have a great weekend.
