Serious Eye block by Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (C) gestures after a final confidence vote on a 25 billion euro austerity package at Italy's upper house of Parliament in Rome July 28, 2010. Berlusconi's government won the final confidence vote on the package, which cuts government spending, freezes pay for many public sector workers, and promises a crackdown on tax evasion.◦

Serious Eye block by Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

Venus Williams Lets One Get Away

Venus Williams of the US reacts as she plays Samantha Stosur of Australia during their quarter final match for the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris, France, 02 June 2010.

Notice the head tilt (shying away from the opportunity); the lips piercing inward (even though she could say a great deal to herself); and the closed eyes (because she did not like what she just saw) all tell her true feeling about what has just occurred...◦

Venus Williams Lets One Get Away

Gordon Bown Under Extreme Stress When Confronted with the Tape of 'Bigoted Woman'

Notice how is physically backs away from the microphone, then shrinks as small as possible, face down, hand holding up his head on his forehead.

It is also a study in statement analysis, listen carefully to every question he is asked and notice how he does not directly answer the question, and the exact words he uses when answering- unfortunately this is similar to so many politicians and Public Relations people when dealing with conflict.◦

Gordon Bown Under Extreme Stress When Confronted with the Tape of 'Bigoted Woman'

The Body Language of the Eyes

Written by Guest Contributor Joe Navarro.
Joe Navarro is a 25 year veteran of the FBI where he served on the National Security Division's Behavioral Analysis Program. He is on the adjunct faculty at Saint Leo University and the Institute for Intergovernmental Research where he teaches nonverbal communications. For 35 years he has been teaching and utilizing the study of nonverbal communications as well as its practical applications in everyday use and in forensic settings. He has lectured throughout the world including Wayne State University School of Medicine and at the Baylor College of Medicine - Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in Houston, Texas. Mr. Navarro brings together his academic background, scientific research, and practical experience catching spies to the art of observing and interpreting human behavior. Mr. Navarro is also the author of: Advanced Interviewing Techniques: Proven Strategies for Law Enforcement, Military, and Security Personnel; Hunting Terrorists: A Look at the Psychopathology of Terror; Phil Hellmuth Presents Read 'Em and Reap: A Career FBI Agent's Guide to Decoding Poker Tells; and his most recent book, What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People.

Our eyes also are formidable communicators of feelings including comfort and discomfort, which help us decipher others from a very tender age. The eyes reveal excitement at mom walking into the room but also reveal concern when we are troubled. Often what is not spoken out loud is expressed exquisitely in the eyes. In fact I was prompted to write this today as I was visiting a research colleague and her eyes, at a distance, told me something was wrong, her father had passed away.

While a mother’s eyes will reflect the hopelessness she may feel when her baby is hospitalized they conversely reveal the joy having found that the child is healthy and fine. Few things reflect our emotions as well or as rapidly as the eyes. Babies which are just several days old already respond to the eyes of the mother and can tell the difference between a squint and wide opened dilated eyes. Babies can tell the difference between a happy and contented mother and one who is stressed, just form looking at the yes.

The eyes serve as conduits of information we have relied on for thousands of years. We rely on them because of their accuracy. The man who is asked to help someone move will cover his eyes with his fingers rubbing them as he answers, “yes I will help you,” when no doubt this will be an inconvenience. This blocking behavior authentically reveals how he feels even though he will assist.

Eye blocking behaviors such as: covering of the eyes, shielding the eyes, lowering the eyelids for a prolonged period, delays in opening of the eyes is so hard wired in us that children who are born blind, when they hear something they don’t like will also cover their eyes. Obviously this behavior is hard wired, part of our paleo-circuits and represents an adaptation to stress or other negative stimuli which has served us well over millennia.

Eye blocking is just one of the more obvious things that we do. When we are troubled, frustrated, or struggling with something emotionally, our eyelids may also close hard and remain closed or the eyelids may flutter rapidly as an expression of our sentiment. Hugh Grant is famous in the movies for his eyelid flutter whenever he screws something up.

Research also shows that when we are nervous or troubled our blink rate increases, a phenomenon often seen with liars but also frequently seen with people under stress. I would not call anyone a liar just because their blink rate goes up although while studying Richard Nixon I did notice that when he was struggling with facts while talking to the press his blink rate went from about 12 per minute to 68 time per minute. Bill Clinton during his deposition showed a high blink rate at times in excess of 92 per minute, but again these were individuals under a lot of stress.

When interpreting eye behavior, many misconceptions exist. Little or no eye contact is erroneously perceived by some as a classic sign of deception, especially during questioning, while the truthful should "lock eyes." This is not supported by research or experience and is completely false. In fact, Alder Vrij and others have found that liars tend to engage in greater eye contact because they know we are looking there for signs of deception.

Eye contact is in fact a social/cultural phenomenon that is practiced differently around the world. In New York City we are, by social convention, allowed to look at each other for 1.68 seconds. In other cultures, especially in Latin America and elsewhere, your ability to gaze at others may be quite extended so long as it is not threatening.

Eye aversion is practiced by many cultures including Latin Americans and African-Americans, to show respect to those in authority. So when a black child looks down as he or she is being chastised, that looking down is actually a sign of respect and deference which is often misinterpreted as disrespect or worse, deception.

It is interesting to note in my own observations that when we are most comfortable we have the luxury of looking away and we find comfort there as we retrieve facts from our memory or ponder the future.

Eyes will move side to side, look down, or hold still as we process information. Just ask someone, to multiply in their head 56 x 89 and watch their eyes. The cognitive load placed on them by the multiplication task will cause all sorts of eye movements or even eye closure. All we can learn from this is that the person is processing information, not that they are telling the truth or lying as some well intentioned but ill informed individuals would have you believe.

I look at the eyes principally to tell me when someone is comfortable and relaxed. I also look at the eyes to tell me when someone is suddenly troubled by a subject or an event. Immediately I will see the orbits narrow, what I call the Clint Eastwood effect (remember him in those Italian Westerns right before he was going to shoot, he always squinted). Squinting or the narrowing of the eye orbits indicates, very accurately, discomfort, stress, anger, or issues. I have capitalized on this behavior in negotiations as opposing counsel read each paragraph out loud; we could see which articles in the document were going to be problematic by the squinting of the eyes at each truculent juncture. This behavior is obviously millions of years old and it very elegantly communicates how we feel precisely at that moment.



Joe Navarro has a new book releasing soon, preorder it today, Louder Than Words: Take Your Career from Average to Exceptional with the Hidden Power of Nonverbal Intelligence
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The Body Language of the Eyes

Not a Good Week for Basketball Coaches

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski (top) and assistant Chris Collins react to the Blue Devils' loss of intensity midway through the second half of play against Long Beach State in Durham, North Carolina, on Tuesday, December 29, 2009.

Here we see pacifying behavior by both coaches; the interesting thing here is the assistant coach who is going well beyond eye blocking... this is more than eye blocking it is totally escapism which we see whenever someone is feeling intense discomfort. I often see this when people first hear extremely hard news to take, such as a death in the family...◦

Not a Good Week for Basketball Coaches

Negative Steeple and Eye Blocking

Denver Nuggets head coach George Karl reacts to play against the Dallas Mavericks during the first quarter at the Pepsi Center in Denver on December 27, 2009. Dallas and Denver lead their respective divisions.

Whenever we see a positive gesture out of context of the situation, and the person has turned it into a negative we are looking at a person under a great deal of stress or internal turmoil, as is the case here. Sometimes it is done to appear more confident than we really are, other times is subconsciously done to give strength.



Denver Nuggets head coach George Karl reacts as the Dallas Mavericks take the lead during the first quarter at the Pepsi Center in Denver on December 27, 2009.◦

Negative Steeple and Eye Blocking

Ft Hood Attend Memorial Services

Nov 10 2009
Army Soldiers stationed at Ft Hood attend memorial services for the slain soldiers at Ft Hood in Killeen, Texas on November 10, 2009. It was estimated that over 5,000 people of the military and civilians from the surrounding area attended the services. Among those present were The President and first Lady Barack Obama, the Governor of Texas Rick Perry, The Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, solider's that were wounded in the attack. UPI/Ron Russek II Photo via Newscom

Obviously an emotional time for all of us. We cannot see exactly what he is doing with his hand... it could be as simple as wiping a tear away, it could be that he is pinching the bridge of his nose to provide self comfort...

What is clear is he is using the lip of his cap and possibly his hand to eye block. The motivation could be that he does not want others to see his emotion and/or he simply does not like what he is seeing and gives himself a small break by not looking at the memorial.◦

Ft Hood Attend Memorial Services

More to Love: Episode Four

Melissa and Lauren are sent home.

Wow are the producers/editors reading my blog?!?!? My techie is telling me there are a larger number of people from LA hitting the site. A larger part of my work is becoming consulting in the entertainment business so no biggie. I told him I didn't care and don't do the ip look up thingy...

Last week I made some big statements,

"They will be gone and they know it, Kristian and Danielle." I guess you can have a ring and still be gone, where was Kristian in this episode? Her minutes drastically cut!

and

"Where does Luke stand in all this? A big cardboard cutout could stand in for him." This week we see him emerge (slightly).

Onto the non verbals of this episode:

Good Wife/Bad Wife

Perhaps this clip will make it into some of my training materials. We have so much emotion. Role playing. Pacifying behavior. Subtle surprise. Truth. Head tilts. Shoulder shrugs. Eye movement. Non asymmetrical mouth positions. Sadness. Happiness and True smiles. Pursed lips. Eye direction clues. One shoulder shrug. Head tilts. Hand pointing. Social smiles. Nods. Anger. Face touching. Perverse pleasure at the expense of others pain. Watch and learn from this five minute clip showing more nonverbal and body language clues that I have ever seen in any reality TV show!




Greetings
Last week I mentioned, "Look at the greetings, it will be the best indication of the relationship. Excitement seen here is important."

Who wins?

Melissa's Greeting


Heather's Greeting


More Thoughts

Mandy clearly is showing much more emotion than she has this season. Luke is not an emotional guy, but I hear and see some things in this exchange that lead me to believe that Luke has a way to go:

- Luke does not show any emotion when she expresses 'calling a boyfriend' and shows non verbal clues that he is not planning on choosing her (sigh, mouth).
- Luke says, "It is going to get more difficult, not just for me, but for you" is a warning for her. Listen to the his voice. "not just for me" is said softer- it will not be as difficult for him as it will be for her.

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More to Love: Episode Four

Analysis of South Carolina's Governor, Mark Sanford's Press Conference

Role analysis, I believe he is truly sorry for what has happened, but why is he sorry? Is it for his family, for his friend, for his career/job? After reviewing the tape this is the order of importance:

1)Friends
2)Career/Job
3)Family

I based this on his emotional level as he is speaking about these things. Generally there could be a build up as the speech goes on, but in this speech if I had to rank the emotional level it would be 3 for family, 7 for friend, and 5 for job.

00:58 Eye Blocking, is a nonverbal behavior that can occur when we feel
threatened and/or don’t like what we see. In this case he doesn't like seeing the reporters and the media.

01:18 Looking Down, Shame. People who are feeling ashamed, embarrassed, or sad, deliberately look away. Shame is a negative emotion occurring when we evaluate things as going worse than we expected.

01:55 Slight Lip Lick (see below).

01:59 Microexpression Subtle, Sadness, in mouth only.

Generally he doesn't want to look straight ahead.

02:14 Lip Lick, is a pacifying behavior (often referred to as an adapter in academia literature) serving to calm us down after we experience something unpleasant or downright nasty.

03:00 More emotional when speaking about his friend than about his wife and family.

03:47 Lip Lick, pacifying behavior.

05:20 More comfortable speaking about faith, looking more straight on. This is odd because there should be some shame or emotion to convey he is in turmoil with his faith and what he has done. I believe this is a sign that is is most sorry for being caught.

06:15 Eyes Down, Shame.

07:26 Full Shoulder Shrug, this needs to be evaluated in the context of what is being said. The shrug is a universal gesture that is used to show that a person does not know or understand what you are talking about. In this case he doesn't know how this will end.

07:46 Expel Air, Relief.

08:11 Lip Lick, pacifying behavior.

08:20 Becoming more emotional over resignation (not of his governorship).

Voice Analysis


Final Analysis
It appears because of his emotional level, and his conversation with his father-in-law two weeks prior, that his marriage was in extreme jeopardy before this getaway. His last conversation with his father-in-law was not as civil as he portrays it in this speech. Due to his high emotional response when speaking of his friend and political partner, he had higher aspirations than just Governor. I believe he does not want his wife speaking to the media. It may also be that he wanted to get "caught" if his marriage was over, this could have been orchestrated to be as sensational as it was, to control the revelation, gain the upper hand, and receive national exposure. It would have been very messy if this was a drawn out divorce, that his career would not be able to handle. His resignation (not of the state) is an attempt to convey punishment.◦

Analysis of South Carolina's Governor, Mark Sanford's Press Conference