It’s true, we’re not the most physically expressive bunch of people on the planet.  But there was an interesting case study in body language last year thanks to two of our dourest political operatives.  And to make it all the more juicy, it was caught on camera for all to see.  I’m talking about the ‘revealing’ body language of Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson during a recent joint interview.

The BBCNI team wheeled in a body language ‘expert’ called Judi James to provide an analysis.  This made me smile for a few reasons.

First of all, I classify someone as an expert if they’ve conducted ground-breaking research or constructed a boundary-crossing application.  Appearing as a guru on on programmes like Big Brother and The Xtra Factor does not count.  Desmond Morris, Albert Mehrabian, Paul Ekman – that’s the level of person who I’d classify as an expert.

(The astute among you will see this as sour grapes at my not being asked to do it.  After all, I’ve delivered different courses at Queen’s University on body language over the years.  By rights I should be the local expert.  So there.)

Second, the analysis itself was rather banal, IMHO.  For instance, Judi noted the “deadpan delivery” of McGuinness as a sign of determination.  Deadpan delivery?  That’s what we do, Julie dear, that’s our national thing!  You might as well observe that Americans are loud and the Japanese inscrutable.  Cultural context, anyone?

Read here if you want to see how unconfortable I am with the extreme direction some body language interpretation is taking.  Or talk to a guy.  Try McGuinness or Robinson, if you think you’re deadpan enough…

Is Paul Ekman wrong?  Paul who?  Paul Ekman – the psychology professor who discovered that the facial expressions of emotion are universal across human cultures and thus biological in origin.  This was big news at a time when most anthropologists believed that all expressions of emotion were culturally determined.  Ekman found that at least six expressions were universal – those indicating anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise.

I’ve mentioned him before in relation to classes I’ve taught on body language and lie-detection.  He’s most famous here for his work on microexpressions – those brief glimpses into what someone is really feeling – and his attempt to map the relation between every facial muscle and the emotion that triggers it off (the Facial Action Coding System).

Anyway, to put it bluntly, he might be wrong, at least in part.  Recent research has suggested that facial expression are not global.  The difference comes between East and West.  The study showed that Easterners focus on the eyes, while Westerners scan the whole face.  But, in Ekman’s defence, I might suggest that this has more to be with someone’s secondary interpretation than your primary expression.

The slightly quirky element to this study was its claim that there is a link between this and the different sorts of emoticons used by both groups.  For instance, while the Western emoticon for sad is of course :- ( the Eastern is (;_;) or (T_T).  The Eastern emoticons emphasise the eyes, while for the West its the mouth that moves.

Surprised?  And if so, is that :- o or (o.o)?

I used a number of web resources during the day to test their growing skills.  Some of you asked me on your evaluation forms to give the links to these exercises.  The Spot the Fake Smile test can be found on the BBC website.  Simon Baron-Cohen’s Reading the Mind in the Eyes test crops up in a number of places, including here and here.

As well as NLP eye accessing cues, the other ‘systems’ we touched on were Interpersonal Deception Theory and Statement Analysis or Statement Veracity Analysis (essentially the same thing).

For further training in deception detection, I would suggest a visit to the site of Paul Ekman, or to another site that deals exclusively with his Micro Express Traning Tool (METT).  For further reading, try Albert Vrij (for something deep) or Peter Collett (for something a little more entertaining).  A summary of the all the slides I used for the event is available for downloading from the Box widget on the side.

My thanks to those who joined in the fun and challenged me during the teaching sessions.  Believe me when I say that I’ve never met a nicer bunch of people…

Never be fooled, tricked, manipulated, used, lied to, or taken advantage of again! Learn how to test true friendship, check out tall tales, see through people’s masks, spot the bluffers, and get anyone to say what they’re really thinking. Stop the lies in any situation or conversation. Influence others to tell the truth. Never feel powerless again!

I’ve delivered a few highly successful courses in non-verbal communication or ‘body language’ at Queen’s and I’m keen to take the subject a bit further.  This workshop is the result.  Most books on Body Language include a chapter on spotting deception, but the topic is so interesting and useful that I thought I’d expand it out into an entire workshop.  The enrolment demand has been profuse.

But just to forewarn you – I plan to have fun on this course!

Yes, we’ll cover all the serious psychologists like Paul Ekman and Albert Vrij.  We’ll certainly touch on the relevant systems of explanation, both the well known (NLP) and the well respected (IDT).  I’ll show the students what to look for in a lie and how to confirm it with questioning techniques.

But the main fun will reside in learning to deceive each other.  If you have to send a thief to catch a thief, then you also must become a liar to spot a liar.  Don’t worry, I won’t corrupt anyone’s innocent mind.  I do believe however that the best way to learn what to look for in a deciever  is to feel how they feel – the discomfort and fear, the alteration in tone and artificial word-patterns, the non-verbal leakage and hiding actions.

Lie detecting is a great skill to have in many jobs and work-place situations.  And if you don’t believe me… then you’re learning!

It’s the second time I’ve led this workshop at Queen’s.  Both times it’s been the largest, most popular course I’ve ever taught.  Both times, the numbers have been well over the 40 mark.  But there have been a few changes over the years.

Back in 2006 when I first taught the course I tried to lay a foundation of theory before offering some application and role-play.  This time I launched straight into it with a ‘Top Ten Uses of Body Language in Evey-day Life’.  Only after this I squeezed in a bit of theory before lunch, mentioning the likes of Mehrabian, Morris and Eckman.  After lunch, I hit them with 10 ‘Special Techniques’ of nonverbal-communication they could try out upon unsuspecting friends and colleagues.  The day finished with a test and ‘graduation’!

Another difference was the venue.  The first time, we were squeezed into an average sized room, which makes it hard to organise activities.  This time, because the numbers were greater, we were placed into a lecture-theatre with fixed seating… which made it hard to orgaise activities.

As usual at these Open Learning events, the students demonstrated a brilliant mix of interest, insight and debate.  They don’t let a PhD get in the way of their crap-detection skills; I’m never short of challengers.  This is how it should be, doubly so when teaching adults.

A few times they asked me to recommend some books.  Any bookstore with a half decent ‘Self Help’ or ‘Popular Psychology’section should offer a fair choice.  My judgment is that about 80% of what these books have to say is the same, so its a matter of personal preference for the ‘feel’ of the books that’s perhaps the best criterion.  However, I found the Body Language For Dummies useful for the scope and variety of its content.  But your first port of call should be the Web.  There’s a massive amount of free stuff out here for those who know how to Google.

I’m thinking of taking this workshop on the road, out of the cloistered halls of Queen’s University and into the real world.  What do you think?

Oh, I forgot to say that I got no lunch due to being interviewed by a journalist from Dublin.  More of this later.