Body language study file!

Part 1

Body language can be defined simply and in this study there are
some explanations to make things easier to understand and
study.
Here are some gestures and their meanings to start off with:

Gesture: Brisk, erect walk

Meaning: Confidence

Gesture: Standing with hands on hips

Meaning: Readiness, aggression

Gesture: Sitting with legs crossed, foot kicking slightly

Meaning: Boredom

Gesture: Sitting, legs apart

Meaning: Open, relaxed

Gesture: Arms crossed on chest

Meaning: Defensiveness

Gesture: Walking with hands in pockets, shoulders hunched

Meaning: Low spirits/sad/depression

Gesture: Hand to cheek

Meaning: Judgement, thinking

Gesture: Touching, slightly rubbing nose

Meaning: Rejection, doubt, lying

Gesture: Rubbing the eye

Meaning: Doubt, disbelief

Gesture: Hands clasped behind back

Meaning: Anger, frustration, Anxiety/fear
Gesture: Locked ankles
Meaning: Anxiety/fear

Gesture: Head resting in hand, eyes downcast

Meaning: Boredom

Gesture: Rubbing hands

Meaning: Anticipation

Gesture: Sitting with hands clasped behind head, legs crossed

Meaning: Confidence, superiority

Gesture: Open palm

Meaning: Straightforwardness, openness, innocence

Gesture: Pinching bridge of nose, eyes closed

Meaning: Negative Judgement

Gesture: Tapping or drumming fingers

Meaning: Impatience

Gesture: Steepling fingers

Meaning: Authoritative

Gesture: Patting/fondling hair

Meaning: Lack of self-confidence; insecurity

Gesture: Quickly tilted head

Meaning: Interest

Gesture: Stroking chin

Meaning: Trying to make a decision

Gesture: Looking down, face turned away

Meaning: Disbelief

Gesture: Biting nails

Meaning: Insecurity, nervousness

Gesture: Pulling or tugging at ear

Meaning: Indecision
Gesture: Prolonged tilted head
Meaning: Boredom

Part 2

They were just some of the gestures that are good to learn and to
see if you can recognise. Some more important body language
topics are handshakes. There are diffirent types of handshakes
and ways to tell who has the most authoritive position in a
handshake. Here is some information about handshakes and
there important qualities in the topic of body language.

In a handshake, the way your palm is facing is important. This

relates to palm positions a bit further on in the book, which we
will come to later. When you shake hands, if your palm and the
person you are shaking hands with are at the same angle like
figure 1. This is an equal handshake, which means both people
are in equal positions.
Figure 1

When in a handshake, if your palm is facing downwards making

the other person’s hand turn slightly upwards then you are in the
authoritive position – the power position. But the other way – if
your hand is facing upwards slightly, then you are in the
submissive handshake position.

The hand facing

upwards is in the
submissive position.

The hand facing

down is in the
power position.
Executing a handshake to put yourself in a power position can
be hard because you don’t want to milk it to the point where
they recognise your doing something. Another point is that you
don’t want to make the person turn themselves around. To do it
you just have to turn your hand and keep it there when you
thrust out your arm, so they then have to grab your hand slightly
turned. Putting you in the power position.

Quick question: If you put your hand out for a high five like
figure 2, does this put you in a submissive/honest position.

Answer: Yes, because you are putting yourself up for someone

to either ignore you or give you a high five. And it shows you
are not concealing anything in that hand to hurt them with.

Figure 2
Another type of handshake can be refered to as a counter to
someone pulls a submissive position on you is the double
hander. It allows you to counter the submissive position but
change the feelings of the person to show you are more friendly.
It is when you put your left hand on theirs. It is mostly used
when the person you are shaking hands with is insecure or upset.
And you should mostly only use it on people you know because
it shows your friendly and you don’t want to do that to a big
strong man who is quite dumb. Because it makes them people
feel stupid, or like they need help all the time. This handshake is
often used in buissness meetings or at the start of an interview if
the person wants to give an open, honest first impression before
showing what their qulities are.
Part 3

The holding of certain parts of your body or touching parts of

your face or just simply touching someone else is important in
body language. It is good to know, when in a conversation if the
person is tired of listening or wants to do something else so you
know that they wont avoid you or try to ignore any aproaches
you make to start conversations, etc. Sales people have to know
about that bit of body language to see if they can sell their
product correctly. Some of the sales-people-body-language is in
this book and will appear in the next part.

1. Men seem to place their hands over their crotch when their
scared or insecure because that is where they are most
vunerable.
2. Crossing the arms over the chest is a sign of defence and
insecurity. A woman may do it to protect her breasts if she
feels un-safe. But at a table full of people, like in a
meeting the people may seem to lean back and cross there
arms, this is usually, “I don’t care for his/her ideas” And
they will usually open their arms and lean forward when
they want to listen. And keep the arms open and sit
straight up when its their turn to talk.
3. When crossed arms are formed if the fists are all clenched
this is anger but they don’t notice they are showing it, like
describing a past stressfull moment to someone. If they do
notice that their fists are clenched, it is usually that they
are hostile or very defensive.
4. Gripping the arms when they are crossed is a sign of, “Im
not buying it!” and insecurity.

Touching other people for use of changing the way they feel
about you is important because you have to be carefull who you
do it to, it is usaully rather personal. Like the double hander
counter for handshakes, you have to be carefull when choosing
to do it to someone incase you make them insecure. By touching
the elbow lightly in a handshake with your left hand it makesthe
person feel more secure with you and you are more likely to get
what you ask for.

If a man touches another mans neck it is usually going to be a

hostile movement. But if a woman touches a mans neck there is
usually a relationship between them, because, the neck is full of
vunerable points and is deep inside our circle of personal space.

Personal space is an impotant part of body language, by

invading it, you can make others feel insecure and give them
feelings, that you are hostile. But by slightly being in some ones
personal space can make them feel safe that you don’t want to
come close to hurt them, and you don’t want to be far away,
ignoring them.

Personal space is another one to be careful with alongside the

double hander handshake because, coming into someones
personal space is either a positive action, so usually a
relationship is including within these people, if not, entering
someones personal space is considered hostile, because it makes
the person uncomfortable.

Part 4

This section is all about salespeople and how they are so

convincing. When you answer the door to a salesperson. They
usually say hello, and say their name and what their doing. You
record this information, but you also look at what their wearing
and if they look smart and not a liar. You do this in the first five
seconds of seeing someone. Then when you listen to what they
have to say, you find out more things about them and most of
the time your opinion will change.
These are some of the things you might look for when you
answer the door to a sales person;
 1. You might guess their age. An older person = you don’t
want to turn down. A young person = you get distracted by
a young smart boy/girl doing their job.
2. Their hair. If its short and spikey = well trained and clever.
Long hair (boy) = a bit of a scruff or not so smart. Skin-
head = might be a scally, who you don’t want to say no to.
3. The clothes. = if they are wearing a suit. Is their top button
done, is their tie right?
4. Jewlery. = if they wear big show-off jewlery it might look
silly and not convincing. If they wear a nice watch it lokks
professional and smart.
5. The sound of the voice and the words whe they say hello.
A big husky voice may make the listener uncomfortable. A
little quiet voice is unconvicing. But a smooth working
voice, with no stutters or shakieness in it sounds clever and
convincing.
6. Glasses make a person look smart and go with the effect of
a suit and a buissnessman/woman. But if they are to big
and are too fashonable, they blow the effect.

A salesperson always has a script that works well with people. If

they work in that area. They might find out that certain words
and descriptions work better on different people. Words that are
slightly understandable are good, because a technical sounding
word is convincing and if the person does not understand what it
means they wont usually ask and will assume its good.

It is proven that the longer you talk to the salesperson, the

longer thay have to convince you, and if they add humor into
their speech it convinces you more.

When a person lies (lies will be the focus of the next part) they
tend not to look straight in the persons eyes. So they train
themselves to not look away.

When people sweat that means their nervous, in salesperson it

could mean their lying or they are trying to close the deal quick
because you might not be buying it as much as he/she wants you
to.

Fidgeting with the hands or an object normaly represents

anxiety/nervouseness. And if a person lies as well as looking
away, they could fidget with their hands. When lying most
children fidget with their hands or cover their mouth.

When a person is nervous their breathing normaly goes irreglar.

But when they lie, they usaully take short shallow breaths.

People who are lying will often display unnatural facial

expressions. They may appear stone-faced when they’re trying
to hide the truth. We often refer to this look as a “poker face”.
Poker players try to prevent making any facial gestures or
expressions that could without knowing it reveal their hand to
the other players. Detecting smiles, is good to know because it
shows when someone is pretending to care that they aren’t.
(Fake smiles and laughter are not included in this study; look
them up if you want to)

When people get nervous they usually stutter and say “erm” a
lot, but when people lie instead they clear their throat. This
gives them a chance to think of their next lie and some people
do it unconsciously.

Other things salespeople might do if they are lying, for example,

your salesperson may touch or scratch his chin or nose while
talking. This may be a non-verbal sign he is nervous.

He may also rub the back of his neck or scratch behind his ear.
Touching his throat or mouth is another warning sign. It is
almost as if the salesperson is trying to hide the words that are
coming out of his mouth.
The bottom line is you should never ignore body language in
sales. A person’s body can provide very important clues as to
whether they are being genuine or deceptive.

The main points in a salesperson to deceive them and not them

pull the cover over your eyes are;

1. Watch the gestures – make sure he isn’t lying to your face.

2. Make a good opinion – you don’t want to your brain to
keep a bad opinion, because it might be wrong.
3. Listen to their speech – detect the faults and pick out
where they lie.
4. Don’t be deceived by their smart clothes, imagine they are
in the same clothes you normally wear. – Your mind gets
distracted by clothes and makes you think that they must
be correct, because if they look smart, to everyone else
they are smart.
5. Question them – if they lie then, you can say to them that
you lied so how do you know they haven’t lied about the
rest of the stuff they have told you.

Part 5

This part is focused on lies and detecting when a person lies.

Some information about lies has already been mentioned, but
this part will recap it better.

Here is a table about lies:

detecting a lie
They might scratch/rub their neck, they might scratch their ear.
They might look away and avoid eye contact. They might cover
their mouth (even with 1 or 2 fingers).
When people lie the pupil dilates. The liar may come closer into
his own personal space (he might cross his arms). The liar’s
breathing goes irregular. The hand will not show palms out (the
honest gesture). If the liar is a woman, they tend to make
themselves look busy. Some liars laugh when they lie. Anger
usually appears.

Rubbish liars always come up with excuses straight away, when

you talk to them about the subject.

More information about lying;

• Timing and duration of emotional gestures and emotions are

off a normal pace. The display of emotion is delayed, stays
longer it would naturally, and then stops suddenly.

• Timing is off between emotions gestures/expressions and

words. Example: Someone says "I love it!" when receiving a
gift, and then smile after making that statement, rather then at
the same time the statement is made.

• Gestures/expressions don’t match the verbal statement, such as

frowning when saying “I love you.”

• Expressions are limited to mouth movements when someone is

faking emotions (like happy, surprised, sad, awe,) instead of the
whole face. For example; when someone smiles naturally their
whole face is involved: jaw/cheek movement, eyes and forehead
push down, etc

There are things called micro expressions which are momentary

involuntary facial expressions - which people unconsciously
display when they are hiding an emotion. They are quick &
intense expressions of concealed emotion. They are hard to learn
but great to know. Here’s what you should look out for;

1. Contempt = One side of the lip will slightly raise

2. Anger = Clenched fists, eyes glare; eyebrows come down
and narrow lips.
3. Disgust = Upper lip raises and nose wrinkles.
4. Happiness = Crows feet wrinkles, pushed up cheeks and
movement in the muscle that is around the eye.
 5. Fear = Eyebrows raise and pull together, upper eyelids
raise and lower eyelids tense and the lips stretch back
towards the ears.
6. Sadness = Drooping upper eyelids, loss of eye focus and
corners of the lips pull down.
7. Surprise = Eyebrows raised, eyes widen and mouth opens.

They are what you see very quickly and you think people are
just weird or pulling faces. If you learn them you can add them
too what you know about gestures and it will help you too make
better interpretations about someone. Liars show micro-
expressions a lot and so does everyone but liars show them more
because you show micro-expressions automatically and when
you lie, there are a lot of feelings you might show when you’re
lying and the micro-expressions show them physically. So when
you lie you might feel anger and contempt for someone or you
might say you are happy but you’re really sad and the micro-
expressions show that.

When someone lies, they might show micro-expressions and

certain gestures. You should learn to look out for them and use
the skill of detecting them carefully.

When you want to detect a lie, most of the time you will have
too look out for micro-expressions and by that you will have to
ask questions and see how the micro-expressions compare with
the question.

Part 6

This part is all about, the whole detecting and perceiving part of
body language. You don’t want to make any false accusations!

When you detect a lie or a feeling, its better to watch for the
next gesture or micro-expression so you don’t get it wrong, by
either just talking to them, or use the easy format – ask
questions they feel deeply about and you will mostly get a good
clear response. If they feel strong about something they get
more into it. The more they get into it, the more they are
distracted from what gestures and expressions they are showing.

On the outside, people don’t think (most people don’t know)

that when they shake their hands in certain ways or pull a certain
face that they are showing that they don’t really believe in what
they are saying, giving it away to people who know gestures and
micro-expressions that their lying. Sounds easy as pie, but
really, when you’re detecting feelings and expressions it’s a
tricky business and can be quite dangerous in some points
because people don’t want to be read. That’s why you don’t
jump in and go, “I know body language and I know that you
lied!”

If you did that it could cause lots of problems and you could be
left on your own in the corner. (Unless that’s where you are
already)

But whatever happens, use these helper-rules to guide you:

1. Don’t detect a feeling/lie/etc and jump into the situation

and talk about it.

2. Don’t spread what you know around to lots of people, if

they use it on you it could lead into arguments, etc.

3. Always read and check, use back up. You could be wrong.

4. Remember that if people find out what you know they

might want to know how to do it. – be careful who you tell
it to.
 5. Use the knowledge carefully. – don’t read a person who
might do harm to you.

“Have fun, be safe, and laugh about it!”

I hope you found this information useful, and you will treasure
what you can learn and share with others. Thank you.

Adam