Body language is a form of non-verbal communication, consisting of body pose, gestures, and eye movements. Humans send and interpret such signals subconsciously.

It is often said that human communication consists of 93% body language and paralinguistic cues, while only 7% of communication consists of words themselves  – however, Albert Mehrabian, the researcher whose 1960s work is the source of these statistics, has stated that this is a misunderstanding of the findings  . Others assert that “Research has suggested that between 60 and 70 percent of all meaning is derived from nonverbal behavior.”

Body language may provide clues as to the attitude or state of mind of a person. For example, it may indicate aggression, attentiveness, boredom, relaxed state, pleasure, amusement, besides many other cues.

Understanding body language

The technique of ‘reading’ people is used frequently. For example, the idea of mirroring body language to put people at ease is commonly used in interviews. Mirroring the body language of someone else indicates that they are understood.

Body language signals may have a goal other than communication. Both people would keep this in mind. Observers limit the weight they place on non-verbal cues. Signalers clarify their signals to indicate the biological origin of their actions.

Physical Expression

Physical expressions like waving, pointing, touching and slouching are all forms of nonverbal communication. The study of body movement and expression is known as kinesics. Humans move their bodies when communicating because, as research has shown, it helps “ease the mental effort when communication is difficult.” Physical expressions reveal many things about the person using them. For example, gestures can emphasize a point or relay a message, posture can reveal boredom or great interest, and touch can convey encouragement or caution.

• One of the most basic and powerful body-language signals is when a person crosses his or her arms across the chest. This can indicate that a person is putting up an unconscious barrier between themselves and others. It can also indicate that the person’s arms are cold which would be clarified by rubbing the arms or huddling. When the overall situation is amicable, it can mean that a person is thinking deeply about what is being discussed. But in a serious or confrontational situation, it can mean that a person is expressing opposition. This is especially so if the person is leaning away from the speaker. A harsh or blank facial expression often indicates outright hostility.

• Consistent eye contact can indicate that a person is thinking positively of what the speaker is saying. It can also mean that the other person doesn’t trust the speaker enough to “take his eyes off” the speaker. Lack of eye contact can indicate negativity. On the other hand, individuals with anxiety disorders are often unable to make eye contact without discomfort. Eye contact is often a secondary and misleading gesture because we are taught from an early age to make eye contact when speaking. If a person is looking at you but is making the arms-across-chest signal, the eye contact could be indicative that something is bothering the person, and that he wants to talk about it. Or if while making direct eye contact a person is fiddling with something, even while directly looking at you, it could indicate the attention is elsewhere. Also there are three standard areas that a person will look which represent different states of being. If the person looks from one eye to the other then to the forehead it is a sign that they are taking an authoritative position. If they move from one eye to the other then to the nose, that signals that they are engaging in what they consider to be a “level conversation” with neither party holding superiority. The last case is from one eye to the other and then down to the lips. This is a strong indication of romantic feelings.

• Disbelief is often indicated by averted gaze, or by touching the ear or scratching the chin. When a person is not being convinced by what someone is saying, the attention invariably wanders, and the eyes will stare away for an extended period.

• Boredom is indicated by the head tilting to one side, or by the eyes looking straight at the speaker but becoming slightly unfocused. A head tilt may also indicate a sore neck or Amblyopia, and unfocused eyes may indicate ocular problems in the listener.

• Interest can be indicated through posture or extended eye contact, such as standing and listening properly.

• Deceit or the act of withholding information can sometimes be indicated by touching the face during conversation. Excessive blinking is a well-known indicator of someone who is lying. Recently, evidence has surfaced that the absence of blinking can also represent lying as a more reliable factor than excessive blinking. 
• It should be noted that some people (e.g., people with certain disabilities, or those on the autistic spectrum) use and understand body language differently, or not at all. Interpreting their gestures and facial expressions (or lack thereof) in the context of normal body language usually leads to misunderstandings and misinterpretations (especially if body language is given priority over spoken language). It should also be stated that people from different cultures can interpret body language in different ways.

Examples list

• Hands on knees: indicates readiness.
• Hands on hips: indicates impatience or possiblly the person is angry
• Lock your hands behind your back: indicates self-control.
• Locked hands behind head: states confidence.
• Sitting with a leg over the arm of the chair: suggests indifference.
• Legs and feet pointed in a particular direction: the direction where more interest is felt
• Crossed arms: indicates submissiveness.

Body language is a form of non-verbal communication involving the use of stylized gestures, postures, and physiologic signs which act as cues to other people. Humans, sometimes unconsciously, send and receive non-verbal signals all the time.

How prevalent is non-verbal communication in humans?

Some researchers put the level of nonverbal communication as high as 80 percent of all communication when it could be at around 50-65 percent. Different studies have found differing amounts, with some studies showing that facial communication is believed 4.3 times more often than verbal meaning, and another finding that verbal communication in a flat tone is 4 times more likely to be understood than a pure facial expression. Albert Mehrabian is noted for finding a 7%-38%-55% rule, supposedly denoting how much communication was conferred by words, tone, and body language. However he was only referring to cases of expressing feelings or attitudes.

Body language and space

Interpersonal space refers to the psychological “bubble” that we can imagine exists when someone is standing way too close to us. Research has revealed that there are four different zones of interpersonal space. The first zone is called intimate distance and ranges from touching to about eighteen inches (46 cm) apart. Intimate distance is the space around us that we reserve for lovers, children, as well as close family members and friends. The second zone is called personal distance and begins about an arm’s length away; starting around eighteen inches (46 cm) from our person and ending about four feet (122 cm) away. We use personal distance in conversations with friends, to chat with associates, and in group discussions. The third zone of interpersonal space is called social distance and is the area that ranges from four to eight feet (1.2 m – 2.4 m) away from you. Social distance is reserved for strangers, newly formed groups, and new acquaintances. The fourth identified zone of space is public distance and includes anything more than eight feet (2.4 m) away from you. This zone is used for speeches, lectures, and theater; essentially, public distance is that range reserved for larger audiences.

Unintentional gestures

Recently, there has been huge interest in studying human behavioral clues that could be useful for developing an interactive and adaptive human-machine system. Unintentional human gestures such as making an eye rub, a chin rest, a lip touch, a nose itch, a head scratch, an ear scratch, crossing arms, and a finger lock have been found conveying some useful information in specific context. Some researchers have tried to extract such gestures in a specific context of educational applications.

References

micro-expression is a brief, involuntary facial expression shown on the face of humans when one is trying to conceal or repress an emotion. They usually occur in high-stakes situations, where people have something to lose or gain.

Unlike regular facial expressions, few can fake a microexpression (it is possible to voluntarily stress some facial muscles to replicate micro-expressions). But, no one can fake above a certain extent, when questions are asked accordingly, and only trained professionals could ask the right questions at the right time, to get the true color out.  They consist of and completely resemble the seven universal emotions: disgust, anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise, and contempt. Microexpressions can occur as fast as 1/25 of a second.

History

Microexpressions were first discovered by Haggard and Isaacs. In their 1966 study, Haggard and Isaacs outlined how they discovered these “micromomentary” expressions while “scanning motion picture films of psychotherapy hours, searching for indications of non-verbal communication between therapist and patient”

In the 1960s, William Condon pioneered the study of interactions at the fraction-of-a-second level. In his famous research project, he scrutinized a four-and-a-half-second film segment frame by frame, where each frame represented 1/25th second. After studying this film segment for a year and a half, he discerned interactional micromovements, such as the wife moving her shoulder exactly as the husband’s hands came up, which combined yielded microrhythms.

Malcolm Gladwell John Gottam

Years after Condon’s study, American psychologist John Gottman began video-recording living relationships to study how couples interact. By studying participant’s facial expressions, Gottman was able to predict which relationships would last and which would not. In Malcom Gladwell‘s book Blink, Gottman states that there are four major emotional reactions that are destructive to a marriage: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. Among these four, Gottman considers contempt the most important of them all.

Naturals – Wizards Project

Paul Ekman

The Wizards Project (formerly called the Diogenes Project) was a research project conducted by Paul Ekman and Maureen O’Sullivan that studied the ability of people to detect lies told by others. The project was originally named after the Greek philosopher who would look into people’s faces using a lamp, claiming to be looking for an honest man.

A “Truth Wizard” is a person identified in the Wizards Project, who can identify deception with exceptional accuracy of at least 80% or higher, whereas the average person is only as good as a coin toss. No Truth Wizard, however, is 100% accurate. The term “wizard” refers to “a person of amazing skill or accomplishment” .

Scientists Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan and Dr. Paul Ekman, who lead the Wizards Project  identified only 50 people as Truth Wizards after testing 20,000 people (about 0.25% of the population) from all walks of life, including the Secret Service, FBI, sheriffs, police, attorneys, arbitrators, psychologist, students and every day people. Surprisingly, while psychiatrists and law enforcement showed no more aptitude than college freshmen, Secret Service agents were the most skilled; however, no collective group scored as well as the Truth Wizards.

Dr. Paul Ekman said on NPR that “we have found 50 who have this really nearly perfect ability to spot liars, and that’s without any specialized training.”

Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan from the University of San Francisco says, “Our wizards are extraordinarily attuned to detecting the nuances of facial expressions, body language and ways of talking and thinking. Some of them can observe a videotape for a few seconds and amazingly they can describe eight details about the person on the tape.”

Scientists are currently studying Truth Wizards to identify new ways to spot a liar.

Truth Wizards use a variety of clues to spot deception and do not depend on any one “clue” to identify a liar. Truth wizards have a natural knack for spotting microexpressions. They also home in on inconsistencies in emotion, body language, and words spoken with amazing skill.

Dr. Paul Ekman said on NPR, “We’re still trying to find out how in the world did they learn this skill? Are they the sort of Mozarts of lie detection; they just had it?”

References

1. ^ P.Granhag and L. Strömwall, “The detection of deception in forensic contexts”, Cambridge University Press, p. 269, 2004
2. ^ P.Granhag and L. Strömwall, “The detection of deception in forensic contexts”, Cambridge University Press, p. 269, 2004
3. ^ Camilleri, J., Truth Wizard knows when you’ve been lying”, Chicago Sun-Times, January 21, 2009
4. ^ Camilleri, J., Truth Wizard knows when you’ve been lying”, Chicago Sun-Times, January 21, 2009
   1. ^ P. Ekman, “Facial Expressions of Emotion: an Old Controversy and New Findings”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, B335:63–69, 1992
   2. ^ Haggard, E. A., & Isaacs, K. S. (1966). Micro-momentary facial expressions as indicators of ego mechanisms in psychotherapy. In L. A. Gottschalk & A. H. Auerbach (Eds.), Methods of Research in Psychotherapy (pp. 154-165). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
   3. Article Wikipedia
      

Deception, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, and subterfuge are acts to propagate beliefs that are not true, or not the whole truth (as in half-truths or omission). Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda, sleight of hand. It can employ distraction, camouflage or concealment. There is also self-deception.

Deception is a major relational transgression that often leads to feelings of betrayal and distrust between relational partners. Deception violates relational rules and is considered to be a negative violation of expectations. Most people expect friends, relational partners, and even strangers to be truthful most of the time. If people expected most conversations to be untruthful, talking and communicating with others would simply be unproductive and too difficult. On a given day, it is likely that most human beings will either deceive or be deceived by another person. A significant amount of deception occurs between romantic and relational partners.

Types

Deception includes several types of communications or omissions that serve to distort or omit the complete truth. Deception itself is intentionally managing verbal and/or nonverbal messages so that the message receiver will believe in a way that the message sender knows is false. Intent is critical with regard to deception. Intent differentiates between deception and an honest mistake. The Interpersonal Deception Theory explores the interrelation between communicative context and sender and receiver cognitions and behaviours in deceptive exchanges.

Five primary forms of deception consist of the following:

• lies: making up information or giving information that is the opposite or very different from the truth.

• equivocations: making an indirect, ambiguous, or contradictory statement.

• concealments: omitting information that is important or relevant to the given context, or engaging in behaviour that helps hide relevant information.

• exaggeration: overstatement or stretching the truth to a degree.

• understatement: minimization or downplaying aspects of the truth^.

Motives

There are three primary motivations for deceptions in close relationships.

• Partner-focused motives: using deception to avoid hurting the partner, helping the partner to enhance or maintain his or her self-esteem, avoid worrying the partner, and protecting the partner’s relationship with a third party. Partner-motivated deception can sometimes be viewed as socially polite and relationally beneficial.

• Self-focused motives: using deception to enhance or protect their self-image, wanting to shield themselves from anger, embarrassment, or criticism. Self-focused deception is generally perceived as a more serious transgression than partner-focused deception because the deceiver is acting for self reasons than for the good of the relationship.

• Relationship-focused motives: using deception to limit relationship harm by avoiding conflict or relational trauma. Relationally motivated deception can be beneficial to a relationship, and other times it can be harmful by further complicating matters.

Detection

Deception detection between relational partners is extremely difficult, unless a partner tells a blatant or obvious lie or contradicts something the other partner knows to be true. While it is difficult to deceive a partner over a long period of time, deception often occurs in day-to-day conversations between relational partners . Detecting deception is difficult because there are no known completely reliable indicators of deception. Deception, however, places a significant cognitive load on the deceiver. He or she must recall previous statements so that his or her story remains consistent and believable. As a result, deceivers often leak important information both verbally and nonverbally.

Deception and its detection is a complex, fluid, and cognitive process that is based on the context of the message exchange. The Interpersonal Deception Theory posits that interpersonal deception is a dynamic, iterative process of mutual influence between a sender, who manipulates information to depart from the truth, and a receiver, who attempts to establish the validity of the message. A deceiver’s actions are interrelated to the message receiver’s actions. It is during this exchange that the deceiver will reveal verbal and nonverbal information about deceit. Some research has found that there are some cues that may be correlated with deceptive communication, but scholars frequently disagree about the effectiveness of many of these cues to serve as reliable indicators. Noted deception scholar Aldert Vrij even states that is no nonverbal behaviour that is uniquely associated with deception. As previously stated, a specific behavioural indicator of deception does not exist. There are, however, some nonverbal behaviours that have been found to be correlated with deception. Vrij found that examining a “cluster” of these cues was a significantly more reliable indicator of deception than examining a single cue.

In terms of perceptions about the significance of deceiving a partner, women and men typically differ in their beliefs about deception. Women view deception as a much more profound relational transgression than men. Additionally, women rate lying in general as a less acceptable behaviour than men. Finally, women are much more likely to view any act of lying as significant (regardless of the subject matter) and more likely to report negative emotional reactions to lying.

Truth bias

The truth bias significantly impairs the ability of relational partners to detect deception. In term of deception, a truth bias reflects a tendency to judge more messages as truths than lies, independent of their actual veracity. When judging message veracity, the truth bias contributes to an overestimate of the actual number of truths relative to the base rate of actual truths. The truth bias is especially strong within close relationships. People are highly inclined to trust the communications of others and are unlikely to question the relational partner unless faced with a major deviation of behaviour that forces a revaluation. When attempting to detect deceit from a familiar person or relational partner, a large amount of information about the partner is brought to mind. This information essentially overwhelms the receiver’s cognitive ability to detect and process any cues to deception. It is somewhat easier to detect deception in strangers, when less information about that person is brought to mind.

Camouflage

This wallaby has adaptive colouration which allows it to blend with its environment

The camouflage of a physical object often works by breaking up the visual boundary of that object. This usually involves colouring the camouflaged object with the same colours as the background against which the object will be hidden. In the realm of deceptive half-truths camouflage is realized by ‘hiding’ some of the truths.

Example:

• Camouflage as a form of visual deception is an essential part of military deception.

Disguise appearance

A disguise is an appearance to create the impression of being somebody or something else; for a well-known person this is also called incognito.

Example:

• The fictional Sherlock Holmes often disguised himself as somebody else to avoid being recognized.

In a more abstract sense, ‘disguise’ may refer to the act of disguising the nature of a particular proposal in order to hide an unpopular motivation or effect associated with that proposal. This is a form of political spin or propaganda.

Example:

• Depicting an act of war as a “peace” mission.

Dazzle

Examples:

• The defensive mechanisms of most octopuses to eject black ink in a large cloud to aid in escape from predators.

Simulation

Simulation consists of exhibiting false information. There are three simulation techniques: mimicry (copying another model), fabrication (making up a new model), and distraction (offering an alternative model)

Mimicry

In the biological world, mimicry involves unconscious deception by similarity to another organism, or to a natural object. Animals for example may deceive predators or prey by visual, auditory or other means.

Fabricate

To make something that in reality is not what it appears to be. For example, in World War II, it was common for the Allies to use hollow tanks made out of cardboard to fool German reconnaissance planes into thinking a large armour unit was on the move in one area while the real tanks were well hidden and on the move in a location far from the fabricated “dummy” tanks.

Distractions

To get someone’s attention from the truth by offering bait or something else more tempting to divert attention away from the object being concealed. For example, a security company publicly announces that it will ship a large gold shipment down one route, while in reality take a different route.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Guerrero, L., Anderson, P., Afifi, W. (2007). Close Encounters: Communication in Relationships (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
2. ^ Buller & Burgoon, 1996
3. ^ Burgoon & Qin, 2006
4. ^ ^{a b} Vrij, 2008
5. ^ Burgoon, Blair, and Strom, 2008
6. ^ Millar and Millar, 1995

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• Behrens, Roy R. (2009). Camoupedia: A Compendium of Research on Art, Architecture and Camouflage. Bobolink Books. ISBN 978-0-9713244-6-6.
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• Dresser, R. S. (1981). Deception research and the HHS final regulations. IRB: Ethics and Human Research, 3(4), 3-4. Retrieved February 21, 2008, from the JSTOR database.
• Edelman, Murray Constructing the political spectacle 1988
• Kimmel, A. J. (1998). In defense of deception. American Psychologist, 53(7), 803-805. Retrieved February 22, 2008, from the PsychINFO database.
• Latimer, Jon. (2001). Deception in War. John Murray. ISBN 978-0719556050.
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• Article Wikipedia
  

Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT) attempts to explain the manner in which individuals deal with actual or perceived deception on the conscious and subconscious levels while engaged in face-to-face communication.

Communication is not static; it is influenced not only by one’s own goals, but also by the context of the interaction as it unfolds. The sender’s conduct and messages are affected by conduct and messages of the receiver, and vice versa. Furthermore, deception differs from truthful communication. Intentional deception requires significantly more cognitive resources than truthful communication, whether the sender engages in falsification (lying), concealment (omitting material facts), or equivocation (skirting issues by changing the subject or offering indirect responses). IDT explores the interrelation between communicative context and sender and receiver cognitions and behaviors in deceptive exchanges.

Theoretical Perspective

Interpersonal Deception Theory views deception through the theoretical lens of interpersonal communication. As such, it considers deception as an interactive process between a sender and receiver. In contrast with previous studies of deception that focused on the sender and receiver individually, IDT focuses on the dyadic, relational, and dialogic nature of deceptive communication. Behaviors between the sender and receiver are dynamic, multifunctional, multidimensional, and multimodal.

• Dyadic communication refers to communication between two people. A dyad is a group of two people between whom messages are sent and received.

• Relational communication refers to communication in which meani ng is created by two people simultaneously filling the roles of both sender and receiver.
• 
  

• Dialo gic activity refers to the active communicative language of the sen der and receiver, each relying upon the other within the exchange.

The dyadic, relational and dialogic activity between therapist and patient relies upon honest, open communication if the patient is to recover and successfully integrate into healthier relationships. Deception uses the same theoretical framework, only in reverse, as the communication of one participant is deliberately false.

History

Sigmund Freud studied nonverbal cues to detect deception about a century ago. Freud observed a patient being asked about his darkest feelings. If his mouth was shut and his fingers were trembling, he was considered to be lying. In 1989, DePaulo and Kirkendol developed the Motivation Impairment Effect (MIE). MIE states the harder people try to deceive others, the more likely they are to get caught. Burgoon and Floyd, however, revisited this research and formed the idea that deceivers are more active in their attempt to deceive than most would anticipate or expect.

IDT was developed by two communication professors, David B. Buller and Judee K. Burgoon. Prior to their study, deception had not been fully considered as a communication activity. Previous work had focused upon the formulation of principles of deception. These principles were derived by evaluating the lie detection ability of individuals observing unidirectional communication. These early studies found initially that “although humans are far from infallible in their efforts to diagnose lies, they are substantially better at the task than would result merely by chance.” Buller and Burgoon discount the value of highly controlled studies – usually one-way communication experiments – designed to isolate unmistakable cues that people are lying. Therefore, IDT is based on two-way communication and intended to describe deception as an interactive communicative process.

18 Propositions

IDT’s model of how deception is played out in interpersonal contexts is presented in the form of 18 empirically verifiable propositions. Based on primitive assumptions associated with interpersonal communication and deception, each proposition is capable of generating testable hypotheses. While some propositions are original with IDT, many are derived from earlier research. The propositions attempt to explain the cognitions and behaviors of both the sender and receiver during each phase of the iterative process of deception, from preinteraction factors to the interactive process to postinteraction outcomes.

The Superordinate Role of Context and Relationship

IDT’s explanations of interpersonal deception depend on the situation in which interaction occurs and the relationship between the sender and receiver.

• 1. Sender and receiver cognitions and behaviors vary systematically as deceptive communication contexts vary in (a) access to social cues, (b) immediacy, (c) relational engagement, (d) conversational demands, and (e) spontaneity.

• 2. During deceptive interchanges, sender and receiver cognitions and behaviors vary systematically as relationships vary in (a) relational familiarity (including informational and behavioral familiarity) and (b) relational valence.

Other Communication-Relevant Preinteraction Factors

Individual communicators also approach deceptive exchanges with their own set of preinteraction factors, such as expectancies, knowledge, goals or intentions, and behavioral repertoires that reflect their communication competence. IDT posits that such factors influence the deceptive exchange.

• 3. Compared with truth tellers, deceivers (a) engage in greater strategic activity designed to manage information, behavior, and image and (b) display more nonstrategic arousal cues, negative and dampened affect, noninvolvement, and performance decrements.

Effects of Preinteraction Features on Senders’ Initial Detection Apprehension and Deception Displays

IDT posits that preinteraction factors influence the sender’s initial detection apprehension and deceptive displays.

• 4. Context interactivity moderates initial deception displays such that deception in increasingly interactive contexts results in (a) greater strategic activity (information, behavior, and image management) and (b) reduced nonstrategic activity (arousal, negative or dampened affect, and performance decrements) over time relative to noninteractive contexts.

• 5. Sender and receiver initial expectations for honesty are positively related to degree of context interactivity and positivity of relationship between sender and receiver.

• 6. Deceivers’ initial detection apprehension and associated strategic activity are inversely related to expectations for honesty (which are themselves a function of context interactivity and relationship positivity).

• 7. Goals and motivations moderate strategic and nonstrategic behavior displays.

• 8. As receivers’ informational, behavioral, and relational familiarity increase, deceivers not only (a) experience more detection apprehension and (b) exhibit more strategic information, behavior, and image management but also (c) more nonstrategic leakage behavior.

• 9. Skilled senders better convey a truthful demeanor by engaging in more strategic behavior and less nonstrategic leakage than unskilled ones.

Effects of Preinteraction Features and Initial Interaction on Receiver Cognitions

IDT further posits that preinteraction factors, combined with initial behavioral displays, affect receivers’ initial suspicion and continual detection accuracy.

• 10. Initial and ongoing receiver judgments of sender credibility are positively related to (a) receiver truth biases, (b) context interactivity, (c) and sender encoding skills; they are inversely related to (d) deviations of sender communication from expected patterns.

• 11. Initial and ongoing detection accuracy are inversely related to (a) receiver truth biases, (b) context interactivity, (c) and sender encoding skills; they are positively related to (d) informational and behavioral familiarity, (e) receiver decoding skills, and (f) deviations of sender communication from expected patterns.

Interative Interactional Patterns

IDT proceeds to describe the iterative process of receiver suspicion displays and sender reactions to those displays.

• 12. Receiver suspicion is manifested through a combination of strategic and nonstrategic behavior.

• 13. Senders perceive suspicion when it is present.

• 14. Suspicion (perceived or actual) increases senders’ (a) strategic and (b) nonstrategic behavior.

• 15. Deception and suspicion displays change over time.

• 16. Reciprocity is the predominant interaction adaptation pattern between senders and receivers during interpersonal deception.

Finally, IDT posits that a deceptive interaction culminates in a set of post-interaction judgements regarding sender credibility and receiver suspicion. In other words, the interaction between sender and receiver influences how credible the receiver thinks the sender is and how suspicious the sender thinks the receiver is.

• 17. Receiver detection accuracy, bias, and judgments of sender credibility following an interaction are a function of (a) terminal receiver cognitions (suspicion, truth biases), (b) receiver decoding skill, and (c) terminal sender behavioral displays.

• 18. Sender perceived deception success is a function of (a) terminal sender cognitions (perceived suspicion) and (b) terminal receiver behavioral displays.

Receiver’s Role in IDT

Most people believe they can spot deception, but IDT holds that most cannot. There are a variety of things a deceiver must do simultaneously to ensure what they are saying comes across as true, most important of which is how the deceiver manages his or her verbal and nonverbal cues. According to IDT, the more socially aware a receiver is, the better he or she is at detecting deceit.

How successful is the average receiver in detecting deception? Not very successful at all, according to recent studies. This may be because there is a social contract that people will be honest with one another and believe others will be honest with them. If a deceiver begins a deceptive exchange with an accurate, validated statement, that statement might guide the receiver to believe the rest of the deceiver’s story is also true. Ultimately, the sender prepares the receiver to accept his or her information as truth, even if some or part of the dialogue is false. If the sender constantly uses the same tactic, however, the receiver will become more aware, and it might become apparent the sender is lying.

Emotion in IDT

Emotion plays a central role in IDT, both as a motivator and a result of deception. Emotion can be a motivator of deception, as the sender relies on relevant knowledge-informational, relational, and behavioral familiarity  in order to achieve goals such as self-gratification, avoiding negative emotional outcome, or creating negative emotional outcome for the target of deception. Emotion can also be a result of deception, as a physical response occurs within the sender, usually in the form of arousal and negative affect.

Emotional Leakage

Emotion in deception is manifested most overtly in nonverbal signals. Some studies indicate over 90% of emotional meaning is communicated nonverbally. Fortunately, humans are highly sensitive to body signals. Often, communication is ambivalent: people communicate one thing verbally and the opposite nonverbally. Leakage refers to communicative incidents in which nonverbal signals betray the true content of contradictory verbal messages. Examples of leakage:

Facial Expression

Eight basic emotions are communicated through facial expression: anger, fear, sadness, joy, disgust, curiosity/interest, surprise and acceptance. These emotions are generally recognized universally across cultures. There are two main “routes” through which these expressions are developed: “route one”, held to be innate, and “route two”, which depends on processes of socialization.

Different cultures have varying display rules that govern the social use of facial expressions. For example, the Japanese discourage the display of negative emotions. Sometimes, individuals find it difficult to control facial expression. The face may “leak” information about how they feel. For instance, a person might be unable to hide his or her embarrassment when meeting someone who has a disfiguring scar, or he or she might find it difficult to disguise disgust when treating a wound or working with an incontinent person.

Gaze

People use eye contact to signal threat, intimacy and interest. Eye contact is used to regulate turn-taking in conversation and is a key factor in deciding how interested the receiver is in what the sender is saying. Receivers usually look about 70-75% of the time, with each gaze averaging 7.8 seconds. If receivers look for only 15% of the time, they might be considered cold, pessimistic, cautious, defensive, immature, evasive or indifferent. If they look over 80% of the time, they might be considered friendly, self-confident, natural or sincere.

Gesture

The use of gesture is one of the most culture-specific forms of nonverbal communication and can lead to misinterpretations and accidental insults. For example, holding out an arm and squeezing the thumb and forefinger together, used by the French and sometimes the British to indicate something is perfect, would be considered vulgar in the Mediterranean region, as it would be thought to denote the vagina.

Involuntary gestures described as self-touching actions, such as touching the face, scratching, gripping the hands together, or putting the hands in or near the mouth, often occur when people are experiencing intense emotions such as depression, elation or extreme anxiety.

An example of leakage as it relates to gesture is found the work of Ekman and Friesen, who showed a film of a woman with depression to a group of research participants. The participants were asked to judge the woman’s mood. Those shown only the woman’s face thought she was happy and cheerful, while the group who saw only her body thought she was tense, nervous and disturbed.

Touch

Touch can be a valuable means of reassurance and of demonstrating understanding. Humans touch one another to show sexual intimacy, affiliation and understanding; in greetings and farewells; as an act of aggression; and to emphasize dominance. Argyle writes that there “appear to be definite rules which permit certain kinds of touch, between certain people, on certain occasions only. Bodily contact outside these narrow limits is unacceptable” (1996). Those who touch others are seen as having enhanced status, assertiveness and warmth, while those who are touched are seen as having less.

Notes

1. ^ Buller and Burgoon, 1998
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Buller and Burgoon, 1996
3. ^ Buller & Burgoon, 1996
4. ^ Ekman & Friensen, 1969; Zuckerman, DePaulo et al., 1981
5. ^ DePaulo et al., 1996, p. 298
6. ^ DePaulo et al., 1996; see also Stiff, 1996

References

• Argyle M (1996). Bodily Communication. Routledge, London: 121.
• Axtell R (1998). Gestures. John Wiley, New York.
• Buller, D.B. and J.K. Burgoon (1996). Interpersonal Deception Theory. Communication Theory, 6(3), 203–242.
• Burgoon, Buller, White, Afifi, and Buslig (1999). Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 25, No. 6, 669-686.
• Burgoon, J.K. and T. Qin (2006). The Dynamic Nature of Deceptive Verbal Communication. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 25(1): 76 – 96.
• DePaulo, B.M., M.E. Ansfield, and K.L. Bell (1996). Theories About Deception and Paradigms for Studying It: A Critical Appraisal of Buller and Burgoon’s lnterpersonal Deception Theory and Research. Communication Theory, 6(3), 297-310.
• Finlay, L. (2001). Groupwork in Occupational Therapy. Nelson Thornes, Cheltenham: 43.
• Kleck, R. and W. Nuessle (1968). Congruence between the indicative and communicative functions of eye contact. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology (7):107-14.
• O’Sullivan, M. (2003). The Fundamental Attribution Error in Detecting Deception: The Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf Effect. Pers Soc Psychol Bull, 29(10): 1316 – 1327.
• Stiff, J.P. (1996). Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Deceptive Communication: Comments on Interpersonal Deception Theory. Communication Theory, 6(3), 289-296.
• Wainwright, G. (2003). Body Language. Hodder, London.
• Williams, D. (1997). Communication Skills in Practice: A Practical Guide for Health Professionals. Jessica Kingsley, London: 12.
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