Not just humans, but all primates
have seven universal facial expressions.
So we're talking about happiness, sadness, anger,
contempt, disgust, surprise and fear.
I've worked in the poker industry for 20 years.
I've worked as a magician.
I've studied misdirection,
deception and truthfulness,
and I teach other people how to read people.
By and large, humans are quite truthful.
They want to tell the truth.
And so we actually, when it comes to deception,
we don't think about it as lie detecting.
We're looking at it from a different point,
which is truth leakage.
As humans, we're not really good at detecting lies.
We're about 50:50,
but with study and training,
we can greatly improve that percentage.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of pseudoscience
or things that are untested
in regards to, "Oh this means a lie”.
[For example] if they're looking up to the left,
they're using the creative side of their mind.
If they're looking up to the right,
they're using the recall side of their mind,
but unfortunately that just has no empirical science around it.
We see plenty of poker movies where
the guy has the eye twitch when he has a poker hand.
Unfortunately, it's not that easy.
But we do all have physio-psychological things
that our body does, that we want to minimise.
One of the fastest things people try and do, or
most obvious things that people do
is distance themselves from the topic they're talking about.
And the first way they do that
is by stop using contractions.
So, the classic example was
Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
It was very distance-languaged,
both in its pacing and the fact it wasn't "I didn't".
So we start to drop all of those contractions
and really distance ourselves from the topic.
And that may be someone's normal pattern in speech,
but quite often, it isn't.
Do you regret
not apologising for hitting him with the ball?
Why would I apologise?
Nick is renowned for being, if anything,
more truthful than not.
You can see quite a lot of contempt on his face and that's
definitely contempt for the journalistic experience.
I didn't hit him, hit his racket, no?
What's really interesting though, is the gestural leakage.
So, when Nick says, "I didn't hit him",
and we have that head shake, we know what he's saying
and the body language that he's demonstrating
doesn't add up.
He knows that he tried to hit him.
And so, he's shaking his head
because he doesn't believe what he's actually saying.
Did you aim it straight at him?
Yeah, I was going for him, yeah?
I wanted to him him square in the chest.
There's also a fake level of surprise.
So we talk about surprise being held for too long.
When he's asked, "Well, why did you do this?
Did you do it deliberately?"
He goes, "I didn't mean to hit him".
And he holds those eyebrows up for a little bit too long
because it's mock surprise.
He knows exactly what he was trying to do.
And as he begins to admit to that,
the mock surprise comes off
and he's confident. "Yeah, I did what I meant to."
So, one of the most common ways that we see
all of this truth detection
and the thing that we all want to know the answer to,
of course, is any of those big ticket purchases.
So we're looking at real estate and car transactions.
The key to that, of course,
is being mindful
and prepared for the conversation that you're about to have.
And also taking control of the pacings
and pushing your
person that you're having that conversation and engagement with.
A fantastic strategy for any form of negotiation,
is just controlling the pace of the conversation.
Silence is a wonderful thing.
So, "Is that really the best price you can do?"
And just hold.
And we're just gonna hold there.
We're not gonna say anything
until that person comes back with,
"Well, maybe I can look and
see if I can do something better for you."
We also look at mirroring body language,
and then we can start to look at steering body language.
So humans are really quite conditioned
to mirror and match body language.
And this is a really fun thing to do
when you're in a conversation with someone.
Just have a conversation and start with your arms crossed.
And then, maybe put your arms down
with one hand in your pocket.
And after a while,
you'll see that the person you're engaging with
will start to match and mirror that body language.
And once you have them mirroring your body language,
so doing the same thing you are,
you can actually begin to lead their body language.
What that allows you to do within power-plays or negotiation is
to put out affirmative signalling as well.
So, I'm gonna start nodding to you,
"We're having a good conversation today, aren't we?"
"This is going well."
"You can do better for me today, can't you?"
And all of that positivity
and negotiation will flow into there as well.
What's important with humans detecting truth on
deception on about a 50:50,
is that there are small lies that are actually important
for us just getting through our day-to-day.
If we start being hypervigilant,
we're actually going to miss and ignore
most of the things that happen
because it's happening so fast.
So a lot of the research and work about
being able to better engage and understand
what information people are giving you
is about being mindful and attentive.
And actually relaxing,
enjoying people’s natural conversation
and you will find that within your peripheral,
you better understand people’s baseline.
And when those things start to deviate from the norm,
and that's unusual,
that's when we start to pick up and we have points of deception or
truth leakage that we can probe into.