Former FBI Agent Explains How to Read Body Language | Tradecraft | WIRED

nonverbals are anything that communicates but is not a word the public knows them as body language how we dress how we walk have meaning and we use that to interpret what's in the mind of the person [Music] my name is joe navarro and for 25 years i was a special agent with the fbi my

job was to catch spies most of my career i spent within the national security division a lot of it had to do with looking at specific targets and then it was about well how do we get in their heads and how do we neutralize them our security is based on nonverbals we look at the person through the peephole

we look at who's behind us at the atm machine we know from the research that most of us select our mates based on non-verbal so we may think we're very sophisticated but in fact we are never in a state where we're not transmitting information there's a lot of myths out there the ones that stand out is if you cross

your arms that it's a blocking behavior that's just nonsense even when you don't like the person that is in front of you this isn't to block them out it's actually to self-suit because in essence it's a self-hug when you're sitting at a movie and you're watching you're gonna cross your arms you're waiting for somebody

you tend to do this what's interesting is we do this behavior more in public than in private the other one that really stands out is as we think about something we may look in a certain way as we process the information we may look in another way it's certainly not indicative of of deception and it really

shouldn't be used that way all we can say is the person is processing the information the other misconceptions are that if the person clears their throat touches their nose or covers their mouth they're lying we do these behaviors as self-soothers their their pacifying behaviors scientifically and empirically there's just no pinocchio effect and people who prattle