There’s subtle signs that can tell you if a person loves you, is lying to you or might be a threat. Body Language Expert Dr. Jack Brown is not only an expert at reading those signs, he can also teach you how to do it. We talk reading others’ body language, controlling your body language and why you should always trust your gut. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Pastries.
Dr. Jack Brown: 01:40ish
Pointless: 26:02ish
Top 5: 48:07ish
https://www.bodylanguageeq.com (Dr. Jack Brown Website)
https://twitter.com/DrGJackBrown (Dr. Jack Brown Twitter)
Interview with Body Language Expert Dr. Jack Brown
Nick VinZant 0:11
Hey everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, the secrets of body language and pastries.
Dr. Jack Brown 0:23
I've actually I started studying body language when I was teenager, I was around an adult who I looked up to. And because I wanted to know how did I was pissed off that like at myself that I didn't see that this guy was nefarious. When people lie, they'll often they'll often elevate off their chair for a split second when they lie. So you can show people that are brain blind pictures of guys coming in with a knife or, or a line or something really scary, lunging at them, and they will still feel fear.
Nick VinZant 0:56
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it really helps us out. So have you ever been suspicious of someone attracted to somebody or thought someone was lying to you. And even though you felt really strongly about it, you couldn't figure out why. It might have something to do with their body language. And our first guest is an expert at reading, interpreting, and teaching people to spot the subtle signs of body language. This is body language expert, Dr. JACK Brown. So how did you get started in this?
Dr. Jack Brown 1:41
Actually, I started studying body language. When I was a teenager, I was around an adult who I looked up to, and this adult, I really looked up to them and they ended up not being a good person. So I went to my parents and I said, hey, how do you tell a good person for a bad person? And they gave me a pretty good answer. My parents are good interpersonal skills, but I wasn't satisfied. So I started reading site psychology journals in middle school. And because I wanted to know how did I was pissed off that like at myself that I didn't see that this guy was nefarious? Are
Nick VinZant 2:14
people generally pretty good at, at assessing people's body language? Are we bad at it?
Dr. Jack Brown 2:19
There's a variable skill? That's a great question. The variable skill level, they're women in general are better than men. And there's reasons for that women tend to have a, if you look them are under a functional MRI scan, not a diagnostic one, but a research MRI scan, you'll see that they're if you show him a short video or a picture or something, their brain might be lit up in 25 different places where a man's is lit up in three or four. So you know, women are better whole brain thinkers, and women in general are better communicators. And, and communication is a great example of a multitasking skill. You know, you're constantly what is what did he say? What did I just say? Oh, I was thinking I was gonna say this. I think I say that, oh, look what he did with his face, or like that was where What was that? So you're constantly reassessing. And so it's a multitasking thing, women are better at multitasking. And that goes along with those other things. So people that have less formal education, ironically, to some people are better. And the reason is, is because we tend to look at our degree, and we say, Oh, look, I Johns Hopkins, or Look, I went to the University of you know, Minnesota where, you know, and we tend to really validate those those formal education. And we tend to invalidate and ignore our informal education and our street smarts, people who've been through trauma, whatever the kind of trauma is, it could be sexual trauma, could be physical trauma, could be emotional trauma, you know, they're going to grow up discriminating as they are right now, who can I trust? Who can I trust? Can people
Nick VinZant 3:54
hide it though? Right? Like, obviously, people are aware of body language. I think that people in general kind of get the concept of it. Can somebody hide their body language very well? Or is it something that like, we don't even consciously think of
Dr. Jack Brown 4:10
the short answer that is, yes, it's possible. But usually, even for very skilled people, even for just a short period of time, when actors go in and out of character, there's a real interesting phenomenon, like when they, when they're you have an actor, that's a really skilled actor goes out of character, they have an emotional release. And you see it on their face, and you see different, you know, verbal and nonverbal behaviors going on, that's really akin to what a liar would would do on a smaller scale, and dampened down so when a liar, a liar will get good at suppressing the body language, like kind of like you alluded to a few minutes ago, and then when they go out of character, so they're still sitting in front of you, so they were suppressing it. And now they go through a moment where they're not suppressing it very good. So they come out of it. character. So if you get skilled at looking for these things, you can see them Oh, like wait a second, he had a good poker face there and like were just what was that? What was that, and these are the what these are the people coming in and out of character. And another thing that is really common is they might suppress one part of their face, but it shows up on the other part of the face. So they might suppress their face and it shows up on another part of the body. But even people that do it really well only can do it for a few seconds. And you know, I'm an expert, I don't I don't have a good poker face.
Nick VinZant 5:32
Now, I mean, when you look at people's like behaviors, is it pretty standard across everybody, right? Like you make this gesture This means this or two people vary.
Dr. Jack Brown 5:43
There is definitely individual idiosyncrasies, idiosyncratic behavior, there's inter cultural, idiosyncratic behavior, but, but both of those make up a pretty small minority, for example, the the, you know, between between cultures, it's, it's less than 1% of all your behavior is culturally learned. But those stick out in your mind you're going to notice the red flower in the middle of the yellow flowers and it sticks out but you know, it gives you a false idea of how frequent it is. And and so it's far less than 1% In fact, someone can be born blind from the time they're born born blind and not have any kind of biofeedback as to what kind of face do I make? Or what kind of body do I make any kind of situation and they still will have the same body language
Nick VinZant 6:34
when you look at people though like can you tell generally like okay this person is nice this person's a jerk this person's this or are you just seeing their current emotion reflected in their body language another
Dr. Jack Brown 6:47
great question. If you're really skilled, you can make big pattern umbrella judgments and you can you like there are certain behaviors that are super common for a sociopath psychopath. There are certain behaviors that and you can see those in a pretty short period of time but you still want again, you want a sample size, a decent chunk of time, generally speaking, how body language is classically taught and for the vast majority of times when I teach it it's what's this person is thinking feeling in this moment, because you can have a really you can have a pathological person and you show pictures if you hit someone to hypnotize you in forgot, say you forget all your long term memory, you can see videos of Adolf Hitler you know, petting a dog, he's supposedly like dogs a lot. And you know, lots of people do like dogs and that's generally a good sign. But, but yeah, you know, where he looks Oh, you know, if you if you if you didn't know that, or if you're hitting the ties to forget all those long term memories, but you did have the body language skill, you might make a false assessment that he was stable, or a kind person or, or non pathological. So most of the time, it's what is this person thinking feeling at that moment, but the more skill you have, you definitely can make big pattern.
Nick VinZant 8:05
So I read something one time that when we feel an emotion, our body reacts to it, before we even process that this is how we're feeling is that is that a true thing, the kind of idea that like something makes me happy that my body shows that I'm happy before my brain even realizes that I'm happy.
Dr. Jack Brown 8:24
And there's lots of reasons for that. And some we're still discovering, you know, part of it is just the speed that we process a part of is multitasking. Part of it is what you know, what we might be doing. And the other things this scenario we're in, in part of it is the speed of the nervous system, how quick the nervous signals travel, there's a fascinating thing that's relatively recently discovered. And that has a it's a, it's a connection that we have, that our visual system has with a part of the brain that interprets fear. And so you can show this is so fascinating. So if you have a person who's blind, and there's different ways to be blind, you can be blind in the eyes, but your eyes can also be perfectly functional and the nerves that connect the eyeballs to the back of the brain, the visual part of the brain, they can be functional, but say the brain is blind so someone was hit back here or had a brain tumor or had a stroke and so their brain blind but their eyes weren't good. Okay, so with that as a setup, so you can show people that are brain blind pictures of guys come in with a knife or or a line or something really scary, lunging at them, and they will still feel fear. They say I don't know what this picture is, but I feel fear. So when you look at an audience and or look at a person you go, Oh, you know this song about this guy that bugs me there's something there there's a situation here that bugs me there this person bugs me or you even look at a crowd and you pick someone out and go that person bugs me. There, there's something there. There's something I'm worried about it, listen to those always Oh, Listen to those, that's your amygdala talking. And this is a fascinating validation of what my gut is saying and what my instincts are saying, right? You know, those words those euphemisms that people use for their, their instincts or their subconscious. And this is a physiologic basis for that, that's relatively recent discovered. And that doesn't mean it's the only reason that our, our, our gut or instincts Q is in, we might discover some other things, some things we may never discover, you know, who knows, there might be a supernatural component to that, you know, but, but that is one physiologic component that's really, really fascinating. So, and like, you can take the people that are best at looking at a group of people, that that looks at a group of people and can pick out the bad actors or potential bad actors in that crowd. Who's the best at that third trimester pregnant women, mothers in general are better. And fathers are better than non fathers and mothers are better than non mothers. And the theory is that they're the there's a hormonal base that says that really revs up or tunes up that amygdala connection that I was talking about. Of course, there's overlap there with PTSD, you can you can view over look at everything as trauma when maybe none of it or the vast majority of it isn't. And so there is, you know, that can be taken too far. And I'm not saying that this connection is the basis for PTSD. I'm just saying there's maybe an overlap and that phenomenon, that's a fascinating thing you can over interpret. So you know, you don't want to do that either. But yeah, that's That to me is is is fascinating. And and so I've debrief people who have been kidnapped and of course if they didn't escape, no one would be interviewing him and and what are some of the things and there are there are different authors that speak about this, and you can read this other you know, I'm not the only one who's done this, by any means. But there are people who have been kidnapped and they say, there was a moment when a light went off in my head, I shouldn't do this, or I shouldn't you know, it was before they were surprised, maybe they were cooperating with someone or helping someone do something or someone you know, they befriended someone or, you know, but something was a little off and they didn't listen to their instincts. And but there was a little voice in their head that there's something there and they ignored it, and they suppress it and they suppress it and suppress it, we might do that with a spouse who ends up being a bad spouse or a lover you know, we don't get kidnapped, we just end up being our business decision. You know, business partner, there's a little voice in your head that says something and you suppress it, you get good at suppressing that,
Nick VinZant 12:40
if we're trying to if you're trying to get a read on somebody is there like a place on their body that okay, you should watch this area, because that's going to tell you first what this person is like.
Dr. Jack Brown 12:51
In general, the most important part of the body is the face. And the most important part of the face are the eyes. So you know, learn to look at people's eyes and say, if I was an eight year old, would I trust them, you know, that we bring in all this baggage that we use to rationalize and to cloud our judgment from the truth. So you know, try and look at that person you're in your best case scenario being objective. Another place that people show tension is in their mid face and the mustache area, this right below your nose and above your upper lip, and that does that whole region doesn't have a name, but you can call it the mustache area. People show tension in their mid face, their nostrils might flare a little bit there might see a slight slight tension in their in their in their mouth area. Usually when people are opening their eyelids wide. Usually the forehead goes up kind of like I'm doing right now my foreheads going up and my eyes are open wider and a liar slash con man slash someone who's chronically insincere slash someone who's chronic liar. Someone slash someone who can not be trusted tends to overuse their forehead, so their forehead is always up, their eyebrows are always up, their eyelids are always a little bit wider. Okay, that's the person who's trying too hard. It's like using 19 exclamation marks at the end of a sentence instead of just saying yes or no. You know, yeah, why are you trying too hard? Why are you being overexpressing in your face. Another one is in particular is when their their center forehead is contracted. So just their center forehead is contracted in the center eyebrows are going up, kind of like I'm doing right now. And this is super important, not with the sad mouth, but with a little bit of a smile, not with the big smile usually, but when you have that center forehead, and a little bit of a smile. That is something we all do once in a while so I just demonstrated that but we all do it once in a while when we're feeling arrogant. Hopefully you don't feel arrogant too much. We all do it once in a while when we're feeling smug, incredulity. we all we all feel we all do that when we feel in contempt but we all do that facial expression once in a while but people that do it a lot that center forehead contraction with a little bit of a mouth smile or a modest smile smile those people have that's a really strong correlation with sociopathic behavior and psychopathic behavior. So sociopath psychopathic the technical term for that collective is antisocial personality disorder which should have a different name it sounds too benign but you know a sociopath or psychopath one of the biggest Check Point check marks in something whether someone's a sociopathic psychopath is chronic lying so get used to you know, if someone tells you they love you, I and you don't feel it, you're usually not feeling it because it's something that's lacking in their eyes.
Nick VinZant 15:42
Um, are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions Sir Sir, biggest misconception people generally have about body language
Dr. Jack Brown 15:52
the biggest misconception is to look at if people we alluded to this earlier if they looked at one thing like oh this means they're lying you know if one one thing just one thing always mean this so it's a one to one translation that's that's the biggest misconception
Nick VinZant 16:07
most misinterpreted gesture.
Dr. Jack Brown 16:10
Oh, probably the most misinterpreted one is is one that people always cite is is when people crossing the line Oh yeah, you always hear you know there's different ways you can cross your arms You know, this crossing your arms with your fist is more hostile You know, this is is more insecure you know, you could just be cold um, you know, it could be you know, if you if you're a woman and you're crossing your arms over your breasts, that that's you know, a sign that you probably don't want to talk to this guy you know that that there's there's so there's lots of variations there but you can just plain old be cold, people who are more who are a little bit less than what they will sometimes do that just for comfort when they're sitting. So sometimes depending on your body shape and size you're you do it for more we all do it for comfort once in a while, but just reposition yourself on your chair you know if your chair has no arms you know there's a there's a lot of thing and you're sitting next to people so there's a lot of variations there. You never want to look at one thing but that's probably the most commonly cited misinterpreted you don't want it you you want to look at a lot of things you know, a person can be in love with you and still crossing their arms and further, you know, and there's Yeah, there's I can get I can get I can get a little There are of course sexual elements to some of these. I don't want to necessarily go there. Yeah, there's, so there's an I get a lot of those questions. But yeah, there are. That's probably the the most missing
Nick VinZant 17:50
the biggest one is like that one. So we talked a little bit about that, like women are better at reading it, but who is generally more expressive with their body language men or women,
Dr. Jack Brown 18:00
I would say that women as well, women as well, and they under but they understand the context of it. So a woman with another, a woman with a man who they don't know or don't trust, especially given like, say, in inner city setting, and they've never been that inner city or they know it to be bad is different when the same woman when she's talking amongst her friends and in a in a in a trusted environment. Whereas a guy will tend to have more one flavor across that spectrum. It's not that he won't vary. He will and and you know, there are plenty of women that aren't good at it. And there are plenty of men that are really astute at it. But in general women are definitely better than in demand at body language in both reading and expressing
Nick VinZant 18:43
people who are generally like if they have a traumatic upbringing, they're usually better at it. Why is that?
Dr. Jack Brown 18:49
It's because they have to thin slice human behavior. So if you're sexually assaulted or you know sexually abused or physically abused, or emotionally abused, you you look at people and you say, Who can I trust? Who can I trust in You see all sorts of subtlety that other people gloss over a
Nick VinZant 19:09
person whose body language that you looked at and were scared of our person that really jumped out at you like that person? Or I don't trust them.
Dr. Jack Brown 19:21
Yeah, you want you want a certain name?
Nick VinZant 19:24
If you if you want to give it
Dr. Jack Brown 19:27
there's lots of names. I like some of the show. I'll answer specifically your answer generally. I mean, like some of the mass killers that we've seen, of course, there's you know, like, Who's the who's the the guy from the early 70s that Oh, Manson. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. He's got the big eyes, the crazy eyes, you know, and you hear that? The term Crazy Eyes and the big eyes. Why are these people's eyes open wide if you look at say the Sandy Hook killer here, those wide open eyes or Guy Marshall Applewhite, yeah, there are there are certain facial expressions and certain things that really light up your mind. You know from a body language in that's one specific the wide, wide open eyes, you may not be able to describe in words, and you may not be able to bullet point it or write it down in any kind of words. If your instincts say something, I don't, I can't put my finger on it. But I don't trust this person, even if they have a good reputation, even if you heard about them from someone else, trust your gut, especially if there's element of physical danger involved. But even if it's business danger, you know,
Nick VinZant 20:38
best way to tell if somebody is attracted to you.
Dr. Jack Brown 20:41
So eye contact, it goes up. But it's it's a smile. And it's usually a suppressed smile with the eye contact. So this is with love and physical attraction, and blushing, people will blush a lot. And you know, what are they doing with the rest of their body to so when people are attracted, their pupils will get larger to say one person is really attracted the other one, say Person A is really attracted Person B, but Person B is semi attracted to Person A. But Person B sees persons as pupils get bigger, and their pupils get bigger. And then there's a feedback mechanism where each people starts getting bigger and bigger, bigger to a point of course, because the eyeballs only say, right, but this all happens at the subconscious level. You can't control your pupil size consciously at all. It all happens at the subconscious level. Now the other thing that might happen is they might lick their lips, the tongue to lip contact would tend to be slower, it wouldn't be quicker, we tend to be slower. Women tend to cross and uncross the legs more we tend to full body points towards the person we're attracted to. So our feet are pointed to them our hips are pointed to them. Our shoulders are pointed to them our face is pointed them in our eyes are pointing to them and we have high contact and you can fit it more in your chair not because you're good nervous not because you're bad nervous, so that's another reason why you fidgeting Why do you fish in your chair but you're you're really excited. You know people when people lie, they'll often they'll often elevate off their chair for a split second when they lie and that the reason for their is their their sphincter tone in their Peri genital regions tend to tighten up and loosen and tighten up and get stimulated. You know people say I almost pooped my pants or almost shit my pants people say that well in there's really physiology there too, and also a man's testicles. When when is a man's testicles pull up close to his abdomen. They do it for probably for four different reasons. One is when he's cold. Another one is when he's fearful. So when he's fearful, and that's he'll, he'll sit up off his chair you'll see him sit up off his chair a little bit. Another one is when he's sexually excited and another one is called the Kree mysteric reflex when you rub the inner part of the thigh, but just you know you're really attracted that person you're going to be shifting your chair to but that's more of a lateral shift and you're crossing and unquestioned your legs but your full body pointing at that person hugs to you don't if you're attracted to someone you're going to have more contact with them. I have one of the first body languages things I noticed as a teenager it's harder to fake a hug. If you really like someone or don't like somebody it's harder to fake a hug than it is to fake a kiss you can fake a good kiss but you cannot fake a good hug even if you know what to do You cannot fake that good hug and one of the reasons is just getting in closer you there tends to be more full body contact from the hips all the way down you know all the way up your is opposed to the Leaning kind of hugs
Nick VinZant 23:48
you know when you're leaning Yeah, that kind of like that. Yeah, I
Dr. Jack Brown 23:51
know you mean to the hug you know there's less full body contact, I have less affection for that person. So think of that more as an affection thing not so much as a sexual attraction thing. You know, another thing is you know it I get tons of people who say, well, is this guy fake? And he's liking me or does he really like me? Well always think is this affectionate? Because people can fake lust, and they can say things I love you I love you. But one of the things that appear affection affectionate like those like those true hugs, and what people tend to close their eyes longer. What else is if your palms have full contact with their back, you should feel a full palm our contact the full palm of their hand against your back. But if you ever notice your eyes being open during a hug, they shouldn't be you if you really are hugging someone and you're feeling affection, your eyes should be closed. And the reason for that is you're when you shut your eyes You're you're actually shutting down a little bit of your your brain function, your visual brain function. So when you think of something, you go, Oh, let me think about that people close their eyes, or people close their eyes and they smell wine or they close their eyes and they taste that chocolate mousse. It's Not the imagination that you can taste chocolate better, they really can taste chocolate better. And the reason is, is because when your eyes are closed, a little bit more energy in your brain is dedicated towards that sense. It's also true for affection. The reason we close our eyes during a hug or during a kiss is because you want to drink in the moment of that hug or that kiss you want to fully feel that emotion. And so people that fake lust, or excuse me, they're lustful, but they faking love, they won't do that. So you want to differentiate what is sexual versus what is affectionate. The affection is the thing that stays in the affection is really the thing that tells you whether this person really loves you or not.