Certified Fraud Examiner
Certified Financial Planner
National Speaker
“Kinesics,” is the study of
human movement as culturally patterned visual communication. Anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell coined the term “kinesis,” as a positive
alternative to "non-verbal communication"
as the field was more usually known. He
did not like the term "body language."
According to Birdwell’s research, "Body movements are culturally patterned rather
than universal."
If body movements are cultural and not universal,
as Birdwhistell maintains, how can it then be used by law enforcement and investigators to indicate if the subject
is telling the truth or lying?
A good question.
How about Gaze Aversion? Is it a valid indicator of someone not being truthful?
According to researchers,
Black people who are entirely innocent are less likely to look police in the
eye than Black people who are criminals.
White people suspected of a crime spend the most time out of all
ethnic-racial groups, looking at the police officer in the eye.
Most police officers believe
the most critical physical demeanor cue is eye contact. The Reid Technique's training manual is the
most widely used guide for law enforcement officers, and almost all fraud
investigator interview technique trainers have been trained using the Reid Technique
training tools.
Because of this training -
significantly - nearly all police officers (over 80%) believe that, when you
are interviewing individuals, those who are lying look away – are gaze averse -
and truthful people maintain eye contact.
If you use "gaze
aversion" as a cue to interpret an individual's credibility, you are going
to be a lot more suspicious of Black folks than White folks. And, you are going to be most suspicious of innocent
Black Americans. Wow!
How about “smiling” or “halting
speech.”
A variation of expression may
be smiling or halting speech. Halting
speech is someone speaking slowly and with a lot of hesitation.
A rule of thumb reinforced by
training and relied upon by many law enforcement interviewers is that subjects
who frequently smile is a sign of insincerity.
However, according to researchers, individuals that smile the most are
innocent African-Americans, and those that smile the least are Hispanic
suspects. African-Americans speak fluidly,
and Hispanics may stammer and nervously stop and start. If you are a copy unfamiliar with Black or
Hispanic individuals, you might “detain” Blacks for smiling too much and detain
Hispanics for halting speech.
How about hand gestures?
Again, law enforcement officers are
trained to believe that guilty suspects’ hand gestures, shrugs, grooming,
protective movement, etc. are a pattern indicating guilt. “Be sure to watch the hands,” we are told in
law enforcement training manuals.
Below is a summary of the
hand gestures research conducted by Prof. Richard Johnson, a noted
criminologist.
|
Hand gestures per minute
|
|
|
Race-ethnicity
|
Average time in seconds
|
|
African-American - innocent
|
28.39
|
|
African American - suspect
|
23.98
|
|
White - innocent
|
07.89
|
|
White -suspect
|
17.43
|
|
Hispanic - innocent
|
22.14
|
|
Hispanic - suspect
|
31.41
|
A conclusion one can reach is
that people vary greatly when or how long they look you in the eye, or if they
smile, how fluidly they talk, or the kind and rate of their hand gestures. None of these "behavior symptoms,"
in police interviewer parlance, or, to use the language of poker, are
considered to be a "tell" and predict the truth or a lie.
Where does this leave
us?
Is gaze aversion, smiling, halting
speech, or hand gestures predictive of the truth or a lie? Apparently, any of these may be judged by law
enforcement officers as “probable cause” and the basis to detain someone. Likewise, fraud investigators might label the
interviewee as “not creditable.”
Have most law enforcement
officers and fraud investigators been trained incorrectly about body language?
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