Friday, March 4, 2016

Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3487: Scott Pelley to Hillary Clinton, "Have you always told the truth?" - Body Language (VIDEO, PHOTOS)





Beginning at 2:28 in this interview segment, Scott Pelley asks Hillary Clinton, "You talk about leveling with the American people - have you always told the truth?"

Former Secretary Clinton answers, "I've always tried to [expression captured in image below] always ... always."


This image was captured at 2:33.3 immediately after Clinton says, "I've always tried to ...".

When it comes to truth vs. deception in the nonverbal realm, this expression is extremely troubling. One body language component of this is her elevated forehead. Here this action is quite pronounced and is accompanied by widely opened eyelids. Men are just as dishonest as women in the political world and otherwise - and men surely have their share of insincerity tells, yet this widely opened eyes coupled with an contracted, elevated forehead and accompanying eyebrows is an expression of insincerity which is significantly more prevalent in the female gender. In this cluster-context, a colloquial and simple way of characterizing the upper 40% of Mrs. Clinton's face is she's "trying too hard".

It's important of course to evaluate Mrs. Clinton's mouth - and in this fraction of a second we see a good example of what is known as a microexpression. This particular microexpression displays the evanescent horizontally-oriented, thin lips of anger (above).


This is Hillary's second asymmetrical shoulder shrug (more prominent on Clinton's right) as she said her second "always" (2:33.9). She also displayed the same body language signal earlier in the sentence as she said, "...  tried ..." (during 2:32). Please view these in the video as their dynamic context of the video.

A shoulder shrug (or when a shrug is involving thumbs, eye brows, mouth, knees, feet, etc.) indicates either, "I don't know", "I don't care", "What does it matter?" or "What choice did I have/What could I do?"

Summary: Anytime the nonverbal cluster in the first image is seen - elevated forehead/eyebrows, eyes open wide and thinned lips of anger - deception is occurring (Intriguingly, Mrs. Clinton's answer word choice of "I've always tried to ...", is a text-book classic example of deception from the point of view of statement analysis).

When we look further and take into account Hillary's shoulder shrugs - it is possible to interpret this lie as something she was instructed to do - or was a choice between the lesser of two evils.

This website serves as an objective reference source for the science and art of Body Language/Nonverbal Communication. In an effort to be both practical and academic, many examples from/of varied cultures, politicians, professional athletes, legal cases, public figures, etc., are cited in order to teach and illustrate both the interpretation of others’ body language as well as the projection of one’s own nonverbal skills in many different contexts – not to advance any political, religious or other agenda. 

See also:

Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3486: Donald Trump and Chris Christie on Super Tuesday - Display the Same Telling Nonverbal Signal to Same Statement re: Trump's Wall

Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3484: Chris Rock's Opening Monologue at the 2016 Oscars 

Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3481: Gordon Ramsay Tries Girl Scout Cookies for the First Time 

Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3459: Miscues on the Introductions to New Hampshire Republican Debate 

Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3453: Marco Rubio's Hyper-Alpha, Backfiring Body Language

Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3428: Jenna Dewan Tatum performs Ginuwine's "Pony" - Lip Sync Battle

Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3418: Mayor Eric Garcetti, The Port of Los Angeles and a Body Language Mistake Leaders Commit Routinely

Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 3369: University of Missouri Protesters Obstructing the Press

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