Negotiation Nonverbal Communication Secret # 1149: Who was More Nervous in Last Night's Debate? Santorum, Romney, Gingrich or Paul?

One measure of anxiety is how often a person blinks. Men tend to blink a bit less often than women. When the heath of the eyes are good and the air is adequately humidified, men on average blink once every 7 - 8 seconds whereas women on average blink every 5 - 6 seconds. There is a fair amount of variability between one person and another though. But if the rate of blinking increases - or if in an absolute sense, the blinking frequency is high, this is a very reliable body language signal of nervousness. 

In this video segment in the Republican Presidential Debate last night, the four remaining candidates can be seen introducing themselves. Ron Paul first, followed by Rick Santorum, then Mitt Romney and finishing with Newt Gingrich. Paul's and Gingrich's blink rate were not increased over baseline normal. However Santorum's and Romney's blink rate are dramatically increased. All four candidates have considerable debate experience as well as national television exposure .... so why are two of them nervous? Since Romney and Santorum are the front-runners and most pundits feel that one of these two will most likely be the Republican Presidential candidate - one conclusion that we can draw, is that Mitt and Rick have the most to lose by a poor performance. After all, Super Tuesday awaits.

Blink rate can be used to assess nervousness in other contexts. When a person tells a lie, especially if the ramifications of being caught in the lie are more extreme, an increase blink rate is a very reliable indicator of their level of anxiety.

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Negotiation Nonverbal Communication Secret # 1019: Gingrich's Hands - Low Confidence and High Confidence Tells

Newt Gingrich, who during the Republican Debates, consistently has exhibited the best body language skills - at least as far as hand gestures are concerned, gives us a great example here of the contrary. Newt signals to us plenty of lower confidence - and then recovers to a higher confidence state - during this one-on-one interview with Wolf Blitzer. The first 42 seconds, the former Speaker's hands can't be seen, however throughout the next two minutes or so of this video, Newt uncharacteristically exhibits quite a bit of hand-wringing - which is strongly consistent with a higher anxiety and lower confidence emotional tone. When such subjects as the super PACs, the caucuses/primaries in Minnesota, Colorado, Missouri, Nevada and Florida are mentioned - Newt's hand wringing is very evident.

At the 2:14 mark however, when Newt says, "... I think after tonight you'll see this is a wide open race...", he transforms to a low steeple gesture, which is a signal of high confidence and therefore a momentary drop in his anxiety level. After a brief relapse of hand wringing, he low steeples once again (2:22 - 2:30) when he references Governor Rick Perry. Interestingly though, when The Speaker later references the Texas Primary (April 3) - he wrings his hands yet again - indicating that he believes his chances of winning that State's Primary, or perhaps of pulling even in the delegate count (which he also speaks of) with Governor Romney by that date, are not good - despite his words to the contrary.

In the last portion of this interview, when Mr. Gingrich speaks about the idea of a Lincoln-Douglas style debate, he again displays the low steeple and his thus his confidence, particularly in his debate skills.

It is important to emphasize, that I'm not suggesting that Newt should have steepled throughout this or any interview or debate. Steepling should be performed only occasionally and for a few seconds at time. Most politicians steeple too much - and thus transmit feelings of arrogance and condescension. Rather, this video is a great example of how rapid changes in hand gestures can give us tells of a person's confidence levels - and how these correlate with equally dynamic subject changes/speech.

See also: Secret # 1093: When NOT to be Alpha

See also: Secret # 901: The Over-used Steeple - Backfire in Berlin

See also: Secret # 277: The Conventional Steeple - Use it on Rare Occasions - and in Small Doses

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