Rating the Experts

Below is a five-minute local news video with the authors of a book on body language for job interviews. While most of what they say won't be news to readers of this blog, it's interesting to watch the body language on display during the interview. What sticks out for you? I share my impressions after the video:


Scroll down for impressions:





The first thing I noticed is the (reasonable) nervousness of the male author - he's appropriately using his hands but maybe he's thinking about his body language too much and so he trips over his speech a bit. The tall barstools are terrific for exposing the whole body here - compare the ramrod straight posture, big social smiles and submissive hands in laps of the guests with the upright but more relaxed and dominant bodies and faces of the hosts. Not unlike a job interview!

Note that the male guest mirrors the male host, and the women do this as well. My favorite part was the put-on look of surprise at one point from the female host - it lasts way too long and is a dead give-away that she's not actually surprised but that she wants to convey that emotion to the audience. What did you see?

Analysis of Body Language - Joe Navarro

Once you start looking at this stuff, you can't stop! Where in the past a flight delay may have made you frown like the rest, now you can kick back and enjoy the smorgasboard of body language available to you in the airport, or anywhere else humans gather and you have a spare moment.

Below, Joe Navarro talks with Ann Curry about decoding body language in pictures and video:

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(Sorry for the heaping helping of US politicians - but they are a body language gold mine!)

Social Smiles

Social Smiles. For a different perspective, try covering the lower half of the face and see what eyes and forehead communicate on their own. Then cover the eyes and just look at the lower half of the face.