Body language: In state of lying

Written by M.Farouk Radwan, MSc.

Body language (nonverbal communications)

Reading Body language: In state of lying

Just like any other emotional state, lying brings about some changes to your body form and posture. If you are familiar with these postures you will be able to detect liars right away.

When it comes to detecting a liar via body language your task may be a little bit difficult than when trying to detect other states. Basically, there are two methods to detect liars; the first one is not that accurate but is rather simple.

The second one needs a little bit of extra effort but is much more accurate. The first is based on body language while the second is based on NLP's Eye Accessing Cues. By combining both methods, you'll be able to spot liars easily. Read further to know more about both.

Detecting a liar using body language

Let's start with the simple method. There are a lot of noticeable signs that can be detected when someone lies. If you noticed two or more of these signs then this means that the person is possibly lying. Noticing more than three signs will raise the accuracy of your lying detection process and so on. Remember, one sign is never enough!

The signs you will be looking for are:

1)Touching the nose: If the target person is not used to tell lies or if his values and beliefs made him think that lying is immoral then he wont feel comfortable while telling the lie and he will take one of the negative evaluation postures (touching nose or ears). Negative evaluation Postures in body language are taken when someone considers something to be negative. In this case the guy doesn't like the fact that he is lying and thus he took the negative evaluation body posture. Note that this only happens with people who consider lying a bad thing and not with everyone else.
2)Weak Eye contact: Eye contact becomes poor when someone is lying: while telling a lie the person may keep looking at other stuff around him just to avoid looking at you. If you want to know everything about Eye contact in body language then refer to this guide
3)Hiding his palms: Palms rarely become visible when someone is lying: Being comfortable with showing your palms while talking is a sign of honesty and truthfulness; people who lie usually put their palms down or keep their hands in their pockets. See the pictures below illustrating the differences between someone who is lying and someone who is telling the truth
4)Bending his back: The back is rarely kept straight and the posture is rarely kept upright when someone is lying (unless the person is proud of lying. See body language and straight backs for more information on this topic)

As you've just seen, very slight changes to your body language can have a big effect on your relationships with people. In my book, How to make someone fall in love with you, I elaborated on how slight changes, such as keeping your back straight, can increase the chances of having people fall in love with you. The more confident you appear, the more attractive you will become, and nothing can make you appear confident more than a straight back.

2knowmyself is, without doubt, the only complete guide to body language information on the entire internet. If you dare challenge this statement, then check the 2knowmyself’s
body language section and you will know what I am talking about.