My Body Language Fails & Disclaimers

The other day I was looking through some holiday photos that a friend of mine posted on Facebook. She attended a party with her boyfriend. The the last time I spoke with her, they were having some issues and constant fighting. I thought I’d use the photos of the two of them as a way to try and read into whether or not they got past their issues and went back to being a happy couple. As I was clicking through the album I spotted some group shots where they weren’t standing beside each other. In others, his arm wasn’t around her and vice versa. There was even a photo where her torso seemed to be facing away from his as the two of them were posing for a picture. Body language jackpot! I was convinced they didn’t resolve their issue.

A few days later I saw my dear friend and to my big surprise I found out that they had overcome their fight and actually felt a lot closer to each other before and during the party. So what went wrong? I thought I was following the books!

I became my own example of observer bias.  Since I have a personal relationship with my friend and had a background story of the fight she had with her boyfriend, I was unconsciously looking at the photos with a negative mindset.

Just as people hearing what they want to hear...so do we see what we want to see.

If there was no observation bias, most of us would be body language experts. However we are all subject to it. And unfortunately we hold the most observation bias with the people we are closest to and they happen to be the same ones whom we want to better understand through non-verbal communication.  If I was a neutral party observing the holiday photos I’d probably notice how the couple actually had quite a few photos of them together, both of them were smiling  and other positive indicators.

So here are some disclaimers when trying to read people:

•  Always try and have an open mind. Beware of any pre-conceived notions you have about that person

• Compare it to their general behaviour. If someone has a habit of crossing their arms, if you are having an argument them crossing their arms might actually not be an indicator of something defensive going 

• It's hard to analyze the body language of a stranger because you don’t have a base of mannerisms to compare it against (aka someone shy might actually not make a lot of eye contact...but that doesn’t mean they are a liar)

• Always try and find a combination of non-verbal signs that are not contradictory before making a conclusion of what that person is secretly communicating.

• Don’t isolate a single body movement to make a decision. Look at the whole picture. Is my friend having a bad today? Or is she actually mad that I didn’t reply to her text fast enough?

And here is a photo of me in Montreal covering my face from the strong cold wind. But if you didn’t know that, maybe you’d think I’m covering my face in shame after becoming victim of observation bias.

Happy D-coding,

Darya