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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ก.ย. 2024
- These thoughts brought to you by the ten consecutive punches to the self-confidence that is watching a TH-camr you respect laugh at someone for avoiding eye contact.
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As a psychology student whenever people ask me about what they're thinking or what their body language is saying I always say "Psychology is for understanding minds and mental disorders, not reading minds or predicting events in life"
And people immediately give me a dirty look XD
Same
People look so shocked im not like Patrick Jane from The Mentalist
I was listening to a book about talking to strangers and the assumptions we make, and there was a chapter with a social experiment where people were asked to spot a liar. One of the examples, a girl twirling her hair as she talked, was named an “obvious liar” by most participants, including people like police or interviewers who are self proclaimed experts in the field of body language. I was baffled, cause I assumed she was just nervous, maybe stimming....and I was right.
So who was the liar
That's literally my main stim, help
@@lahlybird895 They had a guy who had clearly rehearsed it beforehand as a counterexample. The stim was only half of it, the way she was stumbling over her words and emphasizing things felt very organic to me. The book is called talking to strangers, it's got some weaker bits but overall it''s very interesting. Get it in audio if you can, but be warned, there's discussions of police brutality, murder, racism, and sexual assault.
@@nomisunrider6472 oh lovely
What’s the book called?
I grew up as an autistic child with a mother that firmly believed this mumbo-jumbo, and thought she was genuinely helping me "Overcome and overachieve" by having me read all of the body language moves and their meanings. It is so validating to hear that I am not wrong for ever picking up on this "lesson"
Anytime I hear someone describe “shifty” behavior or “signs someone is lying” they end up just describing how I act when I’m telling the truth. Avoiding eye contact and fidgeting? Just standard neurodivergent behaviors.
Can relate!
exactly
Same
It doesn't help that all this "body language analysis" nonsense is also frequently used by 'pickup artists'/'dating coaches', which are their own can of worms
Ohhhhh, no... that sounds like a match made in hell :/
Once I was having a conversation with this guy and he randomly stopped mid conversation to ask if he had offended me or said something that made me feel defensive. When I told him I had no idea what he was talking about he said "well, you crossed your arms. That means you're withdrawing from the conversation." When I told him "no, I'm just cold" he didn't believe me and started "explaining" "body language" to me. One of my special interests is dog training/animal behavior/communication which is like 95% understanding and interpreting body language. I was so offended.
it was self-fulfilling prophesy! lol
So what you're saying is that he did say something that offended you
This guy can clearly tell the future
Sounds like the kind of guy who thinks a dog wagging its tail means it is happy.
@@snekysneks doesn't it?
@@lahlybird895 im not sure but i believe i read or heard somewhere that it sometimes means the dog is nervous. i know more about cat body language than dogs so i’d wait out for someone more knowledgeable to comment, lol
A list of things I do with my body just because I am neurodivergent:
-avoid eye contact (really love that my own [thankfully former] therapist told me this meant I wasn't paying attention to the conversation. /sarcastic)
-cross my arms, or put them in strange positions because it Feels Right
-fidget, with pretty much anything, at pretty much any time
-bounce my leg, and/or shake my hands, for any number of reasons
-avoid sitting too close to people I don't know
-avoid letting people stand behind me (it's just a habit!! I don't hold a grudge against you I just don't like it! I do this with my own family, who I have a decent relationship with!)
-similar to that last one, I *always* try to sit with my back to a wall, and avoid having my back turned to an open room
-hand flapping, rocking back and forth, etc etc, IT'S STIMMING. IT HAS NO LARGER MEANING
-"talk with my hands" (usually just because I just have excess energy, it has no correlation to my level of interest in the conversation)
None of these mean shit, other than I have adhd, anxiety, and possibly autism, and I move differently. That's it.
I'm not even autistic and I do almost all of these things for pretty much the same reason
I have all three of the causes you mentioned, and do all of the listed behaviours. You're not alone, and your perceived (by others) differences are completely valid
I have autism and do all of these things! I thought I was the only one too when it comes to the sitting against a wall thing... I will literally ask people to switch seats with me on my lunch break sometimes because I cannot stand to have my back to the door or to an open room. It just doesn't feel right. Glad to know I'm not alone!
@@horlzonline1131 I'm pretty sure my mom would refuse to eat at a restaurant if you couldn't sit by a wall
She's not autistic though just paranoid
@@horlzonline1131 one more here! All my life I have always sat with my back against a wall or some other protective structure (e.g. the base of a statue) anywhere outside my home.
I'm autistic and my biggest fear is somehow being a suspect for a crime. I have an interest in true crime and I just hate so much when I research a case and I see that people are presumed guilty because they don't make eye contact or fidget or don't say much or just generally seem uncomfortable, it really worries me. And when people assume someone close to the victim is to blame because they aren't grieving 'right'. It's so scary.
"when people assume someone close to the victim is to blame because they aren't grieving 'right'."
This is what concerns me. If someone I love dies, I don't cry or become distressed. I become terrifyingly calm, almost numb and emotionless.
I would ABSOLUTELY be deemed a killer JUST because of how I act in grief.
Sorry, I know this comment is close to a year old, but wanted to post it anyway.
(This is as far as I know for the U.S.A. I think it's similar in the U.K.)
Never talk to the police without a lawyer. Even, and especially if, you are innocent. There is nothing wrong with not saying anything.
Essentially, anything you say will be used against you, and nothing you say can be used to help you. (if I understand that part correctly. Something about police testimony and hearsay, I think.)
for real like imagine being seen as guilty because you moved different or your eyes shifted a certain way, its actually wild
I have a huge amount of trauma related to my grandma never telling me outright if she is upset with me but instead using guilt tripping, “body cues” (folding laundry with a frown and more force than it needs, stirring the pot faster, etc), giving me the silent treatment, generalizing sentences (like “no one ever helps me”, “I always do this”) to let me know she was angry. I’m autistic so I can’t naturally read others. However, due to this I learned to “read” these cues as “someone is angry with me” but the thing is that these are usually just cues that someone isn’t overtly happy with you all the time and now it sends me into panic to try to find what I did wrong when someone isn’t absolutely happy with me at all times and if they don’t show that they love me at all times my brain assumes they hate me. I can now refuse to read her social cues bc I don’t live with her, but this fucks up all my daily interactions because every hint of anything less than pure joy means the person is angry with me and hates me. My friends are understanding and most of my friends are also tistic and we have a rule about saying exactly what we think and feel, but the rest of my family members aren’t as understanding and they get angry with me all the time and do this to me expecting me not to spiral into panic. I cannot hold eye contact, I cannot actually read body language (even though my masking allows me to fake it and perfectly match anyone’s energy, making a perfectly suited version of myself for them which also makes it harder to interact with groups of ppl due to too much input and variables), and I cannot not fidget or even control my damn tone
=(
People being angry with me or upset because of something relating to me and making a show of it with their actions is the one thing I feel confident I can read with people and it really sucks to have that baggage
Same but also I rarely pick up on it and so it just makes the situation worse. Like you could just talk to me and not shout out of the fucking blue
I relate to this so deep. I'm sory.
same sometimes by grandma refuses when I offer her help by yelling so I obviously rarely help her unless she tells me to, like if she wants me to help she could just say it instead of saying that I never help
As an autistic person I always thought the same and no one ever undertood me- And most of my neurodivergent peers in my friend circle agree
I am an autistic person, but i don't know exactly what to think about this, because i had to learn to read people a bit because i struggle with recognizing facial expressions. But i also have a slight coordination problem. Nothing serious, but I tend to look down to my feet to not stumble, i have problems coordinating my arms and legs together at the same time, and things like that, but sometimes people think i am looking down apon them since i am also very tall. Also, I tend to sit down with a leg on top of the other because it's confortable to me, but sometimes that can come across as defensive or as a challenge or even flirty when I am not actually trying to be any of those things.
I'm autistic as well, and yeah sometimes I struggle with people assuming I'm sad just because of my neutral facial expressions.
Body Language Analysis is such bullshit.
I've been approached before by people asking if I was ok, when I totally was, just because I was sitting by myself. I'm just an introvert who enjoys being by myself. Everything is totally fine. If you want to understand someone, don't try to judge their behavior or body language, just ask them.
Same! Stuff like that has happened to me when I’ve been happy. I wasn’t even by myself when they happened though, I have no idea what I was doing to make people think I was upset.
Absolutely same! I'm an autistic introvert and I often sit/stand by myself thinking about stuff. I often get asked if I'm OK - yes, I actually am fine, I just like being alone. And then they ask again, because they don't believe me. And then I, with my social anxiety (?) and general confusion around people, interpret them as deliberately trying to annoy me. This often ends with me being rude - although the fact that I get called rude for behaving as I usually do, with no hostile intentions whatsoever, makes this even worse. I'm not even allowed to mind my own business any more.
Edit: I also have watery eyes and tear up often for no particular reason. Absolutely doesn't help. NO, I AM NOT SAD, LEAVE ME ALONE. Sigh.
going up to people in public to ask if they're emotionally okay is such a weird thing. say the person isn't actually okay: what's the plan? are you going to give them therapy while they have an ugly emotional breakdown in public that you triggered by prodding them?
I understand- I was daydreaming and someone who saw me while I was asked me later if I was okay because I looked mad and I wasn't, I was just daydreaming-
Holy moly, exactly that used to happen to me all the time!
It can get really frustrating but I also find it hard to be mad at because at least they're asking and it's usually the young kids asking too, who genuinely worry, at least in my school. It's a strange situation to deal with though.
The eye thing really gets me because I’m autistic and was always told make eye contact make eye contact u gotta make eye contact but then when I did start doing it consistently I was told that “staring” like that was “creepy”. And eye contact makes me lose focus on what I’m saying because it makes me uncomfortable especially the closer I am to someone.
Eye contact overstimulates me despite my poor sight. I’m autistic and have ADHD, so I prefer to glance away or stare into an object. It’s pretty much a lose-lose in ableists’ eyes because they can’t seem to be pleased whether we try to mask ourselves or not
@@daft_j "It’s pretty much a lose-lose in ableists’ eyes because they can’t seem to be pleased whether we try to mask ourselves or not" It's like that with just about everything, actually, not just assuming you're lying. People WILL make fun of you for the way you talk and the way you behave, no matter how exactly that is.
Like I always say, no point in trying to please the unpleasable.
@@catbatrat1760 Damn, you’re fucking right! I could’ve added that they’ll just make fun of autistic people regardless, but didn’t wanna think about it at the time.
@@catbatrat1760 as someone who spent decades training masking to the point that how i feel emotions now is quite literally bugged/glitched out, i can confirm, there is no winning. Maybe there's surviving if one was in an extreme sitch like i was but in adulthood when one is free then there is no point cus people know even if you perfect everything
I eventually got used to making eye contact and listening at the same time, but at first it was like, "Do you want me to focus on what your face is doing or the content of what you are saying?"
Now that I know im autistic the body language content makes me furious.
One of my worst memories is in middle school, a teacher pulled me out of class and kept yelling at me that I was rude and disrespectful for not looking at her or others in the eye, I tried telling her that it made me feel bad and uncomfortable and she called me a liar, I was in tears by the end of it. That memory has always stuck with me.
That was child abuse and that person had no business being a teacher at all. If one cannot control one's temper, one does not belong anywhere near any kids.
I am sorry you had to experience that!
* solidarity fist bump *
from another who survived a bullying primary school teacher
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 Thank you, sadly not even the worst thing that happened while in there, Catholic schools need to be banned, it gave me hard religious trauma and I was ostracized by most teachers, the students were no better either, I had very few friends, I even left graduation as soon as I got my diploma and went to celebrate not the fact that I graduated but that I was out of that environment.
I'm unschooled and diagnosed with mild autism, I'm so confused, doesn't eye contact distract some people? Doesn't sound like the best thing for education.
I am both blind and autistic, and I wholeheartedly agree with everything stated in this video, this is the kind of attention towards problems that has to be shared and spread.
Hi I'm Brian too and I have two blind little sisters one of whom is autistic
The size of the same the only time I contacted involved is when my mom wants to pull a power trip because she thinks she's an expert in body language because she used to work at a prison
Also talking about eye contact you can really irritate me like they'd be assignments in class where the first person we may eye contact with would be our partner for the assignment and I was just sitting at my desk is going ...
Or in books where people seem to make it like you can read somebody's mind just by looking into their eyes and you can see how they're feeling or something which never made any sense to me but if something I've read about so much I can only assume it's the things that people actually can do
It really annoys me though especially because like one of the only thing that seemed to symbolize a connection between people so I'm left wondering how in the world I'm supposed to make anyone else know me personally if I can't look them in the eyes
Honestly I much prefer making friends online when we're online we pretty much all have the same disadvantages
I even used to have a best friend who knew me so well that you could tell if I was upset or not just by the way I punctuated my text or the amount of words I sent in a message
@@lahlybird895 the whole looking in someones eye thing and seeing what they are feeling is just one of those literary short hands writer like to use to quickly tell you how a charakter is feeling cause they are to lazy to write down all the little facial movements that are actualy indicating how a person is feeling (also like "her eyes were glowing with joy" just sound alot better when writing then "she was smiling so she's probably happy")
@@rotkappchenlp7032 I mean I guess either way it's still a visual thing I'll never be able to figure out
But I figured there had to be some truth behind it otherwise why are the side of people so obsessed with eye contact if they don't get anything from it like what's the difference between looking at someone's eyes and looking into someone's eyes
And how does it work and why does it matter
I mean even autistic people the reason they don't look into somebody's eyes most of the time is because it's causes some kind of effort or something that they don't have to struggle with if they look anywhere but they eyes
So I am looking at someone's eyes harder than looking at their cheek or their nose or whatever there's got to be something to it
@@lahlybird895 you do have a point there and the best guess I can guess at as a person who is also uncomfatable with eye contact is that: the problem is less that I am looking at their eyes but reather that I can see them looking back at me.
I think its that the other person is looking at you that makes me uncomfatable as it means i am currently what they are focusing on (at least when it comes to the visual part).
And while having another person notice you and pay attention to you can be nice, which is also probably why so many people want you to make eye contact to feel like they are important and that they matter and that that's maybe why they then get mad when you don't look them in the eyes, cause with other stuff like hearing its alot harder to get feedback on if they are still paying attention to you (atleast not if you don't want to interupt the conversation) but with sight its easist cause you can just look where their eyes are looking and if they are looking back at you it fine you are still their focus.
But being the focus of someones attention isn't always easy or nice as anyone who has ever tried any form of public speaking can tell you cause then you start to question what they are focusing on about you cause "what if they don't like you" or "what if think you are stupid" and all that mean stuff social angsiaty likes to whisper in your ear.
In short looking people in the eye is harder cause you can see them looking back at you and not everyone likes the attention (atleast thats my theory)
@@rotkappchenlp7032 okay all of that makes sense I just have one final question about this
How can you actually tell where someone is looking
Like what is it that tells you I mean I know I have nystagmus which means my eyes move but I don't know what that means I don't feel them moving
Inside of people are kind of bad at explaining concepts they just never think about how to explain because they already know it so what is it you can see moving I know and I consist of the scula the iris and the pupil consisting of a white ring a colored ring and a black dot
What is it that actually move I could get if the eye move the ring will move but that doesn't actually tell you where anyone's looking for it and the people can move independently because I've heard of it dilating and then I've also heard of the eye itself dilating and I don't know if that's the same thing or if the eye dilating and the pupil dilating are two different things
Does the pupil determine what you're looking at
Because of people have huge fight ranges like they can see so many things at once how can you tell whether focus is
...
Okay I guess technically that was more than one question but still
Honestly, the only body language advice that I've heard that's truly useful is that you have to have a good understanding of someone's "default" body language in order to truly understand them. If you know the default, you can recognize when that particular person strays from their normal. The problem comes from assuming that there is one "normal" that applies to all people at all times.
this
sometimes I "stray" from my normal because I'm overwhelmed or preoccupied by something bigger going on in my life at the time, not necessarily because of the conversation happening in that moment.
I completely agree! The first time i watched a video like this i was like: "HOLD UP. You don't know this person. You don't know their habits." And "OF COURSE THEY WILL USING SELF-SOOTHING BODY LANGUAGE WHEN THEIR ENTIRE FAMILY WAS JUST MURDERED!"
The "every pointer to lying in body language is also a neurodivergence trait" thing is kinda funny bc my autism (which I don't bother to mask, amuses me when allos find me weird or especially creepy bc I'm a small skinny female) makes me speak the trust at all times if I'm not in danger. I just find honesty therapeutic, but the logic in these bs videos makes me look like the biggest and worst liar on the planet. I remember telling one lie trough my entire life living with my parents. One lie and it took me a lot of effort to tell (funny how the habitual lier I was lying to didn't pick up on the long ass pause I gave before lying)
I wonder how many gullible ppl embarrassed themselves by accusing an autistic person of lying and then being proven wrong publicly. I absolutely believe it has happened at least once
a lot of body language stuff, especially when it comes to accusing the target of something, is also a trauma response to confrontation. someone shrinking in on themselves when they're being accused of something doesn't mean they're guilty. it can mean they have a history of abuse and are just trying to survive the interaction.
Wait, what does allo mean in this context? I was thinking allosexual as in people who have sexual attractions because that's the normal shortening but it doesn't make sense in context
@@zackbuildit88 I have heard people use "allotypical" when talking about neurotypicals, so I kinda automatically used it to mean "everyone but me"
@@KakiT1 wait, what? I've never heard of that, that seems confusing
@@zackbuildit88 it isn't really? It just designates people that aren't autistic (/nm)
EDIT: Look up the Wallet Card - The Asperger / Autism Network (AANE) and it will give you a template with instructions on how to fill it out and then you can print it out and laminate it.
This is why I carry around a card that specificizes my symptoms of my Autism, including [but not limited to]:
Avoiding Eye Contact
General Anxious Disposition
Requesting Someone To Repeat Themselves/Asking Them To Phrase Their Request In A Different Way
Fidgeting
It also has my emergency contacts to let the EMTs or police call people that I trust.
That's a great idea!
Did you make that card youself?
I might need something like this for myself! Actually _exactly_ this for myself lol. How'd you make the card?
@@forgenorman3025 Edited my og comment to explain how to get it.
@@RachelMWinship Thanks!
The dog-tail-up VS cat-tail-up comparison is extremely well known and much appreciated here. Those are some very nice wood grains!
Adding my own "I am neurodivergent and-" anecdote: As one of my earliest childhood fascinations was theatre productions, I picked up on a lot of acting cues and body language and facial expression is a big part of that-as well as vocal inflection. So while I got real good at masking real quick, I was often deeply frustrated with both my neurodivergent family and my (presumably) neurotypical friends for "misspeaking" with their body language and similar subtle cues.
It turned out that people just don't ever think about this kind of thing at all, ever, and it all means basically nothing; unless people are singing or recording their voice or such, they don't worry about *how* they're saying things, just trying to make the right words come out in the right order. Similar story with non-verbal communication, I've found.
Body language analysis is only effective with people that you know. My boyfriend is autistic, so he's constantly shifting his body weight and avoiding eye contact, something body language experts label as suspicious, but he does have actually tells for when he is nervous about something that are different from his normal behaviors that I've picked up on after hanging out with him a lot.
There are some people who are legitimately very good at it, like fake psychics and poker players. If we decide that body language analysis isn't real, then all of a sudden we give predatory groups of people even more ability to prey on the vulnerable. I think we need to admit, for most of us, we can only tell with people we know. The problem is that body language analysis is misused and misrepresented, but that doesn't mean it's not real. Oh, another thing, you know how some people give you bad vibes? That's actually subconscious body language analysis. Listen to it, don't let people convince you it's not real.
No, it's categorically been proven to be pseudoscientific and wrong. Not just a few people "doing it wrong". Nobody has managed to show that they can reliably tell the emotions of others. Every single one was no better than a coin flip at best. Even people who were "good" at it. And let's not use the "appeal to consequences" fallacy here. It's simply not true. Simple as that. Also, people giving you bad vibes? Usually that's due to someone being neurodivergent, especially autistic, not due to them being a predator. The "bad vibes" is just subconscious prejudice, not some kind of accurate predator detector.
As an autistic person, ‘body language’ has always ruined my interactions with allistic people. Throughout my entire childhood, my dad and my teachers FORCED me to make eye contact with them every time they spoke to me because they insisted I was being disrespectful by not looking them in the eyes. They claimed that looking away from them was a telltale sign that I wasn’t paying attention or didn’t care and so I was admonished for it. When in reality, if anyone had bothered to ask me about it, I could have explained that looking them in the eyes causes me great distress and that I’m actually less likely to retain what you’re saying if I’m focusing on forcing myself to make eye contact. I was literally being punished for supposed implications that I never actually made. But no one even considered that I was looking away for a different reason, because they were so convinced that this pseudoscience was real and their assumptions were correct. Now that I finally have my diagnosis as an adult, I understand that my aversion to eye contact is just a common autistic trait. My whole life I’d been led to believe that I was disrespectful for something that is a natural behavior to me, it’s infuriating.
First of all: I'm sorry that you were forced to make eye contact when it was so distressing and counterproductive to you. And really, people could absolutely have bothered to ask why you were always looking away when they speak with you. Like, that's not difficult to do and actually also an obvious course of action.
But I have to disagree that the interpretation that lack of eye contact while in conversation = not paying attention is based in the pseudoscience type of body language "expertise".
Unless they explicitly said that they came to that conclusion based on "that one body language expert that I watch has said that that's what it means" more likely than not this is not an interpretation based on pseudoscience but a bad faith misinterpretation based on the assumption that neurotypical body language and communicative beahviours is universal.
Because (within the context of other bits of someone's body language!) not looking into someone's eyes while you're in conversation with them, especially if the eyes are averted on purpose (and it's visible that you actively avoid eye contact), that lack of eye contact absoultely can be a sign of (intentionally) not paying attention or showing disinterest in what the other person is saying. In neurotypical body language/communicative behaviours ,that is.
And I mean. If you are being honest you WERE actively not paying attention. Namely, you were actively not paying attention to the other people's EYES. But of course just because someone doesn't pay specific attention to the other person's eyes does not automatically mean they are not paying attention to the conversation at hand in general. And to assume such, especially without asking why someone is avoiding eye contact first, is definitely wrong/a bad faith action/unkind/not compassionate.
And more neurotypicals need to be educated about neurodiversity and what "normal" communication/behaviour looks like and how communication between neurotypical and neurodivergent people is prone to miscommunications because both sides tend to misinterpret what the other side is trying to communicate or how the other side behaves.
me looking at pinterest looking at things related to my SpIns,: don't worry, I'm listening, i'm just hyperfocused on my special interests: some allistic: no you're looking at your phone, you're not paying attention. Me, who doesn't like eye contact b/c it's like looking into the void: but wouldn't one listen with their ears, but don't have to with their eyes? /g
my grandpa used to yell at me for giving him dirty looks when in reality it's just the face I pull when I'm confused and thinking about something. apparently it reads as 'angry' to others when it just means 'confused'.
yes I am autistic
Jesus are you me? I hate how my face doesn't match with my feelings sometimes.
As an autistic/adhd person, I'm always nervous that people will assume I'm lying or disinterested based on my body language. I've also been scolded SO many times as a child and even as an adult for drawing during meetings. People assume I'm being disrespectful and not paying attention, but it's the only way I can pay attention :'D
tbh I drew in class while taking notes on the topic b/c it helped me focus. I'd be annoyed if someone thought I wasn't paying attention :/ /g
“So and so pursed their lips together. This is a retrained, thoughtful expression, meaning we stuck a cord”
Little did they know, so and so had an itchy foot and can’t scratch it until they can take off their shoe
Some body reading can /potentially/ give insight, especially if you know them well, but it will never give the whole story. People are thinking about everything all the time, even if it’s ‘inappropriate’ for the moment
Yesterday I had people from a local supermarket chain come into my class to tell us about getting jobs through their company and they said that when someone comes in for an interview, that the employers rarely listen to what’s said in the interview and mostly focus on if the person being interviewed is smiling and is making eye contact. Nice to know they don’t often hire autistic people and I cannot stand body language requirements like that.
Imagine someone raised their hand and said, "Oh do you're able-ist" to the people from the supermarket chain.
@@anxiousoptimism5517 I was tempted to do it myself but chickened out💀
@@LovingSkunks fair enough. Confrontation can be nerve-wracking.
oh this makes so much sense. no wonder my """friends"" in school always picked me, a neurodivergent queer kid with dyslexia/dyscalculia, on the spectrum with adhd and sprinkle with levels of depers/dereal stuff, as a liar / master manipulator.
it was all ableistic pseudoscience!!
I hope you have found real friends
And like, the whole thing about a lot of master manipulators is they tend to have the perfect social signals pegged. That's why people (usually neurotypicals) fall for them, and when autistic people fall for them it's often because we're taught to distrust our own interpretations (a form of gaslighting that can be, but isn't always, accidental, simply as a result of someone not understanding a disabled person's perception). And even though some of these manipulators have a vibe that reeks like heavy perfume over stink, there are definitely manipulators who can modulate the level of charisma they use at any given time so they don't give off that vibe (or they give off far less of it). In short, even if you do have that sort of "spidey sense" as some autistic people do when it comes to manipulative charisma, it's not a guaranteed manipulator detector because manipulators are slippery (and that sense can still be confounded by biases as well).
I'm autistic, transgender, and I learned about body language from several sources: a "Queer Eye on the Straight Guy" episode in which the Fab Five taught a het dude how to read "tells" in Texas Hold 'Em poker. I tried that and won 2 out of 5 games, lol! Another source was a martial arts instruction book by the SAS, which taught me about "telegraphing," a common boxing error in which one accidentally gives away one's next move to an opponent, such as leaning forward to grapple, pulling back a fist or foot to punch or kick. It's hard to hit or kick hard without "winding up" first! A third source, which ties in to your video was an art instruction book on how to draw supervillains. They differ from superheroes in secondary-colored costumes, armor plates, high-collared capes and sneaky or predatory body language, such as slouching in a chair, rubbing their hands together, crouching or hunching over, scowling and sneering . I live with LGBT roommates on the spectrum and two have multiple disabilities. They explained to me that neurodiverse people often suffer job discrimination because anxious or depressed people are thought to have "bad attitudes." Many mental conditions also cause "age-inappropriate" behavior. In my case, that's wearing superhero t-shirts, going nightclubbing in black leather and playing "air guitar" to heavy metal, even though I'm a senior! Many queer people get it because their body language is not "sex-appropriate." As a man, I had trouble getting work after college because of these issues! My roommates also told me that some medical conditions cause "villainous" body language. Hand-rubbing is caused by itchy skin conditions. Arthur Fleck's "Evil Laugh" in "Joker" (2019) stems from pseudobulbar affect, a head injury he incurred from child abuse. Even slouching could be a depression or chronic fatigue symptom!
in my formative years eye contact and telling if someone was lying based on their eye position was all the rage for some reason. we even had a cop come to our class and give a lecture on how you can tell when someone being questioned is hiding something through their eye movements. (in retrospect: yikes!)
i remember feeling very weird about it all because...was i supposed to be making sustained eye contact this whole time? but it hurts my brain. and i can't hear what they're saying if i'm focusing on forcing myself to look into their eyes.
i never had anyone give me grief over it...except when they've already decided that lying to them. and then suddenly the thing i've always done is apparently evidence that i'm acting inconsistently. (i'm currently dealing with some abusers who are belaboring the point that i don't look them in the eye when they're talking to me, despite them knowing for decades that i just don't do sustained eye contact.)
it's the same BS as claiming that someone who gets upset during an argument is upset because they know they're wrong. no, ya jerks. they're upset because you're antagonizing them and they have difficulty controlling their reactions, especially if they have a history of being harassed for not being stoic while being accused of things they didn't do.
Gods, yes. I hate the body language thing. Like just part of what I hate about eye contact as a blind person is that I’m expected to simulate it, but my conversation partner doesn’t have to look at me in return because, “Oh, it’s not like they’ll see it.”
Another one I hate is when people expect me to know what they’re doing with their bodies based off of the position of their voice. H o n e y, that ain’t how it works-
I don’t know just how far my disabilities go. I’m blind and have very obvious and noticeable anxiety, but I’ve been doing research and figured out that I might also have ADHD and there’s a slight chance of Autism, but not sure and don’t want to assume. Anyway, what this is all boiling down to is that I hate how I’m expected to act with my body. Last example, people telling me to stop shaking my eyes and look at them. Like sorry darling, I have nystagmus. I literally cannot hold my eyes still. It is physically impossible-
This
Freaking exactly this
Fellow blind person with nystagmus here
No Mom I literally cannot lift you in the eyes oh and fun fact neither can my blind autistic sisters so maybe before I think her food during the panic attack if not a good idea
But what do I know about it I'm not the mom and I'm not a body language expert because I never work at a prison
....people... expect you to know what they are doing with their bodies based on the position of their voice???? Who?? Why??? How can they come to such an idiotic conclusion?
@@Fireberries I wouldn't be surprised honestly normally I can tell where someone is by where their voices at least I can tell if they're standing up or sitting down it does make a difference you can hear wear something's coming from and whether it's higher up or lower down but anything else would be ridiculous my mother loves her tones and what they mean and I can never understand them half the time lol
"Like just part of what I hate about eye contact as a blind person is that I’m expected to simulate it"
Wh... Whuh... Why on planet earth???? HOW on planet earth????
@@lahlybird895 "I think her food during the panic attack if not a good idea"
What does this mean?
tbh a lot of the body language stuff felt wrong to me because I have never looked anyone in the eye ever because it felt wrong, I guess the thing just confused me as I was an in general honest person. Autistic confusion continued every time I heard it
whenever someone gets really into BLA i'm like "wait, you take that stuff seriously?" Like, most of us can pick up on little signs that something's up, but pretending it's anything more than a clue is just stupid. Just like you said, there's so many possible reasons for the way we behave.
"there's so many possible reasons for the way we behave."
Absolutely. maybe they crossed their arms because they're defensive. Or maybe they're just cold. FFS.
I think the whole 'not making eye contact is a tell for lying' is a really good example.
My mom used to work in a prison she now considers herself an expert on body language when I was little she said she could always tell when I was lying however she'd sometimes assume I was lying even when I was telling the truth and couldn't seem to tell
Last year she was having a fight with my blind and autistic little sister and part of it was her grabbing my sister's face in order to make her look her in the eyes even when my sister asked her to stop touching her and even though she's blind and can't see her and I'm pretty sure have nystagmus like I do I'm still insisted she look her in the eye for the conversation
Recently on my country, a body language analysis TH-camr (Metáforando) went to a podcast and told about a delivery guy who just asked what was his dog's name, he just assumed the guy was planning to broke into his house and steal something there, he later discovered where the guy worked and lived and delivered panettone to him on his apartment, and he told this ridiculous story with such a confidence on what he was saying that he didn't even noticed the bullshit he was saying. People on Twitter were curious from where did he figured this and more importantly, what was the guy's skin color, because either he is paranoid or racist
What's panettone?
@@catbatrat1760 it's an Italian food, often eaten on Christmas. It's like a sweetbread and a fruitcake had a nice night and had a baby
@@DiaboTatuado Thank you for explaining, but also, I want to mention how adorable "a sweetbread and a fruitcake had a nice night and had a baby" sounds.
Omg thank you, I was in my college and career prep class and they were talking about body language, I shot up my hand and was like "well it's actually a very harmful stereotype to use body language cus people who are autistic, other types of neurodivergent people, and people with chronic pain don't have proper posture or can't stop body movement" and the look on the teachers face was like "oh, uh this kid mad at that topic".
I grew up in a household where I had to be hypervigilant to any subtle signs of change in mood, and now I see anger and distress in people's body language and facial expressions all the time, even when it's not there (which is most of the time). If that doesn't tell you right away that that sort of thing isn't universal, then idk what will lol
Edit: also I'm neurodivergent, so those are literally the ONLY body language cues I ever pick up on, and I 100% see them way more in my autistic peers (because a lot of us just don't care/ don't know how to present "normally") 😩
Second edit (about the drawing ❤️): this is so good! I really like it! The only small critique I have is that the cats outer paws would probably be visible on the fence, not layered behind it (I could be wrong about that because of the angle but idk it feels a little off to have all four paws behind the fence??) Besides that, I really love the shading you did! I'm horrible at shading but I'm learning !!
This "eye-contact" stuffs is hilarious, beacuse in the east (especially in Asia), it was the other way around - when a parent lecture or scold their child, the child avoid eye contact is a sign that they admitting that they were in the wrong, while eye contact is seen as the kid challenging the parents
As always, you have gracefully described in words I could never put together everything I have ever thought about other people reading my body language.
I forced myself to learn permanent masking and eye contact, and it is killing me. (I'm in therapy, do not worry!) and I beg you all to follow their example.
If you read this, NEVER force yourself to fit others standards of you to make them comfortable, because if you give them even an inch it will never be about your comfort in return.
Stay Safe All!
Kinda off topic but that advice reminds me of a lyric from Watch Me by Icon For Hire "no time left to play it safe, no time to bend, the worst mistake you'll ever make is trying to blend"
The "they're looking away so they're lying" gets even worse when you consider ADHD people.
Autism Too
People over analyzing body Language has legitimately gotten me in trouble before as well. Despite what I'm saying or doing, folks have decided I must be lying under the bases of how my body reads, no matter what I was actually saying. It still affects me from time to time as an adult, but it was the worst back in school. Despite being in special education for autism, that was never an excuse for displaying poor body language, so I was punished for that pretty often, at least until the special education teachers stepped in. In adult life it mostly just occurs when folks ask me for something then get annoyed even if I help out based on body language or just get angry and demand I pay better attention. However, unlike when I was a child, I can just walk away or tell them to screw off because it usually happens with folks I don't know.
As an autistic person with a severe anxiety disorder, one of the biggest red flags for me in someone is when they say they "study body language". To me it's the exact same thing as a pickup artist saying they "know the female animal", it's just like that. They want to believe they know everything about you and how you work before they even know your name, because then they think they can get into your pants easier. It's creepy. I've had a boy do that to me once, keep pointing out how "nervous I was around him" but that's because I was having a panic attack because of how creepy he was, not because I liked him. Body Language is absolutely a pseudoscience and needs to be discredited. Also, btw, I LOVE your channel, keep up the good work!
as someone with a severe movement disorder, in addition to my erratic or slowed movements being misread as stuff like nervousness (or straight up thinking i'm high), something i else i struggle with is my intentional body language *not* being read as anything. sometimes it's such a strain to move, but the people interacting with me don't see my changes as significant signals that i am trying to communicate something while i'm nonverbal. i'll put all of my energy into opening my palm or pointing limply to indicate i need an item, but 95% of the time i just get outright ignored.
sorry if that's off topic. but your video reminded me of this issue and i've never had an opportunity to talk about it before.
Heh, yeah. I "lie" with my body language all the time. I'm chronically depressed and have severe ADHD. I mask like a champ and anyone I've bothered to open up to about these things has always been caught waaaay off guard. They say I don't look depressed or act ADHD (whatever that means) but I've been diagnosed. I'll never forget the absolute shock on my friend's face when I asked her to drive me to the hospital because my depression was about to win. She had no idea I was even feeling slightly down.
I figured this stuff was fishy, even if you ignore obvious outliers like neurodivergent ppl, it's unreliable af and the more detailed you get the more stupid and unrealistic it becomes. However, I never figured on my own that it is actually ableist, I just gave them the benefit of the doubt that they didn't know neurodivergence exists. Thank you for putting this into words ((idk if the rest of this is trauma dumping) I'm aware that problematic things don't have to be malicious or intentional to be problematic, my brain was programmed to believe the lier and manipulator over anyone else by a narcissist through my childhood lol)
@@starcycle4308 I get that, I tend to use the word as a synonym for evil when talking about this person (bc he is evil) but I don't have any opinion on anyone else with the diagnosis, as I do not know anyone else with it. Probably should stop doing that. I don't think lack of empathy makes someone evil. I lack empathy but I'm evil bc I choose to be
@@starcycle4308 I'm also not trying to come across as aggressive
But it's also kind of rude to assume you know what someone's talking about if you don't
You have no idea if the person that was called a narcissist had a diagnosis or not so assuming they were armchair diagnosing is disingenuous so if you don't know whether or not they had a proof of diagnosis and were being accurate
So maybe what you could have done was ask if the person was actually narcissistic or just displayed a some narcissistic tendencies before judgment
I have ADHD and a tic disorder and chronic pain. I remember I had a class where we talked about job interviews and I heard the whole eye contact, no fidgeting, good posture etc. And I pointed out and asked "I have ADHD and a tic disorder. I shouldn't disclose my medical conditions to prevent discrimination in choosing the applicants, but If I don't disclose that my fidgeting and tics are related to my conditions, I have a chance of getting passed over because I'm "unprofessional". What should I do?" And my teacher at the time couldn't answer. It sucks that people put so much importance on body language to the point where it effects people's ability to get a job. But I think I opened her eyes about some of the barriers ableism causes in the process.
This. My mom would use body language as a way to accuse me of lying. Despite the fact she hates assumptions. We were raised to never make assumptions and always get clarification/confirmation from the actual person. But the second body language supports her thoughts she takes it and runs with it.
Lots of people do this and it's incredible to see how people get so confident and sure that everyone acts just like them.
Yes, this! All of this! I have been thinking this for years without having the words to say it, thank you.
The worst part is how suddenly a thing that you've mindlessly done for years has _got_ to mean something different in this specific situation just because someone decided that you're lying. Or doing who knows what that they've decided that you're doing.
Like. I once had someone assume I was flirting with their spouse (who I detest as a person on principle) just because I wasn't paying attention and was fidgeting with my hair at the time the asshole happened to be telling a joke or something, this when I was practically a kid at the time, and they were the one who'd even forced me to be there in the first place. I don't think I need to tell you just how ridiculous that is. They plain ol' refused to believe me when I clarified, talk about self-centered. And that's just one of the most stupid examples-I have more.
Hell, I've had _my own therapist_ accuse me of not paying attention just because I'm not looking them in the eye. What the hell?! I'm autistic, lady, you _know_ this. You knew you were signing up to treat an autistic guy. What was she surprised that I don't make eye contact for? Like, sorry if I don't feel up to having to mask in an environment that should be safe, geez. The whole thing's freaking awful and it should be retired.
There is also another element that being overwhelmed can lead to shutdowns in autism. I lose all face expressions and cannot speak in a shutdown so I just look "normal" and not upset
Honestly I’ve seen some “body language experts” before, and one of them that never felt right was the “leaning on stuff because they’re bored” I’m someone with horrendous balance (I literally fall over if I stand up straight for too long) so I lean on things to not fall, not because I’m bored
Also eye contact is never been something I’ve been great at
Can I just say that I love watching you draw? The way you drew the trees and grass in particular looks way more efficient than the way I do them.
as a neurodivergent person (adhd), i'm so glad that i'm not the only one who sees body language ""science"" that way. they mostly base themselves in the body language of neurotypical, non-disabled people and how they do facial expressions. their rules don't apply to us.
one example would be things that i do because of my adhd, like:
- looking to the sides sometimes
- avoiding eye contact
- having my arms and/or body in "weird" positions (it's comfortable)
- getting off topic
- accidentally cutting people off,
- *always* having my back touching a wall or something (because having my back turned to an open room is the most anxiety inducing feeling ever, since i can't see what's behind me)
- not liking when people stand behind me (similar to the last one, i do this even with the people i trust the most, i know nothing is gonna happen i'm just anxious)
- stimming and fidgeting (like rocking back and forth, playing with my hair, etc)
those would all be red flags for those "experts", but really that's just how i am. i also struggle with my facial expressions a bit and i've been told i look angry when really i'm just focused, for example.
a lot of their red flags are things that we neurodivergent people do because that's just how we are, sure, NTs can do those things when they're lying or nervous or whatever, but saying that those things are inherently signs that someone is lying is ableist, because:
- it either assumes everyone is NT, because it judges everyone by NT lenses. an ND person could be made out to be a liar when they're telling the truth and just unmasked for example.
- or it states that these traits are inherently bad or dangerous, these traits that *we* have. *its like saying ND people are dangerous, but not in your face and with extra steps.*
anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk
Yeah, I have allways felt left out of or felt weird about whenever body language as a topic in lessons would come up, because that's just not true for me. I wonder if the feeling of "no tool or help is ever for or applies to me" is a common ND experience, since that was something I very much assumed would be the experience, that no advice would ever really work for me in life.
Queue my shocked pikachu face when I found out I just needed advice that takes my neurodivergence into account.
Yeah this is too true. I've gotten "don't give me that look!" many times because my face looks angry constantly and people worrying about me when I sit alone. Also people think I am lying when I smile, and while that is SOMETIMES TRUE, the reason I smile is because I am SEVERELY anxious or angry, and I smile just like a monkey or dog would smile- it's a sign of distress and aggression for me, not happiness or lying. That CAN happen when lying, but it rarely does nowadays since I learned to lie with a straight face/neurotypical-ly. Literally no one knows I'm lying, and then assumes I'm lying when I am not. Sorry buddy, but you're wrong.
I either got adhd or autism (maybe both but I still need a test by a doc to get the diagnosis testified) and all my childhood I'd get to hear "I know you're lying, your body language tells me"
I was almost never lying I just couldn't sit still or not smile when my mom looked at me that intensely (I was nervous so of course I would smile)
Hated that
Learned how to "act" normal and controll my body language but that made me misreable
Glad people are finally calling this bs out
As an Autist with ADHD myself ive had to learn most stuff about people from my cousin and my own self experience. My cousin would tell me about all about the norms and how make sure I didn’t look like a “weirdo” but also helped me mature better. Still i had to learn about emotions and psychology of different people on my own and learn about self reflection which made me understand things much better, just so i would be able to read people’s emotions and have situational awareness.
I despise the part of body language analysis that deals with the way you walk or stand. My personal deadly cocktail of disabilities means that if we're having a conversation while standing, I will fidget and shift my weight not because I'm uncomfortable with the conversation, but because it is physically painful for me to stand perfectly still for extended periods of time. If we're chatting while walking, which is hard in itself because I'm trying to save my breath, looking down at the ground instead of making eye contact doesn't mean I'm shifty, depressed, or any other hidden meaning that may be attributed to looking down, I'm just scanning the ground for obstacles and trying not to trip, because I'm legitimately at greater risk of tripping and falling than the average person. It really riles me up. It's the same thing as those ridiculous makeover shows where the transformation always includes switching from glasses to contacts because "glasses are like a mask, you wear them because you subconsciously want to hide". Uh, no, I wear them because my eyesight needs correction and I legitimately find glasses more comfortable than contacts, no need to psychoanalyze my choices, thanks.
the body language situation reminds me a lot about the unintentional ableism around job interviews heavily based around gauging people's ability to perform the correct sequence of neurotypical body language to be deemed sufficient for a job
I am deeply nervous and anxious to the point of hallucinations (my anxiety medication keeps this down for the most part), so my own personal body language when I am accused of anything is just to look as guilty as possible. I start stammering, get confused/forget about details and events, look everywhere but the speaker, shift uncomfortably... just a real shit show. The thing that sucks is this is my response even if I didn't do the thing I am being accused of...
11:08 what a good, intrinsic point
Attempting to read another person is the ego asking what are you to me right now
Hello, Oakwyrm. Thank you for making these videos. Really appreciate it.
Hi hello I am a body language expert and here is what I know:
If someone is crying, that means their eyes are wet.
If someone is smiling, that means the bottom half of their face is moving.
If someone leans back, that means part of their body is moving away from you.
Thank you for reading. I hope this was helpful.
Another point that I think is important to bring up is that it is common for autistic people to struggle with picking up on how others are feeling. I am autistic and I have had friends and family get upset at me before for not picking up on when they are feeling a certain way based on their body language, tone of voice or something like that. I consider myself a very caring person and I love to help people but I can't always pick up on how people are feeling and when I do I cannot always guess what they want correctly. I need people to communicate with me in order to help them and to constantly be expected to guess what people want based on their body language is extremely draining. I have other autistic friends complain of this as well.
Have you heard of the "Guess Culture vs. Ask Culture" dilemma? I am autistic, naturally an Ask Culture person but was brought up in a pretty extreme Guess Culture by a goody-two-shoes covert narcissist mother and her malignant narcissist mother. I learned to emulate Guess Culture surprisingly well (kids will go to great lengths to survive) and it took me years of counseling to shed those guessing based mental models about what other people "actually mean" when they say or do something.
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 I haven’t heard of it but it definitely sums up what I was trying to say pretty well
As someone who is neurodivergent and loves drawing, body language is somewhat fascinating to me- as it has taught me, that while reading body language is complete bs, humans do tend to associate body language with certain ideas. But that's it. That's as deep as it goes. Not to mention even the association can vary wildly with situation.
Another way I like to put it: Reading body language is like reading a cat's body language, normally vague between strangers, and only those who really know their cat understand.
Being autistic, I had been worrying about my body language being "wrong" or that it was saying things that didn't reflect what I actually feel. I didn't really have the concepts to even explain it, just this notion of "misspeaking" with every involuntary movement. I do feel better having it laid out like this so I can grasp these ideas better
Oooh, can't wait to watch this after I get home!
Especially since I work in medicine (I just med school and I'm an intern in a family medicine office) and I noticed a lot of....iffy...claims trough the last 6 years of my medical education.
It's especially frustrating as I heavily suspect I might ne ND too and I struggle to read social cues and I know people misread me too.
So I want to challenge the precincieved notions about body language so I don't do the same to others, especially my patients.
You also just can't tell anything deep about a celebrity by watching their presentation during interviews. I think people want something that will open up a window into a celebrity's inner world so not only can we judge them correctly when they screw up, but also so we feel a deeper parasocial connection. Fans feel entitled to know the "real" person, but being a celebrity is all about being in costume, in character 24/7/365. That's why people have become obsessed with this nonsense.
Just wanted to add an example for the blinking too much. I got contacts last year and it took my eyes a while to get used to wearing them so for a few days I was blinking a lot. This was accidentally at the same time that I was meeting a new group of people. When I said that I was blinking a lot because of that they all seemed kind of relieved. Idk, it was really strange.
This is an interesting analysis. As someone with Aspergers and experience volunteering at a pet shelter, I’ve been told that body language is the be all end all for cats/dogs. However there are subtle differences that completely change the emotions that are being given off. For example a cat wagging its tail is happy, but if they’re wagging it too fast that means they’re annoyed and want you to bug off. Maybe we should change the way we perceive these signs in general
It also depends on the individual animals. I've known cats that would go completely still for a bit, then claw at you, with no tail movement whatsoever as a warning. That was because their warning was going still.
I have severe social anxiety and OCD with many compulsive behaviours and everyone always reads me wrong, so I really appreciate this video and others of yours
*Person starts fidgeting uncomfortably in their chair
Body language expert: "They're fidgeting because the interviewer has said something to them that makes them uncomfortable. They're close to the truth. If they keep putting pressure on them they'll crack.
* What's actually going through that person's mind: "I shouldn't have worn these panties today, I got such a wedgie."
As an autistic person who definitely has a habit of fidgeting and avoiding eye contact, I'm glad I've been fortunate enough not to encounter anybody who was confrontational about these sorts of things. It makes me think about how I should feel about fiction that uses super-effective body language reading as a sort of super power. The example relevant to my interests is the Ace Attorney franchise's Apollo Justice but I'm sure there are others.
That reminded me of that one time I was arrested on a suspicion of a robbery. Despite all the evidence and all the testimonies the officer just wouldn't listen to me, because I was acting "like a guilty man", avoiding eye contact, touching my face/neck/hair and squirming on my seat. And like??? I am diagnosed with ADHD, I have been avoiding eye contact my whole life, I have an eye condition that requires wearing special sunglasses 24/7 (which I was forced to remove and my eyes were burning). I also stim a lot, and I was understandably freaking out, being caught and put under arrest in the middle of a day, so it's only *natural* that I'd be restless and nervous, anyone would be nervous in this situation.
That wasn't the first time I got arrested under suspicion of some bullshit, btw. There was a time when the patrolling officer thought I was high and had drugs on me to sell, the other time I was forced off the bus because some paranoid woman thought I was a terrorist, and both times it happened due to my prescripted sunglasses. There's also the issue of me being *very* blatantly male, with facial hair, low raspy voice, adam's apple and all that jazz, while my documents... Well, ain't exactly matching it yet. So yeah. It's not easy when everyone around has some preposterous presumption about you, how you should act and look.
I thought the crossing arms thing was so weird bc I find the arms crossed position comfortable, so when I'm still (for instance waiting in line for something) I often have my arms crossed. And as far as I know I'm nrurotypical and a lot of the things that were mentioned are things that I do.
Body language, at best, is just a small tool to help understand someone. But much like actual tools, you will almost always need more than one. Constantly trying to use a hammer for every task will just make things worse.
Thanks for making this video, a lot of times my mum says bs like: "you're moving too much ¡calm down!" "Look at people in the eyes, it shows you're not interested" like bro leave me alone.
Whenever I see a video that claims to show "signs of lying", it is literally a list of all of my behaviours
Putting someone on trial for assumptions you make about them is one of the shittiest things you can do
First time I ever really had someone accuse me of lying over body language was when this girl at school was accusing me of stealing her pen and she was sorta looming over me and yelling at me and obviously my shy ADHD ass wasn't looking her in the eye, and she took that as evidence I was lying about not having her pen.
This was very pleasant to listen to, as I also have Autism with a side of ADHD, so I recognize a lot of these things. Special shoutout to the myth that if a girl fidgets with her hair, she's into you. I have long hair which I fidget with and even braid during conversations, and as a fem presenting enby, you can guess the amount of misunderstandings that one myth causes. Luckily, I did have very nice teachers. One of my ways to "fidget" in class was drawing, and my teachers actually got that and let me draw, so long as I still participated otherwise, such as answering the occasional question. Bless those teachers.
On the body language analysis video's, I did actually find some I enjoyed watching during the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trials. I dont remember the channel name, so apologies, but I liked how with everything that happened they explained it could be a or b, and often pulled background into the equation. The focus was more on how do they usually behave and when does it seem to shift, vs what behavior always means what, which I think is much better. Someone who always fidgets just always fidgets, but if the fidgeting comes up only during a certain topic and always on that topic, its fair to say that topic might stand out. They also made a whole point about bodylanguage being a useful tool, but never stand alone evidence, as it's not reliable enough. They also took the time to talk about how things could be neurodivergence, ticks, habits, ect and thus may not be incriminating. I really wish I still knew the channel name, as I think that that was the only analysist that did this right.
One of the issues I've run into is people calling out closing your eyes while remembering the answer to a thing. I am hypervigilant, if I want to focus on giving a truthful answer closing my eyes cuts off a bunch of extra stimuli that could distract me.
I never realized people took the whole body language analysis stuff that seriously. I always took it as a hint system for real life, but nothing definitive. Always as a prompt, like if someone starts shifting or looking askance while speaking to me, am I or something related to our setting making them uncomfortable. The fact that all people have different "tells" when it comes to lying, a trope and idea arguably more entrenched in popular (western) culture than general body language analysis, should be telling that there is no absolute.
This reminds me of when I was playing a mafia like game during a summer camp last year. I was already having a rough day and I could tell I was mentally not there/on the verge of tears. This was the last thing of the day so I was just trying to get through it so I could head home. I was planning on not participating but for some reason I decided to anyway. One kid asked to stand by whoever you trusted, so I stood by my friend. Another kid was bragging about how they took a lying class and came up to me. They asked if I was it. I looked away and said no, because I avoid eye contact when I'm upset/stressed/overwhelmed, a fact I know from therapy. They started yelling I was it, and I tried calmly explaining to them that "no. I am just mentally not here." I said those words out loud, but they didn't listen. It broke out into everyone arguing and I fell apart, because one of my big fears is being blamed for something I didn't do and no one listening to me. I couldn't take the chaos so I just left the room, but not before it was revealed that no one was actually it in the 1st place, something that I guessed before but didn't say because I was upset. (We were talking about historical paranoia which was why we were playing the game in the 1st place.)
TLDR I was having a rough day and a body language obsessed kid made everything worse.
One time in kindergarten I realized that I liked crossing my arms so I started doing it and within like a week I was playing 4 square with the other kids and somehow I got in trouble. Even at the time I wondered why I got in trouble when I didnt think I had done something wrong. Not sure how connected those things were but I feel like it had something to do with why I got in trouble
I will point out that in anthropology, body communication is an essential part of language in most cultures, and in many linguistic anthropology classes there is at least some acknowledgement that in most cultures body language could make up at least 50% of cultural communication. But there is, as you point out, issues with that, especially with blind culture and in trying to interpret bodies of those who do not move, stand or sit like most people because of a physical or neurological limitation. I often had issues with body communication before, I do not communicate with my body like most people likely because of neurodivergence (I say "likely" because I've never had an official diagnosis and I'm unsure based on my conversations with others where or what spectrum I'm in. I was raised under the assumption I was autistic but I also have depression, as well as traits similar to trauma survivors and those with ADHD). Things like crossing my arms when I'm comfortable and refusing to look people in the eyes for fear my body would convulse has led to belittling from my caregiver in the past.
I got a DVD once about body communication as a Christmas present and I never opened it. Trying to read body communication has had a negative impact on my social life. It's really unfortunate that body language analysis is held in so much regard by so many people. It's at best culturally biased and at worst pure pseudoscience.
I deeply dislike the having to look people in the eyes or just at their faces while they're talking to you thing. So many people always asume that you aren't listening if you don't look at them but honestly, I can hear just fine while I'm staring at the table!
Looking at people just makes me really nervous and looking into their eyes- I can't do that, I don't know where to look, I get way too nervous.
I have selective mutism, so maybe that's why?
If I try to look at them, my eyes usually water up too, even if there isn't much of a reason for that.
School was hell with that, so glad I'm out of there and can do online school soon.
I have a good story to go with this:
I took collage for 1 semester [my teachers were a joke] and one of my teachers didn't much like me for BS reasons. She took me into another room to yell at me like I was a little kid, she was upset with me for something while to do with me, wasn't my fault, the laptop I had ordered before the term started hadn't arrived yet. When someone is angry or upsetting me I cant look directly look at them. I will look past one of their shoulders or right over the top of their heads. I don't do do it to be rude I just cant look right at someones face.
Well she decided to point this out in a snotty way by saying: "Your so rude, not looking directly at your elder. Your supposed to be looking at my face if not right in the eye."
I looked over in her direction and snapped as I was just done with this crap at this point: "I can't look at you because you fucking yelling at me! Im unable to!" Then I completely turned my head away from her and said: "Now Im purposely not looking at you and being rude."
Shut her right up for a moment thats for sure.
My dad watches body language analysts religiously and it makes me so uncomfortable. They’ll be talking about people’s “baselines” that they don’t know personally, then extrapolate from that how genuine/nervous/etc. they are. My own “baseline” changes with situations and what I think the other person wants naturally. If you were to see my “baseline” deviate, it would be because social interaction terrifies me and I’m always afraid that if I don’t follow the rules people will get the wrong idea. But so often these “experts” will act like that’s condemning yourself, like since you’re performing or nervous you’re automatically lying.
There’s a reason this “science” has been shown to have literally no difference with just guessing, and it isn’t a coincidence that it’s used actively in police interrogations, which are notoriously unreliable.
For me, I always took the body language stuff with a grain of salt because I prefer crossing my arms or putting my hands in my pockets, but that's just me being comfortable or trying to be so, not me being combative. I also get uncomfortable looking people in the eye for long stretches of time, so my eyes will dart around at least their facial area if they're strangers, but with people I know, I sometimes won't look at them for entire conversations. I also tend to shift a lot when standing just because my hips get uncomfortable when in the same position for more than a few minutes. As for blinking, most people tend not to blink when concentrating, and my doc has noticed that I have slightly drier eyes than normal, so I make it up by having periods of just more regular blinking. Then finally is the fidgeting. I need my hands to be doing something at all times or my brain turns off. I also often need my brain partially engaged in that thing or again, it will shut off. If you want to have small talk with me, you must at least allow me that much. If it will be an engaging conversation, I will just switch to subconscious fidgeting, but small talk or simply catching up is not enough to keep me grounded in the here and now. I'm not doing it to be rude, it's just how my brain works.
Tl;dr- I always took body language analysis with a grain of salt because I knew my own body language would signal to these people I was always lying.
Forcing myself to make direct eye contact causes a physical burning sensation in my eyes, so I don't do it unless the person I am listening to demands it. And I have never understood why people demand it.
I did watch a lot of these videos, I was a patron of JFC for a long time. Knowing the outcome of the cases was a HUGE factor why i thought the interrogation techniques and the body language was a legitimate method. But I never seen an interrogation video where we don't know the outcome yet, and the video is about looking at the body language and the video creator makes an informed guess about the outcome. They always use solved cases to demonstrate. On an other note I always thought I would confess to the crime just to get out of the interrogation room. Not to mention I was gaslit so much in my youth, my first instinct when someone tells me I killed someone would be: Well, I must have killed someone then, because why would this person lie to me? Calling this persona liar would be rude. I am not allowed to be rude. Therefore I must have killed this person. I would confess and spend my sentece thinking how horrible I am for not even remembering the crime.
Most of these “experts” are just trying to sound smart by making assumptions and jump to conclusions. My issues end up being that i end up focusing to hard on not being weird or creepy in public when im just out for a walk
I like your videos. I also really liked the drawing in this video.
Humans are unpredictable. In a way, "normal" does not exist - at least as a general concept. Every human is unique, and different cultures, beliefs, and perceptions have different things they consider normal. Normal is subjective and everyone has their own definition of what is normal to them.
Funnily enough, as an ND person who WAS "trained" to look people in the eyes when I'm talking to them, I spent years scaring the hell out of people with my laser-like, constant eye contact, because I was trying to assure the person I was speaking with that I WAS paying attention. Apparently we just can't win 🤷
Fun fact: "abnormalities in eye contact" is the actual wording in our diagnostic criteria in DSM 5. So "too much," "too little," "too choppy" and "misdirected" (among others) can ALL convince a professional that we are autistic.
So much fun, the DSM 5...
/s
A cultural rather than neurodivergent example I learned about while living and going to college in Hawaii: eye contact is traditionally considered disrespectful or challenging. You are still expected to show you are paying attention by sitting still and looking in the general direction of your teacher etc. but my Hawaiian studies teacher had us practice not looking him in the eye. Not a hard and fast rule by any means in this day and age, but nonetheless interesting. A more seriously enforced example is never touch the top of someones head. The top of the head is sacred, so don’t pat somebody on the head on ruffle their hair. This is rude basically anywhere, but in Hawaii it’s sacrilegious.
I use a wheelchair and often find myself fidgeting quit a lot. This isn't because I'm bored or disinterested but because I need a way to release that physical energy. As far as eye contact goes it I rarely ever make eye contact when first meeting someone. I'm busy looking around at how accessable the building is and trying to familiarize myself with the new place. Also as someone with really good ears, sometimes I'll catch someone's conversation and look away for a moment as to listen in, before my attention comes back to the original one. Body language is so individualized it's impossible to understand and geralizing can be rather stupid.
I'm so glad sm1 made a video on this..I never watched many of these types of vids but I remember one that got under my skin in 2017. it was when the r/pe victim of melanie martinez, timothy heller, had an interview talking about her experience and the "expert" picked apart everything and the whole video boiled down to "timothy is trying to manipulate you because she has borderline personality disorder" and it made me feel so sick and angry
I had a teacher in a programming class who when hiring people would shake their hand and if they didn't give a good handshake he basically thought they'd be horrible and would send them off immediately based on it
Oh my yes! Growing up with a Nuro diversity and anxiety which always told me I was doing everything wrong there were many times I would almost hyper fixate on trying to give the correct amount of eye Contact with people to the point that I would actually completely tune out the conversation despite how interested I was because the entire time I was focusing on making sure I looked interested. All because someone isn’t looking you in the eyes doesn’t mean they’re not listening nor does it mean they’re listening if they are.
Same with fidgeting, leaning back, or any of the other “body language tells” that is spoken about.
has anyone here been talking to someone who aggressively keeps eye contact and eventually trying to keep up with them becomes actually physically tiring? like at some point I start getting a neck twitch and have to excuse myself to be alone for a while.
me who just crosses my legs and arms instinctively or loafs like a cat and stares off into the distance and doesnt like eye contact bc of my adhd and likely undiagnosed autism: 😶
Yeah body language reading goes out the window when it comes to disabilities. I’ve been psychoanalized so many times I’m paranoid of talking to people.