How to Spot a Lie: 5 Non-verbal Body Language Signals

Here's what most often gives away when a person isn't telling the truth

How to Spot a Lie: 5 Non-verbal Body Language Signals

Body language can reveal much more than the words we speak. When it comes to lying, there are a number of nonverbal cues that indicate someone isn't telling the truth. However, it is important to look at gestures in combination to avoid wrong conclusions.

Here are a few surefire body language gestures that reveal lying:

1. Eyes don't lie: In the moment of telling a lie, it is very difficult to look into the eyes. Few "professionals" will look at you while lying to you. Generally, when we speak untruths, we mostly look down or away.

2. Covering their mouths. When children lie, they cover their mouth with their hand. With age, this gesture becomes more veiled, but it is difficult to eradicate. Telling a lie sends negative signals to the brain, which unconsciously causes us to cover our mouths. That's why we often touch our mouths, and on rare occasions our noses, when speaking untruths.

3. Position of the palms: The way we hold our palms is among the surest gestures that give away whether we are telling the truth or not. Open palms in conversation are an almost sure indicator that the person is telling the truth. It has been found that it is very difficult to tell a lie if our palms are on display. They also indicate that the person is "open" and predisposed to the conversation.

4. Nervousness: Scratching, nervous laughter, aimlessly pacing back and forth, nail biting, leg twitching, playing with small objects - these are just some of the signals that may suggest someone is lying to us. However, they can also be due to other emotional states, so we need to observe them in context and in combination with another gesture.

5. Words Not Matching Action: Another way we can tell if we are being lied to is by observing verbal and non-verbal cues. If someone tells us they feel great, but at the same time has crossed their arms in front of their body, or clenched their hands into a fist, or is frowning, or is gritting their teeth, or just looks pensive rather than happy - then they are probably lying to us.

It is important to note that none of these gestures can 100% guarantee that the person using them is lying. There are a number of subjective factors that may be behind the use of a particular gesture. Here are a few examples: scratching the mouth may be due to some skin irritation or itching, expressions of nervousness may be caused by various emotional states, crossing the arms means that the person is putting up a kind of protective barrier, but is by no means a guarantee that it is due to telling a lie.

How to react if we suspect a lie?

✅Taking all this into account, to determine if someone is lying to us, we need to interpret gestures from body language in combination and context.

✅Asking complementary or open-ended questions is also a good approach in clarifying whether we are being lied to. If we don't believe what is being said, we can safely ask for clarification.

✅A direct approach can also be helpful to us, as the possible liar hardly expects to be confronted openly. This approach is more appropriate for people who are close enough to us to ask such a direct question, of the "are you lying to me?" type.

✅No matter what our intuition, body language, or suspicions tell us, it's important to always leave ourselves some percentage of probability of being wrong.

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