Body Language Tutorial. Part 1 of 7 - The History of Deception.

Body language is a fairly broad and complex topic. It is a fascinating subject and the most alluring aspect seems to be the concept of detecting deception. The term deception has a very negative connotation from a linguistic standpoint. When we think of deception we think of lying, cheating and black alley dealings with no other intent but to injure the other party in one way shape or form.

Deception though is simply a misrepresentation. Although it can hurt someone, it can also prevent them from being hurt. Take the following example… Your wife asks you if you think it would be ok for her to order one more truffle for desert. You are thinking “NO!” but at the end of the day you love her and want her to be happy and in your values hierarchy, her happiness outweighs your desire for her to be thinner… so you deceive her and say “sure… that sounds like a good idea.”

Never the less, it is of great benefit to you as a communicator to have the OPTION of:

1. Knowing whether you are being manipulated by deceit. And
2. Possessing the ability to utilize body language to your own advantage through either misrepresentation or amplified representation of your own information.

Let’s talk about some background information regarding body language and deceit and then we can move through some of the specifics…

THE HISTORY OF DECEPTION

Take a walk in time with me back about 200,000 years to view “man” in his daily routine. He wakes up, hunts and forages, has sex whenever possible and does his best to protect himself from predators, the elements and other humans and then goes to sleep to start this all over again the next day.

The concept of the “future” to him is not (was not) the same concept we have today. He basically did not have the powerful prefrontal cortex that modern man does… so almost all behavior was stimulus response. Hungry? Search for food. Cold? Find shelter. See attractive mate? Well you get the idea… No planning, no farming, no preparing… His mind just dealt with the here and now.

In that time, aside from body language no one had the ability to effectively communicate outside of getting the attention of other humans by grunting. The body language that spontaneously “occurred” was very much stimulus response driven. This means that it was nonconsciously driven and as a result was a DIRECT indication of what has happening internally to the mind of the originator. Deception basically did not exist…

As the prefrontal cortex grew with the evolution of man, two things… MAJOR things happened as a result.

1. Our ability to understand and prepare for the “future”, AND
2. Our ability to communicate… specifically, with language.

Although the origins of deception are all but theories in text (as there is no real way to PROVE how it came about) evolutionary psychologists believe that it began with mating preferences…

There are two broad classifications that “preferences” can be lumped into:

1. Physical/genetic attributes. These are height, fat content, symmetry, musculature, etc… These are very much stimulus response “interests”. They can be readily assessed and their purpose is served immediately upon conception of a child.
2. Provisioning. These are attributes such as resources, interest in rearing a family, display of interest in sharing, etc… The entire concept of preparation for the future is a direct result of our massive prefrontal cortex. The provisioning concept is a side effect of this. This is not immediate or simply stimulus response…

Now do to the longevity of the gestation period and the female’s “hindered” ability to hunt and gather while rearing a child, she was generally the one doing the “selecting” when two humans would mate. Now, here was (and still is) her conundrum…

From an inter-sex viewpoint, the physically superior males (bigger, stronger, faster, etc…) have a much larger selection of females than do their physically inferior male counterparts. As a result, the probability of them sticking around to help rear the children (hunting, gathering, protecting, etc…) is MUCH less than the inferior males who have a far smaller pool in which to “fish”. Surprise, surprise… they would do the old hit and run routine and move onto the next woman. This is less than ideal for the females…

What this meant to the women was a trade off between good genetics (and a higher probability of safety and survival after birth. So what is a woman to do??? The answer… Lie. Deceive the “stay at home” male with the inferior physical genetics so that he will stay around while becoming pregnant by the genetically superior male… Guess what, this works… We see it even today and the rest is history…

Deceit later became a “tool” for the individual who was not able to use force or physical ability to achieve their goals, what ever they may be. A physically weaker man could use ingenuity or trickery to obtain resources such as food or land from physically stronger men. This also fit’s very nicely into the least energy principle that humans will follow by allowing some to “get” without “giving”. When a verbal gesture could provide goods and services INSTEAD of a physical action, the person had in effect been extremely efficient for themselves. This meant/means maximum gain for minimal effort… Deceit, the proverbial “equalizer” established its effectiveness and is here to stay.

Please visit me at The Communication Expert to learn more about body language and other forms of effective communication.

The Communication Expert | David J. Parnell