Body language expert Jan Hargrave

Now that we've settled the frame of the subject, we can begin our study. Let's start with watching an expert in body language talking about her job.



Jan Hargrave has 15 years of experience in studying body language! She wrote several books in this area and featured on famous TV programs. She teaches body language skills for sales, business, negotiation, job interviews and romance. She is also involved in jury selection (seems like body language is a serious matter!).

In this video she asks people in the audience to raise their right hand as if they were swearing they were telling the truth in a courtroom. She says :

-If your fingers are wide apart, it means you are terrified and willing to tell the whole truth.
-If your fingers are tight, it means you will say the truth but we will have to make effort to extract it from your brain. It's called analytical honesty.
-If your hand is bent, it means you are preparing to tell us lies.
-If two fingers are together and the others are apart, it means you are communication a mixture of the first two ones.

It says that the only possible origin of a lie is our mouth, our body never lies since 55% of our communication is non-verbal, 38% is voice inflexion and 7% is verbal (I am very curious about knowing how these figure have been calculated).

She asks the audience 5 interesting questions the reader may think about :

1- If a guy keeps touching the bottom of his chin while you are talking to him, does it mean he is seriously contemplating?

2- If a man jingles the change in his pocket, does it mean he is concerned about his financial condition?

3- If somebody uses his left hand a lot, does it mean he lies a lot?

4- If a man and a woman are having a casual conversation and the man pulls-up his socks, does it mean he wants to ask the lady out on a date?

5- What does it mean when someone have his hands going away from and toward his body while talking to you?

It seems that, when you are trying to solve a rational problem, you will tend to use your right hand. The left hand is used when you are trying to be creative and when you are dreaming about something.