Making a Murderer: Body Language and Lies
When I write, for both this blog and my general body language blog, my aim is to empower people to read and understand body language so that they can spot the same behaviours within their daily lives and present the best versions of themselves to others.
Making a Murderer Blog Overview
My Alcomy will be using our Making a Murderer blog page to draw attention to nonverbal behaviours (mainly body language and expression), displayed by participants on the Making a Murderer TV show. Our primary goal is to educate on nonverbal communication and to pique people's interest in this fascinating area that so many people are unaware of, or pay little attention to.
We recognise that the TV show was very much on the side of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey and how the case was portrayed could have left out many other bits of important information, evidence and footage. As specialists in nonverbal communication, we were able to see behaviours that raise red flags and could potentially point towards deception. These were displayed in astonishing amounts from the side of the prosecution or members of the murder victim's family—not from the defence. Based on the nonverbal behaviour that we saw in participants on the TV show, we believe that Steven and Brendan were stitched up. We hope that by highlighting some of these anomalies we will be able to play a small part in proving that Steven and Brendan were unfairly convicted.
We saw nonverbal behaviours with specific meaning that discredited the words being spoken. We would like to share with you some of these behaviours and their meanings. Bearing in mind that in a thirty-minute conversation two people can send over eight hundred nonverbal signals, we could not begin to share all of them. Therefore we are selecting those that we find the most interesting, or significant.
An Overview of Body Language and Lying
Before I start this blog, I need to give you an overview of Deception Detection...
Detecting Lies
For years, researchers have been searching for the ‘Pinocchio’s nose’ of deception. As of today, it doesn’t exist; there is no single cue indicative of deception. No machine, technology nor person that can detect deception with 100% accuracy. Any claims that suggest otherwise are, in themselves, untrue.
Most people’s ability to detect deception is 54% accuracy, that's little more than a toss of a coin. So unless you’ve been trained properly, your accuracy, most likely, will be around this mark. Research also shows that as soon as we start to dabble in the area, following inaccurate knowledge or beliefs, our ability to detect deception lowers even further. That’s a significantly high number which could potentially result in innocent people being accused. That's ironic given the topic of this blog.
Lying Behaviours
There are many nonverbal behaviours that can increase when people are not telling the truth; nose touching, increased blink rate, self-soothing, fidgeting, to name a few. However, these are not ‘lying cues’ in their own right because we also do these when we are telling the truth. Generally, behaviours like these increase with, and indicate stress.
They are associated with lying because lying increases cognitive load significantly, therefore causing stress. Our brain doesn't like it when we lie and our body reacts with behaviours and responses that can be both voluntary or involuntary. Most people under questioning will be stressed.
Where most people go wrong is assuming deception as soon as they see nonverbal behaviours that they believe to be indicative of lying, such as those mentioned above. Perhaps the biggest myths I hear when talking to people about body language, are that you can tell someone is lying based on their eye direction or amount of eye contact. These are not true.
Just because we are teaching you about body language, we don't want you to believe you are trained and to start dabbling in lie detection with the people in your lives. Even if you've learned a little about body language through this blog or otherwise, it doesn't necessarily increase your accuracy in deception detection—it can lower it when used in the wrong way.
Red Flags of Deception
In deception detection, the best that we can do is identify anomalies and patterns in behaviour, physiology and voice, differentiated from baseline and emotional baseline behaviours. We then use these as potential red flags which may, or may not, be indicative of deception. How these red flags are addressed through questioning is key to seeking the truth.
Making a Murderer Body Language Analysis
We have not completed a full audit or questioned any of the participants because we are working from and limited to the content from the TV show. We therefore have not uncovered the truth and are not accusing anyone of lying. We are simply pointing out interesting nonverbal behaviours that raise red flags and could point towards deception. Further investigation and gathering of evidence would be crucial in getting to the truth.
If you have specific video footage that isn't part of the show, and you'd like us to take a look, please get in touch.
