Something You Should Know - SYSK TRENDING - Understanding Body Language

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

You are constantly sending signals without saying a word—and so is everyone around you. The way someone sits, moves their hands, looks at you, or suddenly changes their posture can offer clues about what they’re thinking and feeling. But reading body language correctly is more complicated than simply assuming crossed arms mean someone is defensive. Scott Rouse is a behavior analyst and body language expert who holds multiple certificates in advanced interrogation training and has trained alongside the FBI, Secret Service, U.S. Military Intelligence, and Department of Defense. In this episode, he explains what body language and other forms of nonverbal communication can really tell you about another person—and what they can’t. Listen as Scott reveals the signals worth paying attention to, how to spot changes in someone’s behavior that may be significant, and why context is so important when interpreting gestures and expressions. He also explains how your own body language affects the way people perceive you—and how small changes can help you project greater confidence, credibility, and ease. Scott has a fascinating YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/ScottRouse3) where he analyzes body language and behavior. He is also the author of Understanding Body Language: How to Decode Nonverbal Communication in Life, Love, and Work (https://amzn.to/2XAXIid). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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what someone else was really thinking, even when their words say something completely different? Are they interested in you? Uncomfortable? Hiding something? Maybe even lying. We're all constantly broadcasting information

through our face, our hands, our posture, and even the way we move. The problem is most of us are pretty bad at reading those signals, and some of what we think we know about body language is simply wrong. That's why today's S-Y-S-K trending topic is understanding body language.

My guest is Scott Rouse, a body language expert and behavior analyst. And he's going to reveal the subtle clues people give off, what they really mean, and how learning to spot them can give you a fascinating new way to read the people around you. It's an enlightening conversation, and we'll get to it right after this.

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bored or closed off, or if someone refuses to look you in the eye, it means they're lying. It's more complicated than that, according to Scott Rouse. Scott is a behavior analyst and body language expert who holds multiple certificates in advanced interrogation training, and he has trained alongside the FBI, the Secret Service, and U.S. military intelligence. He has a really interesting YouTube channel, and he is author of a book called Understanding Body language, how to decode nonverbal communication in life, love, and work. Hi, Scott, welcome to something you should know. Hey, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. So I think everybody's heard those

things about body language that, you know, if someone is talking and they look up and to the left that that means something or like I said, if they cross their arms, they're closed off, which from what I've heard and read isn't necessarily true that you can't make general a sense. assumptions based on things like that. And if you can't make assumptions like that, then what is body language good for? All it does is give you a pretty good idea of what that person is thinking and what they might do next. That's basically what you're looking at. And as far as the myths go, those are two you just nailed two of the big ones. Like crossing your arms, it means you're not listening or you're not into what that person has to say or you're closed off. It can mean that

sometimes. Sometimes it means you're cold. Sometimes it means that's more comfort. And the whole looking up and up and to the left and all that, that's, there's nothing there. People do, a lot of times they'll look down to the right for emotional things. They'll look at a specific place when they're thinking about sounds or recalling a sound. But no, we all don't go to the same places each time. You cannot count on that every time. That's a dangerous trap to step into. There is this belief though, I think many people have.

I've heard it all my life that much of what people communicate is nonverbal, that when you're listening to someone talk, you're watching them, that a portion of what you take from them is the words they say, a portion is, you know, how they say it, and another portion is, you know, how they hold themselves. So what about that? There's a guy named Professor Moravian. And you may have heard the thing he came up with. called the rule that everybody uses, it's called the 73855 rule of communication. And that says that communication is 7% the words we use, 38% the tone of voice we use, and then the rest of the 55%, the rest of it is body language.

That's how we communicate. And I heard that back in the 80s. And so I called them up. I'm the worst at calling people up and saying, hey, tell me about this. So I called them up. I said, listen, I've been reading about these studies you did. What's going on here? This doesn't sound right to me.

And he said, listen, it's not right. Somebody's taking the information I've, these studies I've done, and they put two of them together. And somehow they've come up with this 73855 rule that has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. And if you get a chance, you tell everybody you know or you talk to about this, that I don't believe this. And my name is always attributed to the person that came up with that. I did a whole TEDx talk on that. So what does body language tell us? What is it that we can decipher or not decipher?

for what specifically does it do? Well, in my job as an interrogator, I use it in an attackful sense where I'll ask questions I know the answers to and I'll see how that person reacts to those questions that I know they know the answers to and then I'll have questions that I know they don't know the answers to like questions all about places I would make up as I'm talking to them and we're getting ready to get started.

I spend 10 or 15 minutes just talking to them and you get what's called a baseline. When they're not nervous, they're not being put on the spot. And you see that, you remember all the things, how they acted when you ask them questions that you know they knew the answer to and they answered correctly, and the ones you knew they didn't know the answer to. And you keep that in mind as a baseline for the way they behaved. And then when you get to the point where you're talking about

what they're supposedly done, what they're suspected of doing, as you speak with them, then you can see how their body language changes. They may do things to guard themselves. They may bring their arms in closer to their chest, for example. And that's what your brain does when it feels threatened. It starts guarding your lungs and your heart and your stomach. Or they may be using what are called adapters. And adapters are the things, these little repetitive movements people make

that get rid of that built-up stress, tension, or energy from the questioning. As they're thinking, as they begin to worry about something as stress builds, For example, they may start shaking their foot on, you know, jiggling their foot on the ground, or they may start rubbing their arm or their hands, or they may just a little bit start biting the side of their mouth. Those are the things that when you see those, these repetitive pacifying behaviors, those let you know that person is under stress. It doesn't mean they're lying.

It doesn't mean they're telling the truth. It just means there's an issue there. There are no absolutes in body language, just because someone scratches their nose. It doesn't mean they're lying and it doesn't mean they're telling the truth. Most of the time, they're nose itches. I've trained federal judges who thought, if you look up into the left, you're not telling the truth. And we all know from studies now, that's not true at all, not even a little bit. Well, I understand, and I've heard from other people, that body language is a useful tool by the police and in interrogations and perhaps in court.

but most of the time I'm not with the police or in court or being interrogated. What about in just kind of everyday life? I think a lot of people, for example, believe that you can tell a lot about someone's truthfulness by their eye contact. Yeah, most people are under the impression that liars, when you ask them a question, that when they lie, they break eye contact. That's the last thing they're going to do. Because what their brain wants to do is look at you.

and make sure you believe them, because you're gonna make a face like, what? Or you may look like you don't believe them, and they wanna add what are called qualifiers to that answer, to make them their answer more believable to you. You're right, certainly most people think that, you know, if you're lying, you can't look me in the eye

and that's what that, I guess where that comes from, but you're saying that that's, well, it does seem that people, when they're lying, maybe don't look you in the eye when they're talking, maybe they look you in the eye when they're looking to see how you react to what they said. Right.

They want to see how you look. Their brain wants to see what your reaction is to their answer because they may want to add qualifiers to it. So their answer will sound more believable. And they won't blink a lot either. The blink rate goes really down when that happens because their brain is trying to keep an eye on you. But couldn't it just be that the person cares about how you react to what they said?

It's not that they're lying. They just really want to get a sense of if we're a on the same page. Of course. So that's why you want to know what answer, what questions to ask next. If you were to look at a video of somebody who if they're lying or telling the truth and they asked a question and they gave the answer, the odds of you getting that are 50-50. The odds of me getting under 60-40. I'm not, I wouldn't be much better than you. But the key here is knowing what questions to answer to ask next and get those reactions. So

you start looking for not just the one reaction you can't tell. You have to look for several and then you start putting those reactions over into little pile that says this person may not be telling the truth and so what what do you how do you develop that series of questions what what comes next when after you've asked does anybody know where this thing is well let's for example if I go into a bank and I'm asked to find the person who's embezzling there and they say this could be one of these seven to ten people well I'll get each one of them by themselves and I'll ask them a few questions. And the ones that react, like we talked earlier, if they don't blink a whole lot, they look right at me, their answers are really, they go overboard explaining,

then if the answer is no, it should be no. And if they say, no, because of this, and they add all this stuff to it, then that's just, that just goes in the little pile of, they may have done this. So I keep asking questions to see if I keep getting those reactions from that person. And then I get rid of the two or three or four or five that answered very quickly and I didn't get the feeling they were being dishonest and would let down to the two, three or four that I think might have been the person that did it. Then very quickly you can get through those because your questions get a little more pointed. What else can you tell about, if anything, about eye contact, whether people break it or whether they overdo it. Is there any other telltale signs there? Well, it's, eye contact is really important because that's, you're looking right at the person

they're looking at you. You know, they're close and you're looking at them face to face. And the person wants to look like they're telling you the truth. So that's one of the reasons they don't look away because they know, you know, or they know you think people break eye contact when they're not telling you the truth. So one of the things you want to look for in that instance is as you first start speaking with them, watch their blink rate. Keep an eye on them.

See if they're blinking. whole lot. That denotes nervousness. And if their blink rate doesn't go up really high, you may be able to say, okay, that person is probably telling me the truth. But if you're asking two or three people at the same time, see if their arms move, see if they go into a protective mode. They may not cross their arms all the way, but they may turn sideways just a little bit. And when they answer your question, a lot of times you'll hear what are called fading facts. As they give you an answer, they get quieter and quieter as the answer goes along. Not that much, but you'll notice that it gets quieter as they go along. And they may back up just it. And they lean back just a little bit.

It's very subtle. But those are some of the things you want to pay attention to when you first ask the question. Body language and nonverbal communication is what we're talking about today. And my guest is Scott Rouse. The name of his book is Understanding Body Language. How to Decode Nonverbal communication in life, love, and work. That's two minutes for holding. But you're holding two times the chicken with Bogo box meals from KFC. Order in and focus on the ice, not what's for dinner. Get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long.

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Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply. Visit scotiabank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. So Scott, can we talk about body language not so much as it relates to lying? because, you know, that's certainly important. But isn't there a lot more to this

in terms of like what you can tell about whether a person likes you or wants to talk to you? Aren't there a lot of other things body language says besides I'm lying or I'm not lying? Let's talk about the eyebrows out of the gate because there's something that everyone does, you do it too, I do it, everybody does. It's called the eyebrow flash.

When you see someone you know from across the room and you haven't seen him in a while or you're at the mall or you're at a restaurant, you see him, you do a quick eyebrow, brow flash, your eyebrows go up and back down, and they will do it too if they know you. So it's sort of a recognition thing. You'll see that. So if you look to someone in their eyebrows go up, think, oh, no, I should know that person, but I can't remember who they are. Oh, no, here they come. So it's sort of get, you can sort of get prepped for that. And you can do that to people

you don't know just to watch them do it if you want to do. Talk about this idea I've heard about mirroring, that if you want to connect with somebody, you mirror the gestures and the things they're doing. Matching and mirroring is when you match the way someone sounds, the vernacular they're using, and then you mirror the way they look, what they're doing as well. If you've ever been sitting with someone, you may cross your leg toward them, you may put your arm on the side of, on the arm of the chair, and you may put your hand on your left knee. And after a few minutes, you'll notice maybe they're doing the same thing. People who really like each other, people who get along great, they will match or they mirror each other's body language,

what they're, how the other person looks. If you're standing talking to someone and you have both hands on your hips, in a couple of minutes they may have their hands on their hips as well. And if you meet someone for the first time and as you speak with them, they'll feel more comfortable. Their brain sees you almost as a reflection of themselves and it makes them more comfortable because that's the way people act when they like each other as they start mirroring each other.

So knowing that, can you then deliberately, even artificially mirror somebody to create a connection that might not otherwise get created? Oh, yeah. I do that all the time, especially in an interrogation situation when they start to calm down some and you want to give them the impression that you're there to help them, which you are, you're there to find out what happened. Or if you're in a business situation, you're meeting someone for the first time. It's a very powerful tool.

Another powerful tool is when you match the way they sound with the words they're saying. Most people will fall under three categories. You've got visual, audio, and then kinesthetic. Visual people will talk, they'll say things like, oh, I see what you're saying. That looks good to me. They'll deal with the way things look. And the audio person, the auditory person will say, that sounds good. Oh, I hear you.

They'll use terms that are, that deal with that, the kinesthetic person, say that feels good. or that's he's a little bit rough around the edges but I think things will smooth out as as he grows older if you if you listen long enough you'll figure out which one of those categories the person falls under and you start speaking in terms of seeing hearing or feeling as well it could be emotional feeling or the way something feels a tactile feeling so that'll once you start matching and matching them with your vernacular and then you start mirroring them physically, then it's when a bond starts being created when you first meet someone. What about posture? It seems like when you see somebody slouching or when you see someone

standing erect with really good posture, that that's sending a message. Posture is good. It shows you're paying, it indicates you're paying attention. If someone's all slouched as you're talking to them, they may look too relaxed if you're giving them important information if the alpha person, say the boss or the person in charge is giving you information, you're slouch down. You just look like you don't care at that point. But if you straighten up and have good posture as they give you this information, especially if you were slouching before, that's the best thing. So as soon as they start talking, you straighten up a little bit, that lets them know you're listening and gives them the impression that you're interested in what

they have to say as well when you do that. If you're trying to give someone the impression, you're listening, just tilt one of your ears toward them, your right ear, your left ear toward them, whatever your good ear is, as you listen to them, and put your eyebrows up, and shake your head up and down a little bit. It works wonders. And then when you start talking, do the same thing. There are very subtle things you can use to help enhance the impression you're trying to get across to that person. What else? What other nonverbal things have you observed or witnessed that seem to have a real impact with people? Well, there's something called that I've coined called the slow and tiny smile.

If you see someone and all of a sudden you have a really quick smile on your face, they see that as a smile and it's fine. But what happens is if you start a slow smile when you see them, like it's dawning on you all this time you've spent with them and you've had fun with them and they remind you of whatever, that's a different thing because they keep watching to see where that expression is going to go, so you hold their attention a little bit more. Very charismatic people are that way.

They don't put on like a real, if you go to the Apple store, and they go, hello, can I help you? and that really quick, big smile comes on, that's the salesman smile. But if you put one on really slowly as when you first see someone, that gives them the feeling that you know them, as well as those eyebrows. We talked about the eyebrow flash being up. From that person's perspective, there's an emotional connection there. What about feet?

I've heard it said that, you know, if you watch a person's feet, if they're trying to escape a conversation, their feet will be pointing not at the person they're talking to, but where they want to go. Is that a fair conclusion? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you can, you'll, you'll see that as you speak with someone who may seem like they're, something may not be right as you're talking to them. They may be standing too straight and they may be looking at you too strong. See where the feet are pointing. If they're pointing toward the door and they're not just all the way over toward the door, but they may be headed that way a little bit. That's what's on their mind. Let them go. Let them He says, hey, man, it looks like you're in a hurry.

We'll talk about this later. If you're standing in a group of people, let's say there's four people stand there, and one of them's a girl or a woman, and one guy has his feet pointed toward that woman, that's the one he's focusing on. And the person in the conversation he's focusing on the most. It's one of the last things people think about is to look at someone's feet, where they are and where they're pointed and what they're actually doing. A lot of times, like on a date, for example, you're trying to read whether the other person is

into you. Like, are they really interested in what it is you have to say and who you are? So what do you look for? What do you look for in determining if people like you? Most of the things we've talked about will let you know whether they're into you, quote unquote or not. You'll see their feet should be pointed toward you as you speak with them. They may have their hand a little, just a little bit further out than it would normally be toward your space a little bit, getting in there. They'll be looking right at you and most of the time their eyebrows will be up. Most of the time when a guy sees, sees a girl that they're sitting in and the girl starts talking to him, when the guy's eyebrows go up, if you're a woman, that shows that he's

attracted to you. Another thing you want to look for is they're called barriers where the person as you are sitting on the table, you may put your arm in front of you. It's not bad. It doesn't mean every time that the person is not into you, but it's one of the little barriers you want to get out of the way. Continue to speak with you. to get them to stop that. And you do that, by you can put your arm on the table and as you connect with them really big, then you take your arm off the table and see if they're mirroring what you're doing. Because that's what you want is to get that person to start mirroring you.

Are there big gender differences in body language? Do men do things that women don't and vice versa? There's one thing that women will do quite often that men don't do, and only because it's the length of their hair, I'm sure. And they'll pull their hair behind their ear as the guy is talking to them. that would denote, it would indicate attraction because at that point they'll show their neck a little bit and they're showing their ear and the side of their face and their wrist as they do that. So that's two or three things like, you know, that person is interested or attracted to you.

What's the one thing you want people to really take away from this discussion about body language? That there are no absolutes in body language. Just because someone scratches their nose, just because someone breaks eye contact with you, it doesn't mean their line. and it doesn't mean they're telling the truth. It depends on the situation that's going on around that and what you're asking that person, what the conversation is. There are no absolutes. That's the most important thing to remember.

Great. Well, this is really interesting, and I like that you were able to explode some of the myths about body language that I've believed in the past, and I think a lot of people operate with that just aren't true. My guest has been Scott Rouse. He is a behavior analyst and body language expert. who holds multiple certificates in advanced interrogation training.

He has a YouTube channel, and he's author of the book, Understanding Body Language, How to Decode Nonverbal Communication in Life, Love, and Work. And there's a link to his YouTube channel and a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes for this episode. Thank you, Scott. Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate you having me on here. I'm really looking forward. I listen to your stuff all the time, so I'm really looking forward to hearing me.

And you talking to me as odd as that sounds. So thank you. You're welcome. And that's today's SYSK trending episode. I'm Mike Herruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.