Be Careful of Misconceptions

People often hold some preconceived misconceptions about certain body language “tells” that you need to understand and get rid of before you venture down this road. If you don't, you'll end up making some bad assumptions.

Let's analyze some examples together. Look at Figure 8-5. What do you see?

For years, people have been told that folded arms are a clear indicator of being closed off. That is not necessarily true. If someone changes from an open display to a closed-off position as I approach, that might be true, but some people routinely sit or stand like with their arms crossed because it's comfortable and not because they are closed off. On both sides of Figure 8-5, Amaya's arms are folded, but her facial expression and position of her head indicate which emotion she feels.

Now look at Figure 8-6.

You can't see it in this still picture, but Amaya's leg was bouncing at about 500 beats per minute. Is this a sign of deception about to occur? Or maybe she is not comfortable? It's hard to tell. Some people just have busy legs or move a lot. Again, notice when a movement like this starts and observe how often it starts or stops to figure out what it means. Look at the whole picture in Figure 8-6: Amaya's body position, her leg bounce, her hand on the back of her neck. When you consider all the elements, you might decide that Amaya is looking uncomfortable.

My son Colin's leg is like a perpetual motion machine. I've always thought that if we could attach it to a generator, we could produce power for our home. He's not deceptive; he just moves a lot. Here is an example of how I used this knowledge about Colin's habits:

I said, “Hey, Colin, how did the party go the other night? Did you have fun?”

Colin, with his leg drilling a hole through the earth, would say, “Yeah, it was okay. Nothing too much.”

Now, in this case, I knew there had been a fight with Stewart, and I wanted to get details. I would say, “Oh, cool. Who was there again?”

Colin listed all the people there, but he left out Stewart. Hmm. I replied, “Oh, so Stewart wasn't there? I thought he was going.”

Now Colin's leg stopped dead, “Yeah, he was there too,” he said, as his leg started moving again.

“Oh. Is everything okay with Stewart?” I asked.

With his leg now firmly planted on the ground, Colin said, “Yeah, fine.” This time, there was a pause before Colin started to move his leg again.

The indicator that there was a problem was not that Colin's leg was moving, but that it had stopped. From there, it was a matter of a few seconds before I had the whole story.

Now take a look at Figure 8-7 and see what you can interpret.

Face rubbing, scratching, or other types of manipulators can be indicators of discomfort, but sometimes people just have an itchy face. Notice when it starts and why.

I can use my son Colin for this example, too. He had asthma and allergies. There were many times when his skin itched all over. When it was pollen season, Colin was always touching or scratching his face. In this case, the fidgeting wasn't because Colin was lying but because of his allergies.

If we play into these misconceptions, we can fall into a trap of assigning emotional content where it doesn't exist. That can be dangerous because you can start to react to emotion that isn't there. You don't want to treat someone as if they are closed off when they are just cold, or assume that someone is being deceptive when their behavior is the results of having allergies.

The best way to combat this error is to approach each situation without using preconceived judgments, even if you're approaching a target you've interacted with before. Reserve your judgments for after the initial 15 to 20 seconds of the encounter.

When it comes to body language, I try to focus on the changes from baselines and then look for a change that indicates comfort versus discomfort. In Unmasking the Social Engineer, I wrote extensively about facial expressions and body language, so if you want to learn more about that subject, you can check out that book.

For this book, I want to give you just the basics of understanding the difference between comfort and discomfort. Once you have a clear grasp of what those indicators look like, you will have a map that tells you what to look for and how to decipher what you see.

Know the Basic Rules

This section covers four good rules for you to keep in mind when reading body language. If you apply these, you will see a massive difference in how you read and interpret body language.

These rules are not meant to be “math” in the sense that you must do 1 + 2 + 3 + 4, but they all must be done if you want to master reading nonverbals.

Anger

Anger is a strong emotion that has been labeled as a gateway emotion. What this means is that many times, anger leads to other emotions, feelings, or actions. Those actions can range from using expletives or angry words and escalate all the way up to exhibiting violent behavior.

Physiologically, anger makes us tense, tight, and ready to fight or defend. Muscles tense, the jaw tightens, and the person might clench their fists—all in a preparation for a fight or defense. As the person gets closer to taking a violent action, you might even see their chin lower in a protective measure to protect the neck.

Although things are tense and tight, you might notice a person who is experiencing anger try to make themselves larger. For example, an angry person might expand their chest, square their shoulders, and widen their stance. In addition, their breathing deepens and their heart rate increases.

Someone who is angry has the following facial characteristics:

• The brows will furrow, but the eyes don't squint. They open wide.
• The jaw tightens.
• The teeth clench, or, if the mouth is open, the person is often not saying pleasant things.

You can see all of this represented in Figure 8-8.

Anger can also be displayed in the rest of the body. Figure 8-9 shows me with a tight jaw and clenched fists. In addition, my chest is puffed to make me look bigger. All of this points to anger. (FYI: This is the very picture I will hand to any boy that shows interest in Amaya.) If you notice any of these signs as you approach a person, it might be best to avoid that individual.

Another version of anger is shown in Figure 8-10, in which Amaya is displaying subtle anger. Her glare, tight jaw, and slightly furrowed brow are all signs of anger.

Most likely, you can figure out that anger is a discomfort nonverbal. It's one that I particularly do not like to elicit in my targets. Consequently, I watch for signs of this emotion and try to not use it in my engagements.

Many times, if I am too aggressive in my approach or if my pretext is too negative, I can catch signs of anger. It is a great warning sign to back off and to soften my voice or body language to alleviate some of the anger feelings in my target.

Disgust

Disgust is also a very strong emotion. Disgust can be felt toward a person, place, or thing. Oftentimes, something that makes us have a very strong disgust reaction sticks with us for a very long time after we've been exposed to it.

When I was a young boy, my parents raised chickens. I would love to run out to the hen house, grab a couple fresh eggs, and make what I intelligently called “egg in bread.” It was simply a piece of buttered bread in a pan with an egg in the middle.

One day, I grabbed my egg and cracked it open in my super-heated cast-iron pan. What came out was not a fresh egg but a half-formed chick. As it hit the pan, it started to flop around as it died. The sight and the smell made me heave into the sink. Because I was so disgusted, I forgot to shut the burner off, so the poor thing roasted, and the smell of burning chick filled the kitchen.

The disgust emotion that was triggered was so strong that even a decade later, the smell of a cooking egg would make me instantly feel sick. Eventually, I did get over that, but disgust is such a strong emotion that if you trigger it in your target, you might not be able to recover.

Think about the things that can trigger a disgust emotion in your targets: body odor, bodily functions, food on your face or in your teeth, foul language, word choice, and so on. It's important to carefully analyze your approach and yourself before you approach so you don't cause your target to feel disgust.

Disgust is exhibited a few different ways. On the face, it is a bilateral expression, meaning that both sides of the face show the same expression, as illustrated in Figure 8-11.

As we were prepping for the pictures, my dog had done something nasty in the living room. I couldn't pass up the opportunity, and I captured a picture of Areesa cleaning up. Notice how the sides of her nose are raised, which blocks both the olfactory sense as well as the line of vision. In essence, she's physiologically blocking the things that are causing her disgust.

In the body, a person demonstrates disgust by blocking or turning away from you. Look for signs of a lack of interest or repulsion.

Notice the leg position of Amaya in Figure 8-12. Where is her interest? It's definitely not in her dad (as sad as that makes me). And although she's not showing a strong sign of true disgust, her body language is showing signs of discomfort and disinterest.

Because disgust is such a strong negative emotion, I tend to not use it during engagements. However, I have been asked about using it to create a tribe of people who are disgusted at the same thing. Although this can work and be very powerful, it can also lead to some dangerous results if not handled properly.

Contempt

Contempt is a unique emotion. The Oxford English Dictionary defines contempt as, “The feeling that a person is worthless.” Dr. Ekman offers a simpler definition, stating contempt is the feeling of moral superiority.

According to Dr. Ekman's definition of contempt, it can be felt only toward a person, and it is the only unilateral expression, which means it's shown on only one side of the face. At first, contempt may appear to be a smirk, or even the start of a smile, as shown in Figure 8-13.

Contempt is characterized by one side of the face being raised—for example, the corner of the lips is raised on only one side as in Figure 8-13. It is not uncommon to see this accompanied by a chin raise, even if it's only slight.

Because contempt is a feeling of being superior to another person and can often be a gateway into anger, you may see the following types of body language with contempt:

• Feeling superior to another person can make someone feel confident. That feeling of confidence can be displayed in several ways, but oftentimes, the person takes up more space by making him- or herself bigger.
• If the contempt has led to anger, you might see the same body language as I described in the previous section. However, before those anger nonverbals are fully displayed, you may notice a tightening of the jaw and more aggressive posture.

In my opinion, contempt has little to no use in a professional social engineering engagement. I can see how a nation-state might use it, and I have seen how it is used by terror organizations to recruit and then convert people to their cause, but for most standard social engineering engagements, it wouldn't lead to a desirable outcome.

Fear

Fear has many purposes, such as it alerts us to danger, but it can also be exhilarating and enjoyable when controlled. Some people even enjoy being scared or feeling fear.

Fear of disappointment, fear of failure, or fear of making the wrong decision can be useful for a professional social engineer, but I generally steer clear of stronger uses of fear. Pretexts that literally threaten or scare a person—such as those that cause them to fear for their jobs, lives, or families—trigger such strong emotion that when they find out they were being tested, they can be left with disgust or contempt, followed by anger.

Fear has some clear physical characteristics:

• The eyes are open wide to take in the whole scene.
• The body tenses, and there is usually an audible gasp of air.
• The mouth is open, with the lips pulling back toward the ears as if the person is saying “eek.”

You can see these characteristics in Figure 8-14.

In the body, fear has manifestations similar to the facial expressions. The body pulls back, tenses up, freezes, and prepares for fight or flight. If you startle your target, you might see the person react as depicted in Figure 8-15.

Notice how Amaya has reeled back with her whole body tensed. Her mouth is in that “eek” position. This type of fear can be intense because there's no physical way for her to flee. She's cornered in her chair.

Figure 8-16 shows another aspect that we see in fear when displayed by women—covering the suprasternal notch.

Watch for subtle body-language indicators that can clue you in to how the target might be feeling. If you see signs of fear, you can then decide whether the fear being displayed is appropriate and how far you are willing to go to use it. As I mentioned before, I use fear as a professional social engineer, but I steer clear of the type of fear that can leave the target feeling threatened or in harm's way.

Surprise

Surprise is often confused with fear because it looks so similar. With surprise, the eyes open wide, as they do in fear. The body generally freezes and the mouth also drops open. But instead of opening with an “eek” shape, the mouth opens in more of an “OHHHHH” shape. You can see this in Figure 8-17.

Surprise can be useful to a professional social engineer, but, as with some of the other emotions I've mentioned, it depends on how you use it. I don't suggest hiding in a closet and then jumping out to surprise your targets, but a surprise audit, visit, or reward might work to elicit the right response. In one engagement, which was solely a vishing engagement, I used a surprise reward to get some amazing results. The call went something like this:

With that, we had a full compromise of the network. Yes—for all of you who are preparing your hate mail—that was manipulative and used a pretext that made the target a little upset when she found out about it later. But, remember, I didn't threaten her; I didn't embarrass her; I didn't cause her harm. I used a surprise to trigger a happiness-based emotion, and that led her to give all sorts of information to me without thinking.

From a body-language perspective, there are a few things that you may notice that indicate surprise. These are shown in Figure 8-18 and Figure 8-19.

In my opinion, surprise is a good emotion for a professional social engineer. With the proper planning and execution, it can lead to large victories for you.

Sadness

Sadness is a very complex emotion. It also has a huge range, as it can span from feeling slightly blue to utter despair. As a social engineer, there are a few ways that you can use sadness:

• Noticing sadness in a target and then using that emotion to elicit a reaction
• Creating a situation that will most likely cause the target to feel sadness and lead to them to react the way you want them to
• Displaying sadness in your own nonverbals to elicit an empathy-based response

Some of these methods employ a more manipulative approach than others. It all depends on how you employ these emotions and what the resultant emotional state of the person you use this on.

Sadness has a few facial indicators, which are demonstrated in Figure 8-20.

On the face, sadness is shown by

• The corners of the mouth turning down
• The eyelids drooping
• The corners of the eyebrows coming together and going up

In some extreme cases of sadness, you can read the emotion from just one part of face.

Sadness can also be conveyed by a person's body. Sadness makes us want to protect, comfort, and become smaller—the opposite responses of feeling confident.

Some examples of self-comforting nonverbal displays are shown in Figure 8-21, Figure 8-22, and Figure 8-23.

This is a short list, but you get the idea. These nonverbals can help you see that the person is feeling definite discomfort.

Sadness, in all of its complexity, can be very useful for a social engineer—both in learning how to read it and displaying it. However, I caution you to temper how you use this emotion and to what level you use it in your pretexts.

I never want to leave my targets with an overwhelming feeling of sorrow or grief, but using the proper level of sadness can elicit a strong empathetic response. In a study conducted by Jorge A. Barraza and Paul J. Zak titled “Empathy towards Strangers Triggers Oxytocin Release and Subsequent Generosity,” (https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04504.x), the researchers showed that there was a 47% increase in oxytocin release when empathy was triggered, even when the empathetic feeling was between complete strangers, whereas sadness can create a lack of serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin in the brain. As a professional, I try to stick to the empathy side of sadness instead of the worry, grief, or depression side of the spectrum.

Just think about how many times this tactic is used in marketing and charity drives. From homeless children to abused animals, the goal is to trigger an empathetic response to encourage you to more easily decide to part with your money. This doesn't mean those organizations are being dishonest or manipulative—they just know how our brains work, and it helps them achieve their goal.

Happiness

Happiness is one emotion that we can all agree is very useful to all human interactions. When we feel happy, content, at peace, or relaxed, we are more prone to make more altruistic decisions. We tend to like the people, places, or things that make us feel this emotion.

For that reason, it is easy to see that, as a social engineer, happiness would be one emotion you want to master reading and eliciting. The first thing that can really help you to see if you are doing a good job and creating happiness is learning to identify the difference between a real smile and a fake smile. The one thing that separates a real smile from a fake smile is the activation of the orbicularis oculi muscle. When triggered, this muscle raises your cheeks and forms what we call “crow's feet” around the eyes.

In the mid-1800s, a French researcher named Guillaume Duchenne postulated that a real smile could be faked. He was studying neuroscience with the use of a very invasive form of electroshock. He administered shocks to stimulate muscle movement (www.thevintagenews.com/2016/05/07/44782-2).

Due to the pain involved, Duchenne did not get too far with this research, but his research into how emotions were displayed through facial expressions showed that the face is a roadmap to emotion. Around 1855, he developed a method to use electroshock stimulation to trigger muscular response, and he wrote about his findings in Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine. The result was what you see in Figure 8-24.

Reading about this research can help you understand why happiness produces the facial expression known as smiling. But as a professional social engineer, you need to learn to recognize other body-language indicators of happiness.

How is the emotion of happiness displayed by a person's body language? If happiness releases strong neuro chemicals and creates a confident environment, then we can expect to see certain body expressions, too. Look for body postures like those shown in Figure 8-25, Figure 8-26, and Figure 8-27.

On the face, we look for the eyes to be engaged in the smile in addition to the mouth forming a closed- or open-mouthed smile (see Figure 8-28). Many times, people who feel happy also lean in toward the object of their happiness.

Other signs of happiness might include things like raising the toes or bouncing on the balls of the feet. When people feel confident or good, they tend to make themselves bigger or bounce more.

Happiness is one of the emotions I look to use frequently as a professional social engineer. Appealing to a person's ego is a great way to create happiness that can lead to an emotional decision. For this to work, though, the ego appeal must be realistic, believable, and appropriate to the level of rapport you have built at that moment.

I find that, if it fits my pretext, approaching a target with open ventral displays and a warm smile with a proper head tilt can go a long way in making the target feel comfortable with me.

Look for ways to create a happy environment in your social engineering pretexts, and you will be rewarded with good results.