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Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

Body Language Expert: “If You Get Anxious Around People, WATCH THIS!” (Command Instant Respect)

This episode is sponsored by: AG1: Get 10 FREE Travel Packs and Welcome Kit worth $80 visit: https://bit.ly/43FwxQl VIVOBAREFOOT: Get 20% off your first order https://bit.ly/4eAxtvK Order MAKE CHANGE THAT LASTS. US & Canada version https://amzn.to/3RyO3SL, UK version https://amzn.to/3Kt5rUK When we want to make a good impression, we think about what to say, but not always how to say it. Yet as today’s guest explains, as much as 90 percent of our communication is non-verbal. And learning how to read – and use – non-verbal cues can turn you into a master communicator. #feelbetterlivemore ----- Connect with Vanessa: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/vvanedwards/ FB https://www.facebook.com/vvanedwards/ Twitter https://twitter.com/vvanedwards YT @Vvanedwards Website https://www.scienceofpeople.com/ Vanessa’s Book Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication https://amzn.to/3NOk1qo ----- Follow Dr Chatterjee at: Website: https://drchatterjee.com/ Facebook: https://facebook.com/drchatterjee Twitter: https://twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk Instagram: https://instagram.com/drchatterjee Newsletter: https://drchatterjee.com/subscription DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Vanessa Van EdwardsguestDr. Rangan Chatterjeehost
Aug 15, 20251h 23mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:30

    Confidence as a loop: stop misreading neutral cues as negative

    1. VE

      It's actually a cycle, right? Like, the more confident we feel, the better we come across. And even, like, if we start on the outside, it also works in. I know this quite personally as I'm a recovering awkward person. So, uh, confidence always eluded me for many, many years. I have a problem where I'm a, a social over-thinker. I just tend to get in my head about cues, and I didn't realize that what was taking away my confidence was that I was misinterpreting a lot of cues. So I would assume that someone's neutral cue was negative, and

  2. 0:30 – 1:49

    Your “flavor” of confidence: charisma isn’t only extroversion

    1. VE

      that was... it just ruined all of my confidence. And so the very first thing I, I want people to think about is what is your perfect flavor of confidence? I think that when we think about people skills, we often idolize the extrovert, right? We think we all have to fake it till you make it. You have to fake being outgoing. You have to pretend to be an extrovert. I do not believe you have to be an extrovert to be confident or to be likable.

    2. RC

      I mean, that's very powerful because I think a lot of people will probably say, "Vanessa, look, uh, I see people around me all the time who, who... they're confident, right? I can feel it when they come in the room, yet that's not me. Like, I can't be that."

    3. VE

      Mm.

    4. RC

      And I guess what I hear you saying there is that it's not about us necessarily being that other person, it's trying to figure out what's our unique approach, or as you say, flavor to that confidence.

    5. VE

      Yes. So for example, I think, and this is a, a, a really big myth that we think that the life of the party, the bubbly extrovert, they're the people who are confident and likable. And yes, that is one flavor of charisma. But if you think about the most charismatic person you know or the most confident person you know, so just think about that person for a second. Think about a couple people you can think of in your mind. We also have the quiet, powerful introvert who's very confident. We also have a nurturing, empathetic healer who's also very confident. And so I think that if we can

  3. 1:49 – 3:40

    Authentic vs fake smiles: why “smile with your eyes” matters

    1. VE

      broaden our definition of what confidence means, we have more permission to feel authentically ourselves. And here's the biggest problem. We can feel inauthentic confidence, and this is actually proven. So Dr. Barbara Wild, she had a very simple experiment. She took photos of people. In one photo, she had them authentically smiling. They were actually thinking about something that made them happy, their puppy, their dog, their child, right? They were thinking about something that actually made them happy. In the second picture, she had the same people doing a fake smile, so not thinking about anything that made them happy, just smiling on the bottom half of their face. By the way, the difference between a, a real smile and a fake smile is that these upper cheek muscles are eng- engaged. So if you smile all the way up into your eyes, those crow's feet, that means it's a real smile versus just a smile on the bottom half of the face is a fake smile. So she took these photos, and she had participants look at the photos one at a time. She found that when people looked at the real smile, they caught the smile. They actually felt happier and more confident in themselves. When they looked at the fake smile, they had no mood change, no behavior change at all. In other words, when you are truly confident, you actually infect other people positively. When you are faking it, when you are trying to pretend to be an extrovert, you are less memorable. You are literally less impactful.

    2. RC

      Over the last few years, because of the job I do with the public, I've had to do lots of photo shoots for books-

    3. VE

      [laughs]

    4. RC

      ... or whatever might be coming out.

    5. VE

      Yeah.

    6. RC

      And something photographers will often say is, "Smile with your eyes," right? And so I guess-

    7. VE

      Yeah

    8. RC

      ... they must have that experience and also go, listen, if you, if you're trying to fake it, because we're saying smile now, it's like, actually, I can tell on that image, no, smile with your eyes. And I guess that just bolsters up what you're showing from your science and you've written about in your wonderful new book.

  4. 3:40 – 7:31

    The contempt smirk: a tiny cue with huge relationship consequences

    1. VE

      I think that really good photographers, they know this smile into your eyes 'cause they know that that's the photo that's gonna feel more authentic, more like you. A couple little things I want you to think about for profile photos or if you're doing a photo shoot. So first is either really big smile, right? Think about something that truly makes you happy or neutral, right? You don't always have to smile. You can also be neutral. There's some very confident and powerful folks who have no smiles in their photos. And you also wanna avoid asymmetry. So the other thing that research found is, um, there's a universal contempt microexpression. And so this is a microexpression of scorn or disdain. It's very simple. You can even try it with me. It's a one-sided mouth raise. So if you raise up one side of your mouth, kind of into the smirk, you actually begin to feel like, huh, I know more. I know better. It's a really weird cycle. There's something called the facial feedback hypothesis, which is not only do our emotions cause our face, our face causes our emotions. So also be sure, go look at your, your LinkedIn profile, your dating profile pictures. Make sure you are not accidentally showing an asymmetrical smile. That's actually a sign of negativity.

    2. RC

      It's incredible. I was trying to do that as you asked me to, and-

    3. VE

      What'd you feel?

    4. RC

      Y- you just feel your mood change. You don't feel as... I, I didn't, I didn't feel as engaged. I didn't feel as, as happy, as excited to talk to you as I really am. I, I felt, I don't know, a bit flat, I guess, is what I felt. [laughs]

    5. VE

      Okay, so it's, what's really great is, let me just dive into contempt for a second, because by the way, now that you know it, you'll see it everywhere. You'll start to see this smirk everywhere. And remember, it's a sign of disdain or, or better than. So first is we did a massive facial expression survey. We had over 25,000 people try to guess what facial expressions meant. Contempt was the one that most people got wrong. The majority of people thought it was ambivalence or boredom. So it's, we don't even realize how negative it is. And Dr. John Gottman, he's a marriage and family counselor out of Seattle.

    6. RC

      Yeah.

    7. VE

      He did a massive marriage experiment. I'm sure you've talked about this on your show before. And he looked at married couples looking for patterns. He wanted to know, can you predict if a couple will get divorced or stay together? So he brought the couples into his lab, and he tested them on everything he could think of. You know, he gave them IQ tests and personality tests. He observed them. He interviewed them. He looked at their histories.And he followed those couples for 30 years, so a massive amount of data. He found that the one predictor of divorce was that in the intake interview, if one member of the couple showed contempt towards the other, there was with 93.6% accuracy they would get divorced. John Gottman can watch a silent video of a couple, and if he sees that smirk, that one-sided mouth raise, he can predict with 93% accuracy that couple will get divorced. Why? Just as you mentioned, I- you said, "I felt kind of flat. I felt like all of a sudden not excited." Contempt is one of the only emotions that doesn't go away. Fear comes in a burst, you self-soothe. Anger comes in a burst, you calm down. Happiness comes all at once, you go back to neutral. But contempt or disrespect, it grows and it festers if it's not addressed, and it grows and it breeds into hatred. And so I think that why some of these cues are so powerful is if we can spot a cue at its infancy and address it, we then prevent any kind of negative growth-

    8. RC

      Yeah

    9. VE

      ... out of that hidden emotion.

    10. RC

      I think the eye roll as well is associated with contempt. Is that right?

    11. VE

      So the eye roll is funny. It's, uh, a negative behavior, and it's a little softer than a scorn, right? So if we roll our eyes, sometimes it can be that you're trying to process something. For example, humans tend to look away when they're trying to process something. So if you've said something that someone doesn't like or they're trying to process, they might eye roll to be like, "Ugh, I don't know about that." An eye roll paired with a scoff, though, pretty contemptuous, right? Just an, "Ugh." That's the one... [laughs] That- that's a really negative one.

  5. 7:31 – 10:13

    Spotting negative cues as “opportunities”: what to do when you see them

    1. RC

      So let's say someone hears this, Vanessa, right? They're listening or they're watching, and this evening they see that their partner is exhibiting that cue to them, right? One part of them potentially could be really scared, thinking, "Wait a minute. Hold on a minute. I just heard that that's gonna lead to a divorce." Or could it be that with that knowledge we can actually address it and do something about it? Help me understand that.

    2. VE

      Yes. Every time you spot a cue, it's an opportunity. So if you see that on your partner's face, think of that as an opportunity. That is information, super valuable information for you to learn more, find out more, dig deeper. So you have a couple different options when you spot a cue. So there are 96 different cues, right? There's a lot of cues that we're getting sent all the time. Contempt is one of the more powerful ones. You have a choice with contempt or any negative cue or red flag. One, you can say, "Hmm, I noticed that contempt around this topic or this idea. I wonder what was going on there. I'm gonna keep that in the back of my head and do more research." That's just information for you.

    3. RC

      Yeah.

    4. VE

      How wonderful to have, uh, more valuable information. Second, you can absolutely address it. So everyone in my life speaks cues, right? We... I'll be like, "Hey, I saw contempt. Is everything okay?" I will literally say that. Or if you wanna be more, you know, more soft about it, you can say, "Does that make sense? Are we all good? How are you feeling? You okay? Does that work with you?" Right? So even having a tiny moment of acknowledgement I think is a gift.

    5. RC

      Yeah.

    6. VE

      And this is how I like to think about, about reading people, is we are so in need of belonging. We so want to be with people who truly, deeply understand us. And how amazing for you to go into an interaction with your partner or your best friend or your colleague and say, "I respect you so much that I don't wanna just listen to you with my ears. I j- I don't want to just hear the words. I wanna listen to you with my entire body. I wanna look at your cues, hear your voice, listen to your words, and I want to deeply understand you." So I think that the intention here is that every time you spot a cue, it's an opportunity to learn more, learn more about them, learn more about yourself, learn about more about the relationship.

    7. RC

      Yeah. It, it's, it's really powerful, that, because a- as you described that, I was thinking, let's say I'm in a work meeting and I'm describing something and you notice this, then that's good information. You're like, "Ah, maybe this isn't landing as I thought it would. Maybe there's a problem here. Maybe I need to just keep that in the back of my mind and come back to it later," right? Whereas if you hadn't noticed that, you might think, "Oh, everyone's got this. I can just move on." So I can see the relevance there. I can see the relevance in a personal relationship, where someone is saying with their words, "Hey, yeah, I got

  6. 10:13 – 11:56

    The four cue channels and why words are only a small slice

    1. RC

      it. Everything's fine," yet you're noticing something else. And I think that speaks to a wider point, that as I immerse myself in your work, which I have been doing, which I love, and, and, and your new book, you talk about cues, and you put them into these four categories, don't you? Non-verbal, vocal, verbal, and imagery.

    2. VE

      Yes.

    3. RC

      And the first thing that came into my head, because it's something I think a lot about as a doctor, is that most communication is not really with our words, is it? It's, it's that non-verbal communication. So maybe can you speak to non-verbal communication a little bit? Explain how important is it, how much of communication is that, and why our words don't always tell the full story.

    4. VE

      Yes. Okay. So you said it exactly right, that when we think about communicating with others, we tend to put all of our energy in the verbal basket, right? We think, "I wanna have the perfect answer," or, "I wanna script the f- perfect presentation," or, "I wanna answer the perfect way," and words is only one portion. Non-verbal is about, and it's really hard to measure this exactly, but about 65 to 90% of our communication-

    5. RC

      Yeah

    6. VE

      ... is non-verbal. And by the way, that's a huge range, but it's still the majority, right?

    7. RC

      Yeah.

    8. VE

      So if you only focus on your words, it's like showing up with 40% of your ability. It's like leaving 65% of your abilities at home. And so what I wanna think about is... And, and by the way, let- let's put this into practical terms. So when I say, "Oh, non-verbal matters," here's what I mean. If I were to show up to a, a business meeting and say, "Hey, everyone. So happy to be here," you would know, you can't even necessarily see what my face is doing or my, or my body. Even if you just were to close your eyes and listen-

    9. RC

      Yeah

  7. 11:56 – 14:51

    Vocal cues, warmth/competence, and the two trust questions we always ask

    1. VE

      ... you'd be like, "She doesn't sound so happy to be here." So you mentioned your work as a doctor, and this was one study that completely shocked me when I was doing this research. So this was a research study that was done with surgeons.And they wanted to know, how do we judge doctors' competence? Doctors are a beautiful case study because we know doctors are smart. We know they're high in competence, and these researchers wanted to know, does warmth matter? Like, what, what do we get from, from meeting a doctor for the first time? So what they did is they took one channel, which is vocal. So we have non-verbal, vocal, verbal, and imagery. Vocal is sort of a forgotten aspect. Non-verbals are postures, our gestures, our face. Vocals are pace, are volume, are cadence. What they found was is they had doctors record ten-second voice tone clips. So said their name, their specialty, where they worked. So it sounded like this. [clears throat] "My name is Dr. Edwards, I specialize in oncology, and I work at Children's Presbyterian Hospital." They took these clips, and they warbled the words, so you could hear the pace, the cadence, the volume, but not the actual words being said. Then they asked participants to rate these clips on warmth and competence, which hopefully we'll talk about in a little bit for charisma. Warmth and competence are essential for our trusting people. They found that the doctors who had the lowest ratings in warmth and competence had the highest rate of malpractice lawsuits, which tells us something very interesting, that when we are listening to people, especially in those first few seconds of hearing them, we are listening for cues to their warmth and competence. And so how we say something is just as important as what we say.

    2. RC

      You say we're listening for cues.

    3. VE

      Mm-hmm.

    4. RC

      But I guess we're also looking for cues. It's not just our ears, is it? It's, it's all our-

    5. VE

      Yeah

    6. RC

      ... senses. We're kind of, we're trying to pick up everything we can to, I guess, ask that basic human question, can I trust this person?

    7. VE

      Yes. Well, actually, I think there's two basic human questions. This was research that was done for Princeton University, and what they found is when humans meet or interact, and this could be on video, on the phone, in person, professionally, romantically, socially, they're trying to answer two basic questions about every human they meet. Can I trust you? And then, can I rely on you? That actually it's a chronological order here. So what we're looking for in those first few seconds of interaction are trust cues, right? Can I... Are, do you have good intention? And then are you smart? Can I rely on you? So those, being able to very quickly answer those two questions, I think that that's why we're drawn to certain people. We are drawn to people who very quickly signal trust, trust, trust, and then reliance. We're like, yes, those questions are answered. Phew. Now I don't have to worry about it anymore. So in a weird way, the more clear we are with our cues, the more magnetic we become because we're just providing clarity for people. We're giving them less work to do in their brains.

  8. 14:51 – 20:01

    Charisma vs confidence: warmth + competence as the core blend

    1. RC

      In your book, you write about charisma being a blend of warmth and competence. And then I hear those two fundamental questions that you just mentioned, and I'm drawn to that s- idea that charisma is warmth and competence. And the two questions are, can I trust you and can I rely on you?

    2. VE

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      Which kind of neatly fits into that. Can I trust you is, I guess, warmth. I mean, you're the expert on this, but presumably warmth signals trust, and then competence s- answers the second question, says, "Hey, you know what you're doing. I can rely on you." Is that how you see it as well?

    4. VE

      Yes. So when we think about warmth, warmth is a basic human instinct for survival, right? So warmth is friendliness, likability, trust, openness, collaboration. So that is when a, when a doctor or a, a business partner or a partner walks into a room, we wanna know, do you like me? Are you a threat to me? Are you friendly?

    5. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    6. VE

      Right? So we're looking for warmth, like just, are we safe? Are we gonna be accepted by this person? The next question, exactly what you said, I'll even take it a step further, which is competence is capability. It's efficiency, it's productivity, it's knowing that this person, that they will do what they say they're gonna do. We love being around people who both are friendly to us and do what they say they're gonna do. That is, I think, the definition of highly charismatic, magnetic people, is we are drawn to people who are like, "Yeah, I like you, and yeah, I'm gonna get it done." Ooh, that's like a secret magic, uh, cocktail that we want so bad.

    7. RC

      Is there a difference between charisma and confidence?

    8. VE

      A really good question, Neil. We really thought about naming this book either Confidence or Charisma because [laughs] those are two very powerful C words, and they are so close. Here's what I think the difference is, why we didn't use confidence in the title, is I think that confidence comes from knowing you have high warmth and competence. So there are people-

    9. RC

      Mm-hmm

    10. VE

      ... who can try to fake warmth and competence, and maybe they'll come across as charismatic for a little bit. That's that, like, smarmy salesman type. You know, that inauthentic person who, like, is like a con man and you're like, "Ah, I don't, I don't like it." There's something you don't like about it. You can be charismatic for a short period of time using warmth and confidence cues, but it doesn't last. Confidence is knowing I am warm, I am trustworthy, I am authentically likable, and I am competent, I am capable, I am productive, I can get things done. So I think that w- when we are confident in our warmth and competence and our abilities, that is like that true deep charisma, those people who walk into a room and you are drawn to them, those folks who speak and you're like, "I wanna both have a coffee with you and pick your brain for my business," right? Both at the very same time.

    11. RC

      Yeah. I think we all know when we meet people like that, I think everyone w- who's listening will immediately have in their mind a few people. They go, "Oh yeah, that's, that represents this person or that person." And you're right, we are very much drawn to them. When I think about your work, I always think about, well, you're not asking people to fake it really. Is it more-That some people, let's say, are actually feeling full of confidence, but they're not coming across that way because they don't know how to do it. Is that what it is? And if so-

    12. VE

      Right

    13. RC

      ... then what can we do to help us come across as more confident, as more charismatic?

    14. VE

      Love that.

    15. RC

      You know, to make it super practical, what are these things that we can think about utilizing?

    16. VE

      Love it. Okay, so you said it exactly. The reason I wrote this book, when I... So I didn't even think I was gonna write this book. This actually, the journey started 17 years ago, where I started noticing patterns. I noticed that highly charismatic people, didn't matter what their talent was, if they were athletes or business folks or politicians, they showed this strikingly set of similar charismatic cues. On the other hand, I noticed that bad actors, lying athletes, duping politicians, people who are faking it or fudging it, they also use a very similar set of cues for shame and fear and guilt. And what I wanted to know was, how do we learn those cues so that the people who are being underestimated, overlooked, they have so much confidence, they know their ideas are good. Most of the read- our, our readers are highly talented, incredibly smart individuals, and this is the problem that smart people face, is very smart people rely too much on their ideas. Your ideas are so good that we forget about the delivery. And so what the research found, and this, this quote struck terror into my heart, and this, I was like, "I have to write this book." What Dos- Dr. Fiske found is that competence without warmth leaves people feeling suspicious. So most people who have really good ideas and so much competence, if they're missing a couple of the warmth cues, even though they know they are authentically likable, they know they are trustworthy, if they don't know how to deliver their competence, people won't believe it. So yes, my goal is to actually, um, if

  9. 20:01 – 25:04

    Dialing your cues like a thermostat: practical warmth and competence moves

    1. VE

      you authentically feel it, I think that it's about delivery and less about the ideas. So a couple of very practical things that we can talk about. So I want you to think about your charisma like a dial, like a thermostat. So we can dial up our competence with the specific, specific cues, and we can dial up our warmth with specific cues. If you are high in competence and you've ever been told you're cold, intimidating, or hard to talk to, warmth will help literally warm people up to you. Here are a couple of my favorite warmth cues. So the slow triple nod. So a slow triple nod, one, two, three. Research has found that that helps the other person speak three to four times longer. So that is a very simple, easy warmth cue. Uh, but be careful not to bobble head, right? So not just constant nodding, but s- purposeful nods. Um, second is a head tilt. So if I were to say, "Can you hear that?" You- we tilt our head up to the side. They've actually found that when someone just head tilts while they're listening to someone, it encourages the other person to feel more engaged. These are very specific, 'cause I think that sometimes I, I'm an overthinker. I get so in my own head that I forget to show the warmth cues.

    2. RC

      Yeah.

    3. VE

      I'm so overthinking it that I don't show it. So the nod and a tilt are very easy ways to just dial up warmth. On the competence side, so if you're very high in warmth, so folks who are very high in warmth, you often are people pleasers. You really want to be liked, but that can come, um, that can mean that people sometimes step on your boundaries or interrupt you. So if you're really high in warmth and you wanna dial up competence, you wanna be taken more seriously, you want your ideas to be heard, you wanna actually show competence cues of being a winner. And what I mean by this, I don't mean it in a judgmental way. I mean it, like, physically as a winner. So researchers from University of British Columbia, they found that athletes, when they literally win a race, they typically take up as much space as possible. They tilt their head towards the sky. They open up their body. They typically open up their hands. It is a way that they're signaling to the world an innate sense of pride. If you wanna dial up competence, I want you to dial up and show your innate sense of pride. So a couple things we can learn from those athletes. Uh, one is open palm, open hand. So I, I love an open palm. I start all of my video calls with a, "Good morning. How are you? Good to see you." That little cue kind of shows someone I'm open, um, I'm not hiding anything, I'm not concealing anything. We also love the distance between, it's a really weird measurement, the distance between our earlobes and our shoulder. I know that's a very, very weird measurement, but we can sense that someone is anxious or nervous when they roll their shoulders up to their ears and they tilt their chin down, and they look like they're trying to protect their jugular.

    4. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    5. VE

      Right? Where, where it's literally an instinctive protective gesture. If you see people who are really nervous, they'll try to take up as little space as possible. So when you hop on video, when you, in your profile pictures, when you're in a room, see if you can maximize the space between your ear and your shoulder. Those are some, they're, they seem like micro movements, and that's the point. These are small but impactful ways that we can actually dial up people's impression of ourselves.

    6. RC

      What I love about your approach is that pretty much all the cues, you've got scientific research to back them up. And, you know, these cues weren't invented in the last 20, 30 years, right? These are basic, innate human cues that we have used for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years to answer those two questions: Can I trust you? Can I rely on you? These are sending messages to other people whether we want them to or not. Whether, whether we can say, "Oh, they shouldn't do," well, it's irrelevant, they are sending messages to other people.

    7. VE

      Right.

    8. RC

      And their wideness.

    9. VE

      Right.

    10. RC

      I remember a few years ago for my second book, which is called The Stress Solution-

    11. VE

      Mm

    12. RC

      ... I wrote a chapter on human touch, and we're gonna get to touch cues, 'cause I think it's really, really fascinating. But I remember there's a bit of research that was done at Liverpool University, this chap called Professor Francis McGlone, and he has found these receptors on our forearm and upper shoulder called C tactile afferent nerve receptors. And he has shown in his lab that when they get stroked at something like three to five centimeters a second, I think-It activates them maximally, and it lowers cortisol, the stress hormone, in our body. And what was really incredible as I was thinking about this, I thought, "Well, no one's gonna stroke their partner or their child and actually have a stopwatch there and go, 'Right, I'm a bit too fast here. Let me slow that down.'" No, this-

    13. VE

      Yeah

    14. RC

      ... is naturally the pace at which a mother will stroke her child.

    15. VE

      Mm.

    16. RC

      And so it's naturally what we do when kind of other things don't get in the way. And I, and I really feel a lot of your expertise is also speaking to that same kind of concept, which is, hey, if your shoulders are close to your ears, you may not realize you're doing that, but you are signaling to other people that you're uncomfortable, you're anxious, you're stressed. And so I love it how you're helping us take control.

  10. 25:04 – 27:46

    Why we go stoic—and why ‘no cues’ creates anxiety (still-face experiment)

    1. VE

      First of all, that study is absolutely fascinating because what I think is happening is, and this is a, a problem that also very smart people face, is that they think, "I have a lot of smarts. I have a lot of book smarts. I know what I'm talking about. I don't want to think about my cues," or, "I don't know what cues to send, so I'm gonna try to mute my cues."

    2. RC

      Mm.

    3. VE

      So this is the other thing that can happen, is they think, "Okay, I don't know what to send, so I'm just gonna send no cues at all." This is why you'll see sometimes very smart people will go stoic. They'll go very still. They try to be under-expressive. It's because our fear of, we have this instinct that, "Uh-oh, I am sending some kind of cue, but I don't know what cue it is, so I'm gonna try to stifle any, any expressiveness." And the problem with this is when we under-express, when we don't show enough cues, we don't send off messages of our competence or our warmth. And, um, Dr. Tronick, I believe is his name, he did a, a experiment called the still face experiment, where he had babies in his lab with their mothers, and he instructed mothers to be playing with their babies and all of a sudden show a very still face. So they're still with the baby. They're still making eye contact with the baby, but all of a sudden they show a very still face. You can see that the babies immediately gauge something is wrong, and their mother is still there. She's still making eye contact. But the moment the mom removes all of her cues and expressiveness, doesn't show hand gestures, doesn't show facial responsiveness, the baby begins to go into stress. The baby begins to try everything that a baby can to get her, his or her mother's attention back. They do things with their hands. They screech, and eventually they begin to cry because they're like, "Why aren't you giving me expressiveness?"

    4. RC

      Yeah.

    5. VE

      And so I think this is really important for folks who think, "I'm just gonna under-emote. I'm gonna try to hide my cues." That actually causes anxiety and confusion in the people around you. The less cues you send, the less easy it is for people to understand you, connect with you, and they also don't know how to interact. When we send off cues, we're s- telling people how we want them to behave.

    6. RC

      Yeah.

    7. VE

      If we send out warmth cues, we're saying, "This is gonna be a warm interaction. Let's get along. Let's collaborate." When we send out competence cues, we're saying, "Let's get it done. Let's be productive. Let's be smart together." And so when you don't send cues that are neither warm nor competent, other people don't know what to do back. And so I think that not only are we accidentally sending these cues, as you so brilliantly mentioned, but also at least do it for others.

    8. RC

      Yeah.

    9. VE

      Right? That your cues are actually helping people.

  11. 27:46 – 33:44

    Are we losing cue fluency? School, one-to-many teaching, and naming cues

    1. RC

      If this is within us-

    2. VE

      Yes

    3. RC

      ... why is it that we've lost it, then? And I guess what I'm getting to with that, Vanessa, is, you know, I've got two young kids, and, and with respect to cues, then, are schools and I guess society at large overly focusing on verbal, so the words? You've mentioned there's four categories, right? Non-verbal, vocal, imagery. Are we so focused on verbal that we actually start to de-skill and forget all those other things?

    4. VE

      Yes. I think it's actually important to discuss this because we can actually help our future generations the more we talk about this proactively now. So I have a, a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and what's... And just like you, I'm watching her learn cues right from the very beginning, and I notice she's very aware of my facial expressions. She's very aware of my body posture. What's interesting is that I think w- as we get more one-to-many teaching, so what happens is when our children are home, they're often getting one-to-one teaching, right, between their caregiver or their mother or father or even a sibling, where there's a lot of back and forth, where I raise my eyebrows, you raise your eyebrows.

    5. RC

      Mm.

    6. VE

      Right? I smile at you, you smile back. I say, "No, Sienna, you cannot do that," and she knows from my tone of voice, no, she cannot do that, right? There's a lot of one-to-one teaching. Then as children get older, they go from one-to-one to one-to-five to one-to-20 to one-to-30. In college, I had classes where it was one to a thousand, right? I was in a huge lecture.

    7. RC

      Mm.

    8. VE

      What happens is then you get less of this cue feedback, and we get very, very focused on the verbal, right?

    9. RC

      Yeah.

    10. VE

      We're listening to the lesson. And so we are sometimes reading cues, but we're not getting any of that cue feedback. And all we're doing, I don't know about you, but the older I got, the more I took notes looking down. And I've noticed that first graders are much more interactive, but every grade you go up-

    11. RC

      Mm-hmm

    12. VE

      ... heads go down. So by senior year or, you know, even freshman year of high school, most kids, you look in the classroom, just take a snapshot, heads are bent down, taking notes furiously, and no one's making any, any cue exchange-

    13. RC

      Yeah

    14. VE

      ... or eye contact at all. So that is a partially of that we're not getting enough practice. We're focusing so much on the verbal. We're literally not even looking anymore. By senior year, I was never looking at my teacher. I was literally just furiously taking notes. And second-

    15. RC

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    16. VE

      Cues are like a foreign language in that once I tell you, "Oh, contempt. Contempt is a universal scorn of disdain," I just taught you the equivalent of a vocab word. So like learning a foreign language, how do we learn foreign languages? First, we start with vocab words.

    17. RC

      Yeah

    18. VE

      The basics. Then we begin to think about sentence structure, how we put different vocab words together. Cues are the exact same way. We have to learn them cue by cue, word by word. So we learn, ah, that's contempt. Oh, wow, that's a mouth shrug. Oh, interesting, there's a lower lid flex. Hmm, there's the universal expression for anger. So slowly we're learning vocab words, and then if we're taught right, we learn to put them together. Interesting, if I see, if I add an open palm with a head tilt and an authentic smile, that's very charismatic.

    19. RC

      Mm.

    20. VE

      What we're not doing as parents and teachers is we are not teaching our children the language that, that we want to teach them, the words, and the cue language. Luckily, this is extremely easy to fix. There's only 96 basic cues. A- and I know that sounds like a lot, but that's far less than how many words we need to speak.

    21. RC

      Yeah. [laughs]

    22. VE

      If we c- if we can just begin to call out the words, and I tell my daughter, "Oh, look, I think she's smiling. I think, I think she wants you to go over. You should go say hi." Right? Or I teach her, "When you see someone across the playground, give them a little wave, and then, and then s- make eye contact and see if they wanna play with you." Those are two very easy cues. So the more that we can name these cues, for not only our kids, but for each other. Imagine if you were able to say to a partner, "It looks like you're, you're giving me a lower lid flex. Does that make a- does that make sense?" Right? [laughs] Could you-

    23. RC

      Yeah

    24. VE

      ... imagine how, how d- so I think, yes, if we could just name them, we solve this problem.

    25. RC

      I love that language analogy 'cause at the start, you know, you're learning vocab, and then you're trying to get it in your head. And then before you know it, if you practice enough, you, at the other extreme, you're fluent, right? So without thinking, you are now speaking that other language.

    26. VE

      Yes.

  12. 33:44 – 42:05

    From awkward to fluent: mechanical practice, radical transparency, and warmth via vulnerability

    1. RC

      You describe yourself as a recovering awkward person. So in your awkward days-

    2. VE

      Yes. [laughs]

    3. RC

      ... you presumably had to learn the skill of cues. So are you at a point in your life now, having written the book, having studied this for years, if we use that language analogy, are you fluent with your cues? Can you now turn up, and even if you're feeling awkward, well, there's two parts to that. D- do you sometimes feel awkward, but you can actually give the impression that you're not? Which of course-

    4. VE

      Right

    5. RC

      ... like you say, can be helpful. And do you also just feel less awkward, and that you don't have to think about these cues 'cause you've practiced them so much that they're now happening automatically?

    6. VE

      Yes. I think I became fluent in 2017, specifically in June.

    7. RC

      Wow.

    8. VE

      I literally, I felt a moment where I went from very mechanical learning, just like learning a language, right? In the beginning it's very mechanical. You're like, "Yo puedo ir a la biblioteca." Like, it's, like, very, you're, like, trying, right? It's very mechanical, and it was like that for many years. I mean, having to think, "Okay, now I'm gonna do this cue. Now..." Oh, and also, by the way, there's two aspects of cues. There's the decoding, so spotting cues, and then there's also encoding-

    9. RC

      Mm

    10. VE

      ... the cues you send. So right, so just like with a foreign language, you have to be able to speak, and you have to be able to listen. So it took me many years of also training my muscle memory out of some very bad habits. So I had some very bad cue habits, uh, w- in my awkward days, which contributed to my awkwardness. I use a lot of question reflection, which I'd love to talk about. I use a lot of closed body posture, so I often put one arm over my chest and would, um, shrink my, one of my shoulders up, and I would, uh, talk to you like this, which was a very bad habit. And I remember specifically in June of 2017, it's when I gave my TED Talk, and we were doing a whole bunch of media around the TED Talk. I gave it in London, and I remember at the end of the day thinking, "I didn't think once about my cues."

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. VE

      I just was. And so that was a moment where I think I hit fluency. It took me far longer because it took me a long time to code it. The second issue is I, I, you mentioned, you know, do I still feel awkward? Yes, absolutely, and I think I can hide it a little bit. But actually what I've found much more exciting is telling people I feel awkward. [laughs]

    13. RC

      Mm.

    14. VE

      And this is a kind of radical transparency, and if anyone who's watching or listening is willing to take this challenge with me, I think we've spent way too many years hiding our discomfort.

    15. RC

      Yeah.

    16. VE

      Hiding anxiety or hiding what we're awkward about. When I wrote Captivate, my first book, I, I tried to hide it, and my publisher so kindly, my editor is Nikki, and she, uh, wrote back and she said, "You know, I love this book, Captivate, but it doesn't feel like you."Can we do a little bit more about where it feels like you? And so we changed the entire nature of that book, and I, my opening line of that book is, "Hi, I'm Vanessa and I'm a recovering awkward person." When I introduce myself to people, I say, "Hi, I'm Vanessa. I'm an author and I'm a recovering awkward person." Because it gives me permission to be awkward if I feel it, and then we can make bad jokes and we can laugh at ourselves. And also, I've, I like being a beacon for other awkward people. Like if you feel awkward, like, I'm safe. Like, you can come and talk to me. And so yes, I can hide my awkwardness, but I think that my mission now is actually to not hide it, and if I feel it, I feel it, and it's okay.

    17. RC

      Yeah. I, I, I really like that, and there's this real subtle nuance there, isn't there? That you're not trying to say, "Listen, pretend to be someone who you're not," and actually, I guess, deceive people and manipulate people. Because you could go to that extreme, potentially, I guess, and think, "Well, if I master these cues-

    18. VE

      Right

    19. RC

      ... can I kind of override them, and actually deceive and give an impression?"

    20. VE

      Yes.

    21. RC

      Right? So, so th- that's one aspect, but if you're not using cues effectively, you've got all this knowledge to share, but people may be switched off from it because they think, whatever, that you're not interested, that you're detached. But actually it's not that, you just feel awkward.

    22. VE

      Yeah.

    23. RC

      But I think that final piece is so important, that vulnerability, sharing actually how we're truly feeling. And it took me a while to realize this as well in my life, that actually, oh, when you do that, people lean in. They come closer to you. They, they can see you, right? So you're not trying to be someone you're not, you're, you're sharing that, "Hey, look, I've got a few insecurities." [laughs] Hey, and we all do.

    24. VE

      Yeah. And, and also, by the way, I think I didn't realize this at first, but vulnerability is warmth.

    25. RC

      Mm.

    26. VE

      So maybe a, a, a side door into warmth is just being vulnerable.

    27. RC

      Yeah.

    28. VE

      And so vulnerability, sharing your true feelings, being super transparent, that's not negative.

    29. RC

      Yeah.

    30. VE

      That's not bad. That's a, uh, those are warmth cues. So even me saying, "Hey everyone, I'm a recovering awkward person. I'd rather be home watching Netflix, but I thought it was important for me to come," right? That in itself is warm, which also helps people believe my competence, right? If warmth is a lubricant for competence, vulnerability, truth, and transparency is a way for people to believe your ideas. And so I think that that's another reason to dive into that vulnerability, because it actually is an element of your trust and your likeability.

  13. 42:05 – 54:43

    Non-verbal protocol for first impressions: door, gaze, greeting, and touch

    1. RC

      I, I love that. I love a unique approach for whoever you are. I, I really, really like that. So if I'm imagining, right, I will always go to the door. I'll walk to the waiting room usually, and I will get the patient, because I feel that's a lot more personal.

    2. VE

      Mm.

    3. RC

      And then I'll walk to the room with the patient, and then, you know, I'll say, "Hi, how you doing?" I'll sit them down. And I'm a tall guy. You can't see this on Zoom, but I'm, you know, 6 foot 6 1/2, nearly 2 meters tall.

    4. VE

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      So, you know, I might have, you know, a little old elderly lady coming in to see me, and so I'm not gonna sit up straight and proud in my chair. I'm gonna, I'm gonna lean in. I'm gonna lower my posture. So I'll probably have a rounded back, which is probably not great posture for my body, but I want to get on the same level as that person.

    6. VE

      Mm.

    7. RC

      I lower my tone. The pace at which they're speaking, I think I naturally start to, I guess, mirror that pace.What can you see in that, that you can sort of unpick for us?

    8. VE

      Okay, let's, let's break it down even... You actually skipped over the most important part. The most important part is actually the moment you open the door. And this is a mistake that we, I know as humans, we tend, you as a doctor are thinking about the room. So even how you told me that story, it was the intro was very quick, and then you wanted to get us in the room. But actually, our first impression happens the moment we first see someone.

    9. RC

      Mm.

    10. VE

      Not the moment they start talking, not the moment we start our meeting or a pitch or a date or a presentation. This is a common mistake I used to make, is I would prepare for the thing, right? The date, the presentation, the pitch. But actually, when we make a first impression, it happens in those first 10 to 20 seconds of seeing someone. So when you open that door, and this is for anyone opening a restaurant door, opening your office door, opening a waiting room door, is the very first thing I want you to do is you're opening the door with, with lots of space between your ears and your shoulder. That's actually, it's more important then than later. Later I like you, you, you go down to their level. But you're super broad. You're opening the door broad, right? So you're having more of a, a, a pride, innate pride gesture. I want you to immediately seek mutual gazing. So you're looking around the room for your person. You find them, and this is, there's actual research by Monica Moore who looked at this. A searching gaze and then a long hold makes us feel so good. It's literally your way of saying to someone, "I'm looking for you. I'm looking for you. I found you."

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. VE

      And we love to be found. So it's a sweeping gaze around the room. You find your person, and you immediately try to lock eyes with them. Now, in your situation, you probably have someone who hears their name being called or sees you, and then has to get their purse and their coat, right? And so I want you to hold that eye contact with them until they are walking towards you and also making eye contact with you.

    13. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    14. VE

      A mistake that I think people can make is they'll, they'll, they'll say, you know, "Hi," or, "Come on in," or, "Hey, it's so good to, to get together." And they immediately turn and walk away.

    15. RC

      Turn their back, yeah.

    16. VE

      Yeah. So I want you to hold open the door, searching gaze, hold their gaze. Then they finally stand up, they're walking towards you. Just a couple beats. It doesn't even have to be very long, just a couple of beats of that mutual gazing. You immediately are triggering oxytocin. So oxytocin I'm sure you talk about a lot. It's a very c- complicated chemical in our body, does lots of things. But if, for our purposes, when we lock eyes with someone, we produce oxytocin, which helps us feel chemically connected, and that's incredibly important for trust. They actually found that if you give someone a nose spray full of oxytocin, they trust more, collaborate more, and share more profits-

    17. RC

      Wow

    18. VE

      ... in prisoner's dilemmas. Like, it's a immediate trust cue. And so that, can I, can I trust you? That eye contact, you're very quickly answering that question. Absolutely, you can. I'm keeping eye contact. Why? Because when we're nervous or we're hiding something, what do we do? We look down. We look down and away, right? Like when my daughter, uh, takes too many cookies, right? I say, "Sienna, did you take another cookie?" And she looks down. "Uh, no." 'Cause she doesn't want to make-

    19. RC

      Yeah

    20. VE

      ... mutual eye contact. So you don't wanna look down or look away in those first few seconds. So that's only the first few seconds. Does that make sense before we go on?

    21. RC

      Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brilliant. Love it.

    22. VE

      Okay, good. Okay, so broad pride door, searching gaze. You make eye contact. They're coming in. If you feel naturally you want to smile, great. If you don't feel naturally you wanna smile, that's okay, too. I would rather an authentic smile than a forced smile. Always, always. So if you're really truly excited to see someone, this is the time where you're like, "Oh, it's so good to see you." And you're verbal here. It doesn't have to be rocket science. But it should be something slightly positive. So it should be, "It's so good to see you. Wow, I'm so glad you could come in. I'm so happy we could do this." The reason for this is because in the first few seconds of an, of interaction, our brain is doing a lot. Right? It's trying to gauge all the cues. We're trying to make sense of things. Maybe someone's nervous or sick. So if we send off just verbal, slight verbal cues of good, glad, happy, pleasure to see you, pleasure to meet you, we go, "Phew, we're okay." And that's because research shows that when we hear words like happy, we are more likely, our brain is more likely to take that cue and internalize it and then say, "Yeah, happy. I'm happy to be here, too." It's a very weird thing. So a couple positive words. Same thing on video, by the way. The moment I hop on video, I'll give a nice, "Hey, good to see you."

    23. RC

      Yeah.

    24. VE

      "Oh, I'm so happy to be here." Little. Like, little, small. The other thing you can do here is, and I, I didn't mention this in your, in, when you were telling me the story. Do you shake hands? Do you wave?

    25. RC

      Uh, before the last couple of years, yeah, always.

    26. VE

      Yeah.

    27. RC

      I would always shake hands with my patients. Like, I can't remember, I can't remember not doing it with anyone, really-

    28. VE

      Yeah

    29. RC

      ... until things started to change.

    30. VE

      Yes. So this is the problem with this time we're in. So one, if you can and you feel comfortable shaking hands, oh, it's so good. And that is because a double deal, a double dose of oxytocin is eye contact plus touch.

  14. 54:43 – 1:08:19

    Digital cues: fixing cold emails, warmth words, emojis, and video presence

    1. RC

      ... you know, if you're, if you're running a team meeting in, in your job, and, [laughs] you know, what are you doing to connect initially and, and, and give that warmth before you kind of rush in? And I guess there's a wider point for me, which is electronic communication.

    2. VE

      Yes.

    3. RC

      So-

    4. VE

      Yes

    5. RC

      ... there's many ways that we communicate electronically. Of course, we are, you know, using the wonders of modern technology to have this conversation. You know, I can see you through the camera, uh, and the video, right? That's wonderful. Let's go to email for a minute.

    6. VE

      Oh, yeah.

    7. RC

      Because if... I mean, I've noticed, I mean, I think we all know that tone and all kinds of messages can get misconstrued on email or text message. I'm, I'm sure there's no one [laughs] listening or watching who hasn't, at some point-

    8. VE

      Yes

    9. RC

      ... either got the wrong end of the stick-

    10. VE

      Oh

    11. RC

      ... or given the wrong end of the stick via those modes of communication. And I know there's a-There's a few emails I receive where I just don't wanna reply, right? And, and of course, we all have emails we don't wanna reply to. But I've, I've unpicked this a little bit. I've had a think about it in the past, but also in prep for this conversation, and I think, well, sometimes the emails are so blunt and to the point, it's not that I intentionally don't wanna reply, but what happens, I read it, I don't feel good, so I go to the next one.

    12. VE

      Mm-hmm.

    13. RC

      And I deal with the other stuff that where I like the rapport, and I get back to this stuff, you know, pretty quickly.

    14. VE

      Yeah.

    15. RC

      And then before you know it, there's been a new barrage that's gone to the bottom, and before you know it, it's on the second page of your inbox, and I never get back to it. It's not that I'm trying to be rude or trying to ignore, it's just if I put it through your lens, right, there may be-

    16. VE

      Mm-hmm

    17. RC

      ... competence in that email, but there's zero warmth. And without the warmth, I just switch off. So maybe unpick that a little bit for us, and, you know, is this real, do you think, and is this something we need to think about when sending emails?

    18. VE

      Oh, yes. So, uh, what you are picking up on is e- is a, is why we are so burnt out. So I would argue the reason we are so burnt out is because more and more of our communication has gone to email and to videos.

    19. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    20. VE

      And so that means that our, we are having to work even harder to get the cues we need to be able to succeed. So in an email especially, remember that we cannot digest competence without warmth. Warmth, competence without warmth leaves us feeling suspicious. So in an email, what can happen, especially in a chain, is you lose the warmth, and that undersignals trust. What's great about this is it doesn't take much to trigger warmth. In fact, it takes one word, literally one word. And I did this research with Dr. Paul Zak. So Dr. Paul Zak, he's like the oxytocin researcher. I adore him. He's done so much incredible work on how our chemistry helps us connect. And right at the start of the pandemic, I reached out to him and I said, "What are we gonna do with this lack of oxytocin?" And so we had some ideas. We wondered if, okay, when we meet a person and we make eye contact, and we shake hands, or we hug, or we fist bump, or we cheek kiss, we get this burst of oxytocin. We wondered if we could say what we were missing, and that would replace the oxytocin or the engagement. So what we did is we, um, he has a software that he's created in his lab, he has a lab called Immersion Neuroscience, where he, he puts it on people's smartwatches, and it measures their skin conductance and their heart rate. So it's a way of measuring literal engagement. It doesn't measure blood, right? I wish we had smartwatches that could take our blood, but yet, not yet. So it measures skin conductance and heart rate, and he has this software. So what we did is we had people put this software on their smartwatch, and I filmed two different versions of videos. One video, I used neutral positive statements, things like, um, uh, "So happy you're here," uh, "Welcome to the call," um, "Happy to talk to you." So neutral positive, ways that we often start our conversation emails. In the second video... And by the way, that got a little bit of skin conductance.

    21. RC

      Okay.

    22. VE

      A little bit.

    23. RC

      Yeah.

    24. VE

      A little bit. Still pretty good. The second video, I said what I wish I could touch. So if I were to meet someone, I would typically give them a handshake, so I'm like, "I'm sending you a handshake from here. I'm sending you a virtual hug. I wish we could cheek kiss, but alas, this will have to do." So I had statements where I said the physical touch that I would have done when we met. On those, that video, it was double the amount of engagement. So even just in an email, thinking, "What would I say or do to this person in person?" you can say. That doesn't necessarily have to be a touch word, but it can be an engagement word. Like, there's a very big difference between, "Do you have the documents for the meeting next week?" Okay, very high competent, right? You're like, "Ugh," that's an email that you let go to the bottom.

    25. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    26. VE

      Versus, "Hi team, was hoping you could help me with something. Do you have the documents for the meeting next week?"

    27. RC

      Yeah.

    28. VE

      What that does is you're actually cuing their brain. You're reminding them we're a team. Team is a great engagement word. It literally is like if we were in person, we'd be sitting around the table as a team. You're also saying, "I was wondering if you could help me with something." Help is also a very powerful word. The other thing you could do, the next level here, is you can think about, how do you want someone to feel before, during, and interacting with you? What is the emotion that you wanna cue? If you want someone to be warm, you should be using warm words. Collaborate, trust, can't wait to work together next week. If you want someone to be competent, can you use more positively competent words? Win, productive, efficient, brainstorm, power through. Those cues are your way of giving gifts to people you're dealing with.

    29. RC

      Yeah.

    30. VE

      You're literally saying, "I wanna cue you to be your best self, and so I'm gonna gift you those words." By the way, you mentioned, you know, email. Video is also, everything I talked about in that non-verbal protocol works on video. So when you pop on video, the exact same thing. Looking for sweeping gaze, I find my eye contact. Thank goodness research found we still produce oxytocin even through a webcam. So even just making eye contact with your camera-

  15. 1:08:19 – 1:11:15

    Cues, physiology, and health: social rejection signals change your body

    1. RC

      ... that better? So I, I, I love it. I mean, I, I think it's such a practical guide, this book, for everyone, uh, no matter who you are. The reason I think it impacts health as well is because-

    2. VE

      Yes, let's talk about health

    3. RC

      ... when we get communication wrong, or let's say we're presenting to our work colleagues and we don't quite get it right and the idea doesn't land, we don't feel good afterwards, right? So what happens when we don't feel good? We need to do something to manage that, which can often be, you know, diving into the chocolate biscuits or needing half a bottle of wine after work.

    4. VE

      More coffee.

    5. RC

      Yeah, exactly.

    6. VE

      More coffee. [laughs]

    7. RC

      Again, I'm not saying there's anything necessarily wrong with those things in isolation, but a lot of the time our behaviors are downstream consequences for how we feel, and I, you know, I don't think it's a tenuous link at all. I think it's very strongly linked, that if we can communicate better and more authentically-

    8. VE

      Mm-hmm

    9. RC

      ... we're gonna need less distractions to kind of numb those feelings of discomfort.

    10. VE

      You know, and this is actually what really pushed me into this work, was actually health, in that as a social over-thinker, as an awkward person, I would get into bed at night and I would replay-

    11. RC

      Mm

    12. VE

      ... every bad conversation in my head. And when I didn't know how to communicate, I was having a lot of them. Right? I was having a lot of weird miscommunications, bad emails, people weren't replying to me, weren't responding to me. And so I would lay in bed for hours over-analyzing these conversations, pumping cortisol, feeling adrenaline, laying in bed at 11:00 PM at night because I knew that I was getting something wrong.

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. VE

      That something was off with my relationships. You know, the, the famous study that we feel social pain in the same area that we feel, feel physical pain.

    15. RC

      Yeah.

    16. VE

      So having social pain makes us literally feel like something is wrong with our body, and the study that pushed me into this was, um, very simple. They saw, they noticed that participants in their lab, when they spotted a cue of social rejection, so a cue of social rejection could be an eye roll, as we talked about earlier, could be a scoff, "Ugh," it could be a, a dismissive tone of voice, "Yeah, great idea," when we hear or see a cue of social rejection, our own field of vision increases. Literally the moment we spot a cue of social rejection, our eyes dilate so we can take in more of our environment. What's our escape route? What do we do next? Are people sending more cues of rejection? That was the first time-

    17. RC

      Mm

    18. VE

      ... where I realized there's a link between the cues we are being sent and our physiology.

    19. RC

      Mm.

    20. VE

      So it is real when you are having bad communication or your cues are off or you can't read cues, that it is affecting your physiology down to your pupils, right? That that's changing how we sleep, how we eat, how much sugar we need-

    21. RC

      Exactly

    22. VE

      ... and also our cortisol and our adrenaline levels.

  16. 1:11:15 – 1:23:17

    Gender/culture differences, lie cues (nose touch, question inflection), and a poker lesson on hands

    1. RC

      Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Couldn't agree more. Given how society is changing and the roles that men and women, that I guess they played in the past, things are evolving, things are changing, and because of that, do you think that men and women potentially need to pay attention to different kinds of cues?

    2. VE

      I think less than you would think.

    3. RC

      Yeah.

    4. VE

      And that's kind of a good thing, right? I actually think... So i- when I was r- researching for the book, of course there are cultural cues. So there are universal cues, there's universal responses that humans have, but there are cultural adaptations. There's also gender adaptations.

    5. RC

      Yeah.

    6. VE

      So for example, let's take one example, which is when we touch, we produce oxytocin, right? So a, a handshake produces oxytocin, a hug produces oxytocin, a cheek kiss. But in some parts of the world, you don't handshake, you cheek kiss. In some parts of the world, you don't even touch at all, you bow. And so the mechanism that when we touch we produce oxytocin is the same universally, but how we use that mechanism is different. Same with women to men. So women often touch more than men. Whether this is because, y- you know, our mothers are women, so they were, you know, more physically touching with us when we were a baby, or because women crave more oxytocin, there is a little bit of a gender difference there. Does that mean that men have to dial up their touch to touch women more? No. Does that mean that women should dial down their desire to touch to try to honor men? No. But it's a really interesting thing to know.

    7. RC

      Mm.

    8. VE

      So I think that what's interesting for us to just keep in the back of our head is that typically women default to higher in warmth. Typically, not always, men default to higher in competence. This is not always the case-

    9. RC

      Yeah

    10. VE

      ... but it's often the case. So that's just good to know. So for my ladies who are listening, we need to know that when we walk into a room, people are going to assume a little more warmth simply because of our gender. Is that bad? No. But is it something that we should really keep in mind, especially in negotiations or interviews or if we're trying to be high competence? Yes. Does that mean I have to show a few more competence cues than my husband? Yes.

    11. RC

      Mm.

    12. VE

      Men also need to know that they are, when they walk into a room or hop on video, they might be getting more defaults to competence. Is that bad? No. But it does mean that if they wanna show up as warm, as collaborative, as trustworthy, they might have to dial up or use a few more warmth cues to make sure that people believe in their warmth.

    13. RC

      Yeah. Super, super helpful. Really, really nuanced. Very, very helpful. Before we, uh, close this conversation down, I do wanna talk about lying, when we can tell if someone-

    14. VE

      Ah

    15. RC

      ... is lying.

    16. VE

      A fun topic. Yes.

    17. RC

      Yeah. A- and there's... I can't remember which book it was I read this in a few years ago. I think it was something like essentially there was this very famous politician, and people who couldn't hear, so people who were deaf, were watching, and when they were questioned about what they saw-A lot of them were confused, I think, and a lot of them said, "There's something not right here. Something is not matching up. I think that person is lying." And what's incredible to me is that they couldn't hear what this politician was saying. It was all from their body language, this non-verbal communication.

    18. VE

      Yes. So lie detection's a very interesting science. There's no Pinocchio's nose, so we haven't yet, maybe one day we will, we have not yet found there's one cue that always means someone's lying. But there are some statistical cues to see. In other words, that when we observe liars, there's some things that are patterns that liars can do or tend to do. One is actually kind of a funny Pinocchio's nose, um, one, which is I think there might have been some truth, whoever wrote the, the story of Pinocchio, because one researcher found that we have this tissue in our nostrils that liars sometimes it, it, it, uh, swells and it begins to make your nose itch.

    19. RC

      Wow.

    20. VE

      So there is a little bit of truth to your nose grows-

    21. RC

      [laughs]

    22. VE

      ... when you lie because we can sometimes have this itchiness. So that means that when people lie, sometimes, not always, this is a, a common thing we see with liars, they will touch, itch, or scratch their nose. In fact, uh, one set of researchers looked at Bill Clinton's testimony during the Monica Lewinsky trial.

    23. RC

      Yeah.

    24. VE

      And they counted all of Bill Clinton's nose touches. When he was telling the truth, during his truthful answers, he only touched his nose twice. When he was telling his lie answers, specifically saying, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," he touched his nose 26 times. 26 times. So there are cues like that that we're learning more and more. It's our body doesn't like to lie. Our body knows-

    25. RC

      Yeah

    26. VE

      ... lying gets us into trouble. And so there's all these leaks of the guilt and the shame that we have around lies. One of the experiments we did for the book, which was s- so much fun, is we had, uh, hundreds of readers submit videos of themselves lying, specifically playing two truths and a lie. So if you've ever played the game two truths and a lie, you say two true statements and a lie, and then someone has to guess what the lie is. One of the biggest cues we found, interestingly, was actually a vocal cue, which was that people on their lie tended to use a question inflection. The question inflection's when we go up at the end of our sentence as if we're asking, not stating.

    27. RC

      Mm.

    28. VE

      So their, their two truths and a lie would sound like this. I'm from Los Angeles, I love dogs, and I'm a vegetarian?

    29. RC

      Right.

    30. VE

      Because liars want to know, do you believe me? They know subconsciously this is not a statement.

Episode duration: 1:23:17

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