Pickpocket - Oct 2012

Throughout the course of evolution, the limbic system of humans has been forced to adapt for the survival of human species. As earlier mentioned, this is through the freeze, flight and fight. Today I am going to tell you about one of these, which can save you from danger, freeze.

Reactions of Limbic System － Freeze
 

Photo: baltimoreanimalcontrolservices.com

Imagine you lived a million years ago surrounded by enemies; fierce animals which were stronger and faster than you. What could you do to ensure that your species would still be alive a million years later? The only thing you could do was follow your instinct. This strategy or defensive mechanism evolved from the experience of our ancestors. When faced with predators or danger, we would automatically freeze.

 

Some animals will not only freeze when the predators approach, they will even pretend to be dead. This is the ultimate response of freezing.

In fact, humans also display these animalistic traits. They pretend to be dead when something happens. This is clearly displayed in the Columbine High School Massacre and also the shooting incident in Virginia Tech. The two tragedies showed that student survived because they lay ‘dead’ on the ground, even though some students lay just a few feet away from the killers.

By stopping all body movements and hiding in the background are ancient instinctive behavior that soldiers used during battle.

Society Nowadays 

 

Photo: sunnyfuerteventura.com

The freezing reaction acquired and adapted from our ancestors is still the very first signs of defense line of humans ever seen. In fact it has never disappeared. For example, during the giant tiger and lion show in Las Vegas, the audience row closest to the big cats will display these reactions every time the tiger or lion walks onto the stage. Their arm or hands remain perfectly still, avoiding all necessary movement. They react this way without any cues or instructions. Over 5 million years, this reaction has adapted to nature. 

 

Photo: dreamstime.com

In today’s society, this freezing reaction is used very commonly; when people bluff, steal, lie or get busted. When trying to spot a lie, you can search for any freezing reaction.

 

Humans work and live in groups. Even when we don’t feel threatened in groups, we are programmed to imitate others’ behaviors. This behavior has evolved from ‘isopraxium’ because it is essential to society’s harmony and ultimately its survival.

Hiding In The Background

The limbic system uses a modification of the freeze response, lowering the chance of exposure to protect us. When you witness thieving behavior, the most special thing is that thieves are always tempted to control their movement and hunch their back to go undetected in their surroundings.

 

Ironically these movements attract people’s attention because they stray away from normal human behavior. This is mostly observable in shopping malls where it strays away from normal shopping behavior. Most shoppers keep moving around, their hands busy and their body posture upright.

 

Photo: farm3.staticflickr.com

 

Psychologically, these thieves are like your children who want to steal chips or biscuits from the kitchen without being caught. They will attempt to “hide” in open areas to control the surrounding background. Another way that people attempt to hide is by limiting their head exposure in surroundings. This is noticed by raised shoulders and lowered head (shoulders move up towards the ears) called the ‘turtle effect’, commonly seen when people lose confidence or are faultfinding. More simply, you can imagine the composure of a football team leaving the stadium after losing a competition.

Acts As A Helpful Tool

Last but not least, interestingly but unfortunately, children who were abused will carry out such freezing limbic system behavior. When the abusive parents approach the child, their hands stay still and instead, stay glued to the sides of the body. They avoid eye contact. It seems like it may help them go unnoticed. To a certain extent, they too want to blend into their surroundings, and the freezing technique is the only survival tool that these innocent kids can use.

Practice makes perfect!

Pick their thoughts! They cannot hide their expression and hold their intentions from your eyes!

Jason Lam

Reference:
Walter Bradford Cannon (1929). Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Pickpocket - Sep 2012

Limbic system is distinguished into “Honest Brain” and “Lying Brain”. The former was discussed last time. This time, the totally opposite one will be shown to you, “Lying Brain”.

The Lying Brain and Honest Brain (2)

The Lying Brain

Cerebral cortex is the last evolved part in our brain, so it is called neocortex, means new brain. It is also called thinking or intelligent brain because it is responsible for advanced cognitions and memorization. The existence of the cerebral cortex separates humans from mammal as most of the human’s cerebral cortex is used for thinking. This part of our brain sent Armstrong to the moon since humans acquired calculation, analysis, interpretation and intuition abilities, so cerebral cortex is an important part of the brain and full of creativities.

 

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Photo: cbc.ca

<<Case Share>>
In 1999 December, an American customs officer with high alert stopped “Millennium Bomber”. When Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian who lived in Canada, was about to pass through the borderline to America, a customs officer, Diana Dean, noticed he was nervous and sweating. So she asked him to get out from his car for advanced interrogation. After he got out, he tried to run away but got caught again before explosives and timers were found on his car.

Analysis
The nervousness and sweating the officer noticed are the response from the brain when people face pressure. This case can demonstrate how one’s emotions are presented through NVB and body’s responses, which the limbic system of Ressam showed them to the officer even he tried so hard to hide them.

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Even the limbic system of “Millennium Bomber” made the body sweating so much, his cerebral cortex still had million ways to hide his own emotions and intentions by answering to the officer “I don’t have anything in the car”.

Our cerebral cortex can let us easily tell our female friends that we like their new dresses and male friends that their new hair styles look cool; even we do not think so. In this way, cerebral cortex is full of creativity to lie and we can only look into the most truthful response from limbic system.

Pickpocket - Aug 2012

In the last six issues, I have already introduced to you the basic techniques to read others’ behaviors and to decode them. Most of the people do not believe such reading others’ thoughts or psyche thing. But let me tell you, there is no such thing like reading your mind with special ability like those psyche claims. But only induction and psychology science support.

The Recognition of Reading Non-verbal Behavior

A Case of America (Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968))

On October 31, 1963, a 39-year-old senior detective of Cleveland Police Department in Ohio, Martin McFadden noticed there were two men meandered around in front of a shop. They took turn to peek inside the shop then walked away. After few times, they went to a corner of the street and talked to a third party while they kept looking around.

Image: stus.com

Detective McFadden was worried about they were gathering the shop’s information and planning to rob it, so he went to them and did body search to them. They were under arrested after guns were found.

The painstaking observation of McFadden at last became a base of the judgment of the case and the influence from it: If the officer has reasonable suspicion that the person is armed, the officer may perform a search of the person's outer garments for weapons.

For the reasonable suspicion, because of the result of the case, Supreme Court of the United State recognized NVB can foresee crimes with suitable observation and interpretation of NVB.

The Lying Brain and Honest Brain

The Honest Brain

Photo: conwaypsychology.webs.com

Computer has CPU as a control unit to make all different components work smoothly. In human, brain is human’s control unit. All behaviors and reaction, no matter true or fake, conscious or unconscious, are under the command of the brain (except involuntary muscles), like from you scratch your face to you compose a song.   

In our brain, there is a part called limbic system which is the origin of behaving. Limbic system will react reflectively without thinking (especially amygdala and hypothalamus), so the reactions come from this part of the brain are most truthful to the surrounded situation. Also limbic system is the emotion center.

Table: minnesotamedicine.com

The signals are transmitted from this part to other parts of the brain and then coordinate our behaviors. The behaviors are related to our emotion and survival and they are presented though our legs, arms, hands, trunks and faces, so we can observe, induct and explain. The point is, unlike language, they are presented without thinking, so limbic system is recognized as “honest brain” when we are discussing NVB.

This time I put out a lot of evidences to let you know reading NVB is not only a bluff but a tool. I will introduce you about another part of the brain which called “Lying Brain” and more cases!

Practice makes perfect!

Pick their thoughts! They cannot hide their expression and hold their intentions from your eyes!

Jason Lam

References:

392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968)

Navarro, J., &Karlins, M. (2009).What every BODY is saying an ex-FBI agent's guide to speed reading people (Kindle ed.). S.I.: William Morrow Paperbacks

Pickpocket - Jul 2012

If you did not notice any specific or major changes in your friends or family members, you should consider this a good thing because it means they probably did not undergo shocking or miserable events.

The Introduction of Principles, Reading NVB

Previously, you were introduced to some of the more advanced principles about the importance of identifying more than one NVB at a time and sudden changes in behavior. This skill is important whether it is for observing people’s behavior or caring about your close ones.

No.8 －Identify Truth and Misdirection
       
Sometimes, it is very easy to misjudge behavior and expressions and miss out crucial details.

Photo: skinnyrunner.com

People who are good liars know how to “convince” you and make you believe their lies, so usually when they lie, you instantly fall into their trap. For example, when you ask a friend, “oh, what do you think about him?”, he smiled to you and said “I like him.” You would definitely believe him if you were blinded by his smile and missed out on the subtle expansion of his nostrils. If you want to become a good “mind” reader, do not miss out any details, just like my favorite, Sherlock Homes.

No.9 －Foundation: Judging of Relaxation and Nervousness 

Photo: hbo.com

A lot of principles have been talked about. To different extents, they would be difficult to understand but in this No.9 one, we give you basic knowledge to practice your mind picking skills by differentiating between relaxed and nervous.

This skill is easy to carry out but very difficult to digest. To make it simple, consider the paradigms 'negative' and 'positive'. The only thing you need to do is to look at a person’s expressions and judge whether it is positive or negative. It can help you to truly decode people’s mind and body. When you are not sure what the meaning of the expression is, try to ask yourself if it looks like a relaxed expression (etc: satisfied, happy or relaxed) or nervous (etc: unsatisfied, unhappy, stressed, nervous or anxious). Most expressions can be classified into these two categories.

No.10 －Become Invisible while Observing

When you 'observe' people by staring at their face, it could be quite offensive to them, especially when you are just a learner and you do not know how to observe under the radar. Train yourself to be inconspicuous.

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Imagine you are a detective like Sherlock Homes, how can you keep your target in your eyes without his knowledge? Reflections! If you are in the MTR (metro), the best way to observe is using the reflections on the glasses or your phone or even your watch! You've seen it in the movies, but it actually does work!

I am sure after these ten principles of observing, you now have the basics to do well at observation. In the coming issue, I will give you a brief introduction of how our physiology relates to NVB and share a law case in America with you about reading NVB.

Practice makes perfect!

Pick their thoughts! They cannot hide their expression and hold their intentions from your eyes!

Jason Lam

Reference:
Navarro, J., &cKarlins, M. (2009).What every BODY is saying an ex-FBI agent's guide to speed reading people (Kindle ed.). S.I.: William Morrow Paperbacks

Pickpocket - Jun 2012

Have you set the baseline of your subject? Could you find the unique behavior of your subject? I am sure you did after you used your brilliant observational skills. It is crucial to have a baseline to read NVB so that we can judge accurately if there is no comparison.
 

The Introduction of Principles, Reading NVB
 

I taught you how to make the foundation to judge people’s behavior and based on it, to identify the idiosyncratic behavior. Then in this issue, a complex application and experienced based application will be introduced separately, appearance of more than one NVB and sudden change of behavior.
 

No.6 －Multiple Implication

It is very easy for you to judge a person’s NVB after you set the baseline for him/her. However it is more complicated if there is more than one NVB. Normally people do not have just one obvious baseline. Instead, they might simultaneously have a set of behavior. So reading people is the equivalent of playing with a jigsaw puzzle, where we need to solve the whole picture by identifying those right ones. Occasionally, there will be missing pieces, or even pieces of other puzzles.

Photo: Betting.Betfair.com

Missing a few NVB traits while judging is not a big deal because we concentrate on the bigger picture of the event and person. But wrong pieces are more dangerous. For example, when you see a person that smiles as he bets more money for his cards on the poker table, you would judge he has good cards, but at the same time he closes his eyes when he smiles after looking at the cards. Actually he does not have good cards. It is just human nature to close our eyes when we want to avoid seeing something unfavorable. The smile is a bluff, the wrong NVB.
 

No.7 －Sudden Change of Personal Behavior

Have you ever experienced your friend's sudden change in his/her behavior? Maybe after an exam, like an excited child waiting to Ocean Park but suddenly finds out he cannot go there anymore, he changes his behavior?

Simply put behavior changes with the environment. People also change dramatically after a serious or life-changing event. We must remember that the behavior of a person can be stable only if their personality permits. So there will not be a lot of or drastic behavioral changes within a short period of time. The way that you judge a person’s changed behavior is according to the baseline that you set for him/ her before. Even if you have not established a baseline, you should already have one based on your joint experience or closeness.

Once you realize that the person has a sudden behavioral change, you need to be aware of him/ her because maybe something serious happened.
 

In the coming issue, I will write about the principle No.8 Identify Truth and Misdirection, No.9 Foundation: Judging of Relaxation and Nervousness and No.10 Become Invisible while Observing.
 

Practice makes perfect!
 

Pick their thoughts! They cannot hide their expression and hold their intentions from your eyes!

Jason Lam

Reference:
Navarro, J., &Karlins, M. (2009).What every BODY is saying an ex-FBI agent's guide to speed reading people (Kindle ed.). S.I.: William Morrow Paperbacks

Pickpocket - May 2012

Dear readers, 

Owing to the large amount of words and heavy reading in the last two installments, I have decided to use more simplistic explanations and less words so that you guys can read and relax. 

Cheers!

Jason

Editor of Pickpocket

Could you spot out the common behavior pattern among people? Have you combined the background into your pickpocket skill? I am sure you did really well. It is best when you can see through the common behavior within people and also the interaction between people’s behavior and the background.

The Introduction of Principles, Reading NVB 

In the last installment, I emphasized the importance of background environments when reading people and the common behavior in human society. This time I am going to present the opposite; the idiosyncratic nonverbal behavior and the personal baseline.

No.4 －Idiosyncratic Nonverbal Behavior

Idiosyncratic nonverbal behavior simply means the unique behavior of individuals.

Photo: greysonchanceuniverse.blogspot.com

If you want to read someone’s unique behavior, the only group of people you can read accurately are those people who are close to you. This is because they are the people who interact with you the most, including your family members, colleagues, friends and your teachers, as compared to those people you do not usually meet. The more time you spend with a person or interact with, the easier it is to explore this kind of behavior. 

For example, since you know a friend of yours usually bites his lips when he is nervous, then you will know why he would do so before his exams.

No.5 －Setting The Baseline

Photo: LieSpotting.com

Previously I taught you how to set the baseline for the majority. Today, I am going to teach you how to set the baseline for individuals, to pickpocket them every time you interact with them, as it is how you will usually do nonverbal behavior reading.

Just like rule No.4, the baseline should be set individually because every person has his own baseline, because of his own unique experiences. You should observe how those people who are close to you sit, where and how they put their hands and feet, and especially their usual postures and facial expressions, viewing angle (which is how much they tilt, rise or bow their head), even how they lift or put things down. 

Put simply, your task this time is to identify when and how the people who close to you engage in their usual behavior. Choose a subject among your friend or classmate, observe him/her for a month and list out his/her behavior during lunch time or recess, etc. Then identify those behaviors you listed out and group them into usual and special group.

Photo: FreeMoviePosters.net

Then every time he/she is talking, you have the database of him/her to read his/her nonverbal behavior.

In the coming installment, I will write about the principle No.6 Multiple Implications and No.7 Sudden Change of Personal Behavior

Practice makes perfect!

Pick their thoughts! They cannot hide their expression and hold their intentions from your eyes!

Jason Lam

References:

Navarro, J., &Karlins, M. (2009).What every BODY is saying an ex-FBI agent's guide to speed reading people (Kindle ed.). S.I.: William Morrow Paperbacks

 

Pickpocket - Apr 2012

Have you made progress throughout this month? Did you discover those six expressions I mentioned in my last article? I bet you did! Good job! It is best if you found all six of them, but you still did good work even if you found only one expression.
   

The Introduction of Principles, Reading NVB

Last time, Pickpoket mentioned about how you need to observe instead of only looking. The little test that I suggested to you last time can enhance your observational abilities. After we understand how important it is to observe people carefully, it is crucial to learn how to observe the scenes behind they stand against and the NVB people normally do.

No.2－Background Is Key.

Image: Anastasiia-Ku.com

If you understand the background deeper, you can interpret more about someone’s behavior and expressions. Once you ignore the background information, usually your judgment will be compromised. For instance, you hear a loud car crash ahead of you. As you approach, you find a teenage girl sweating and shaking in the driver seat of a car which is crashed with another. You could be wrong if you think that that girl drove and crashed into someone’s car if you ignore the red traffic light which is on the same road of her car.
   
Background always can tell us so much information and the details of it can lead us what have been done on people and the influence of behavior. People are exposed in a situation or a background, thus their behavior must be influenced by them. As there are various situations, people’s behavior will also depend on the situation.

If a man wore the same suit in different places has different meanings, when he is in an office, he may be judged as a worker or a boss if he wears an expensive tie; when he is in an airport, he may be judged as a businessman who has worldwide affairs he needs to take care of; when he is in school, he may be judged as a teacher or a principal if he wears a pair of shiny shoes. You can see how differently we can judge a man with one prop against different backgrounds.

So remember to be aware of the background when you read people! 

No.3 －Identify The General NVB

   
After paying attention to the background information, you must focus on non-verbal behavior (NVB). It is nearly impossible to judge a person’s NVB in a short period of time because you cannot judge recent behavior with past norms. Since you do not have anything to compare current behavior patterns, it is difficult to understand your subject. Therefore, you must first establish the normal behavior patterns of the individual you are observing.

Photo: crhoy.com

People think it is easy to judge when a person is lying or not, just by observing simple changes or twitches in facial muscles or by nervous body language. It is not that simple. It is hard to predict whether or not this seemingly nervous behavior is truly because the individual can mislead the observer because there simply is no standard reaction to judge whether a person is lying or not. He assumes that the ‘reaction’ is based on the individual, and not a common reaction made by others too.

Photo: sosyalmedyaport.com

Since you want to learn how to ‘pickpocket’ another’s mind, firstly you need to observe the people around you in a crowded place to check if there is any common behavioral traits among them. This might be too general to you, so here are some hints to help you. As mentioned in the previous article of ‘Pickpocket’, you learned about observing people’s expressions as they talk on the phone. This time, try to find common behavior and expressions such as muscle changes on people talking on the phone. I believe the experience you received from the task presented to you in the last issue, you can observe common expressions, which you can now easily link to common behavior patterns. 

In the meantime, you can also observe some contrasting behavior amongst individuals. As you are setting the baseline for phone conversation behavior, you can also observe some very unique behavior, different from your expected baseline behavior. This new task will train you to set a baseline behavior amongst a crowd of individuals. The fifth principle will teach you how to set a baseline behavior for individuals, but before this, it would help you if you could master the task at hand.

Next installment I will write about the principle No.4 －The Idiosyncratic Nonverbal Behavior and No.5 －Set The Baseline

Practice makes perfect!

Pick their thoughts! They cannot hide their expression and hold their intentions from your eyes!

Jason Lam

Reference:

Navarro, J., & Karlins, M. (2009).What every BODY is saying an ex-FBI agent's guide to speed reading people (Kindle ed.). S.I.: William Morrow Paperbacks

Pickpocket - Mar 2012

Dear Readers,

I was so glad when I was invited to join the family of Psycholic and given the chance to manage my own column. It was always a dream of mine to become a Psycholic Editor since the very first issue of Psycholic was published. However, I never carried on with the plan as pressure from university and new study environments caught up with me. Fortunately, now I have the chance to be an editor of a psychology newsletter and I will make good use of this opportunity by sharing and applying knowledge. Welcome to The Pickpocket.  

 Jason Lam

 Editor of The Pickpocket

About The Pickpocket

As you see, the column you are reading is The Pickpocket. From now on, every installment of this column will teach you how to steal, as the name of the column suggests. It teaches you to steal one thing; not money or credit cards, but something more valuable. You will learn to steal the thoughts in people’s mind. Also, as a pickpocket, sometimes you need to work with the help of tools. You will be equipped with tools for detecting lies. In this column, I will use as much scientific evidence as I can so you can make sure that the non-verbal behavior (NVB) that you study about in this column is based upon actual scientific research.