Thread by @DrGJackBrown

1/ THREAD: Body Language Analysis No. 4453: Louis DeJoy's testimony before the Senate — Nonverbal and Emotional Intelligence #BodyLanguage #BodyLanguageExpert #EmotionalIntelligence #DonaldTrump #USPS #Testimony #LouisDeJoy

2/ Louis DeJoy testified on Friday 21 August 2020 before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. What follows is a nonverbal and paralanguage analysis of crucial portions of that exchange.

3/ One crucial piece of constructive criticism to all those in media companies — the camera should be on the witness *FULL TIME*. If you want to, film both people, but always, always record the witness every second.

4/ More specifically, a large percentage (often the majority) of body language tells occur when the witness is listening to the question being posed, and less often when they're speaking.

5/ At multiple times during his testimony, DeJoy's mouth adopted an asymmetrical configuration. This unilateral mouth display correlates strongly with machismo, braggadocio, false-bravado, and deception.

6/ DeJoy also wiped his face repeatedly. He did so because of his increased sweating. Assuming no medical condition (i.e., Hyperhidrosis) and no exercise whilst in an air-conditioned environment, perspiring indoors is indicative of significant anxiety.

7/ DeJoy had dramatically low eye contact with the camera. This lack of eye-contact is highly significant and cannot be stressed enough, particularly in the context of testimony under oath.

8/ During healthy/honest rapport in-person conversations, eye contact should be between about 30-70% of the time.

Moreover, you've probably noticed that the percentage of time maintaining eye contact is INCREASED during quality video chats compared w/ in-person conversation.

9/ Particularly during COVID times, when virtually everyone, especially all professionals are utilizing video-chatting, this increased eye-contact should be observed.

10/ Yet, DeJoy's behavior goes dramatically in the opposite direction. His eye contact is profoundly low (for ANY honest context). This behavior alone is HIGHLY suspicious for deception.

11/ Nevada Senator, Jacky Rosen, seeing his lack of eye contact and sensing his deception, asked DeJoy multiple times to look her and her audience in the eye — "Can you look me in the eye, and all the Nevada veterans in the eye, and all the Nevada seniors in the eye...?"

12/ More specifically, note how DeJoy looks down to *his* right. This is the quadrant to which we often look during guilt, shame, sadness, and deception.

(Guilt has two varieties — Guilt-Remorse and also Guilt-Culpability, which are dramatically different emotions)

13/ You probably also noticed DeJoy's blinking. Assuming no ophthalmic abnormality (i.e., dry eye syndrome), an increased rate of blinking is a reliable but non-specific signal of anxiety.

14/ Having said that, you will rarely ever see anyone blinking as much as DeJoy's was blinking during his testimony today. DeJoy's anxiety was off-the-charts. Why?

15/ You will also notice that DeJoy rarely answered any questions with a "Yes" or a "No" as he was instructed to and repeatedly reminded by each Dem Senator.

16/ Taken in toto, his repeated, in-your-face rule-breaking in the context of this testimony was equivalent to DeJoy giving a double middle finger to the Democratic Senators.

17/ In addition, DeJoy would almost always reframe his answers giving the impression he was answering the questions posed to him — however, rarely did. When he did answer, he often gave qualified responses.

18/ One example of this is how the Senators asked DeJoy about whom or whether he "discussed" matters. If phrased in this fashion, most people will leave out all but direct forms of communication.

19/ The Senators should have repeatedly clarified — i.e., "communicated with directly or indirectly, electronically, telephonically, in writing or in person, or via any method, including via any and all surrogates."

20/ Another interesting example occurs near the end of DeJoy's questioning by Senator Gary Peters...

21/ DeJoy said, "We, we are very committed, the board's committed, the postal worker's [sic] committed, the Union- we're-ah leadership is committed to havin' a successful [sic] election, and thee [sic] ahum, ah, thee [sic] insinuation is, quite frankly, outrageous."

22/ Notice the use of the long e ("thee") vs. the use of a short e ("the"). The long-e version indicates stalling and has a significantly increased association with deception.

23/ Moreover, DeJoy did not use the first person singular "I" — but rather displayed a common deception tactic known as 'Diffusion of responsibility' — using "We" instead of "I". This paralanguage alteration, particularly during testimony, is also highly correlation w/ deception.

24/ Clichés (even single word clichés) and filler phrases such as "Moving Forward" and "actually" are insincerity tells (deception) and stalling tactics — giving a few more seconds to formulate an answer/deception.

25/ More specifically, the use of the word, "Frankly" (also used by DeJoy), particularly when refuting an accusation, has an extremely high correlation with the act of lying.

26/ DeJoy repeatedly laughed and smiled out of context. These behaviors were partially suppressed. Smiling and laughing out of context is profoundly common during deception.

27/ Laughter-smiling out of context signals a true joy-happiness in the belief that the perpetrator is successful in lying — or that there will be little/no consequences of being caught.

28/ When people cannot suppress their laughter in the face of a lie — and it often crescendos to laughter. They will then default to belittling the questioner.

29/ The liar then turns their laughter into an act of admonishment and bullying as a cover-up for their lying. This is a form of gaslighting. I cannot stress how common a phenomenon this is in the context of lying.

30/ It is possible, that, like Vice President Biden, DeJoy studdered significantly in the past & has since largely overcome this difficulty. However, it's important to point out that studdering frequently increases during anxiety even if a person has no such studdering history.

31/ Of course, all studdering does not indicate deception, but, similar to his blinking, DeJoy studdered with *dramatic* frequency during his testimony yesterday.

32/ Did you notice DeJoy's neck? It was dynamically shortened — as if he was actively pulling his head into his torso (like a turtle). His head was also leaning/flexed forward significantly.

33/ Such dynamic neck configurations are signals of fear, sadness, low confidence, emotional discomfort, and deception.

34/ Although DeJoy's hands were rarely visible, when they were seen on camera, their behavior was suspect. Here he's crossing his arms in an attempt to soothe himself in a self-hug. This posture further shortens his neck and elevates his shoulders.

35/ Another profoundly important point that cannot be stressed enough, is that testimony given remotely, via video chat, or CCTV lends itself to deception.

If a witness is contemplating lying — they are more likely to decide to do so via such remote testimony.

36/ If a witness lies during testimony, they are more likely to be successful via remote testimony.

And Jurors, Attorneys, Judges, Senators, and Congresspeople are all more likely to believe false testimony if it's viewed remotely.

37/ If at all possible, all testimony should be given in realtime, in the same room as the judge, jury, attorneys, Senate, House, and any other individuals whose responsibility it is to evaluate the truth. The effect of live, in-person testimony is truly profound.

38/ DeJoy repeatedly displayed Contempt throughout this testimony - biased heavily toward the Democratic Senators.

39/ DeJoy also repeatedly displayed the emotion of Disgust - also with a strong bias toward the Democrats.

40/ DeJoy's concentration and feigned-fixation with postal trucks and the truck schedules was an attempt to decrease emphasis on his removal of high-speed mail-sorting machines and mailboxes — as well as the closures of post offices and the dramatic reduction in overtime hours.

41/ SUMMARY: Louis DeJoy lied repeatedly throughout his testimony yesterday. DeJoy's body language, verbal language, and paralanguage indicate that on multiple occasions, he did communicate with Donald Trump and ...

continued...

42/ ... his surrogates regarding deliberately and significantly slowing down the mail and sabotaging the United States Postal Service with the motive of interfering with the 2020 Presidential Election.

continued...

43/ It's DeJoy's full intention of continuing to conduct himself in a similar manner.

END

Arg! Typo Alert: Stuttering*

Typo alert: stuttering* / stuttered*