How Insecurities Show On Your Body - Chase Hughes

CChris Williamson
Mental HealthManagement

Transcript

00:00:00You're talking there about building confidence, but I'm interested in what behaviors instantly
00:00:05reveal insecurity. You mentioned micropauses as one that, maybe not insecurity, but authority
00:00:12and trustworthiness perhaps. What are the behaviors that reveal insecurity?
00:00:19So when it comes to insecurity, let's go mammalian and then human. So the mammalian
00:00:25fear response or insecurity response is a reduced arm swing, incomplete movements. So like I'm going
00:00:35to reach for this, I'm going to stop and then kind of continue doing it. And then the movements aren't
00:00:39completed. You'll see a lot of that kind of stuff and you'll see reduced eye contact in a downward
00:00:46motion. And biggest of all, you're going to see the body moving or staying in areas that protect
00:00:53to arteries. This means you'll see a lot less of this. You'll see the humerus kind of sit in a little
00:01:00bit closer to the body while they're talking. So the brachial artery is protected. You'll see the
00:01:06shoulders a little bit up in social situations. That'll stay a little higher, their head coming
00:01:10down a little bit, protecting the carotid arteries. You'll see the arms in front of their body like
00:01:16this. Sometimes this is called a fig leaf gesture named by Alan Pease.
00:01:21Because it's covering the genitals?
00:01:23Yeah.
00:01:23Oh, interesting.
00:01:25But it's also protecting the femoral arteries at the same time. And men are more likely to do that.
00:01:31Women are more likely to wrap a single arm around the abdomen like this while they're talking during,
00:01:37like if they're insecure. And this is protecting the uterus area. And there are studies on this. I have no
00:01:44idea who did the studies. But this was originally written about by a guy named Desmond Morris,
00:01:50who just, I think, died in the last month or two. He was in his 90s. But he's like the first researcher
00:01:56who wrote a book about really observing humans as if they were animals. Like how did their body move?
00:02:03So the book was called Naked Ape. They're like us, like the hairless monkey. And he studied, he was like
00:02:12this savant at human behavior. But anyway, like when you're looking at the insecure behaviors and if
00:02:21you're looking at two people, what you really want to look at, especially if there's two people,
00:02:25is which person needs something more from the other person and which person is reacting to the other
00:02:32person. The one thing, man, I'm hesitant to reveal this. The one thing that I teach a lot of these
00:02:45venture capital people, they'll get pitched a lot. I've never been to one of the pitches.
00:02:50I've been on the pitching side quite a bit over the last six months. So I know what this feels like.
00:02:56The one thing that I teach them to look for is what's called lip compression.
00:03:02And we tend to do this at times when we are withholding a little bit of information or we're
00:03:10withholding an emotion. So like you imagine like if your friend started a new job and you're like,
00:03:17hey, dude, how's the new job? And he goes, oh, it's great.
00:03:24So that lip compression is withholding. So what I teach them to do is watch for the
00:03:31compression. The moment you see it, just rewind. What were they just talking about right before you
00:03:35see it? How's the financials in the business?
00:03:37Yeah. He says, oh, all the financials are great. We've projected out a good thing for the next couple
00:03:42of quarters. And you'll see that just that little lip compression is...
00:03:47Is that lip compression... I'm always interested in why that particular expression or feature is
00:03:56associated with that particular motive or leak. What is it? Is it...
00:04:01It's our first way of withholding. It's our first way to hold in milk.
00:04:07Like a tongue jut, like after someone tells a lie, like there's something called a tongue jut that's
00:04:12very common like this. This is our first no. It's a way to force a nipple out of the mouth.
00:04:18And these are theories of Desmond Morris' as well. Like this is our first way of withholding
00:04:23and keeping milk in the mouth. And our first no is pushing our tongue out or pursing our lips a little
00:04:31bit. What? That's sick. Is that not cool? Yeah. Is that not cool? Amazing. Sorry. I'm enthralled
00:04:37in the conversation. Is this not... Are people more bored usually? Because this is brilliant.
00:04:41Okay, good. Yeah. Maybe I expect you to be bored. It's boring to me because I've been looking at it for
00:04:45like 10, 15 years. I'm British. You have to remember, you have to filter it through the British,
00:04:49whatever this is. Yeah. So that's our first no. So tongue out of the mouth, that tongue jut is our
00:04:57first no. There's a difference though between a tongue sticking out really quick and then a tongue
00:05:02licking the lips. So a tongue licking the lips is called a hygienic gesture. So it's made to make
00:05:09somebody more attractive. So a hygienic gesture might be me sitting up a little straighter, like pulling my
00:05:15shirt down, like rubbing lint off, licking my lips. All those gestures that are made to look as more
00:05:21attractive. Those you want to look for before someone starts talking. So if they know a topic's
00:05:27coming up, like, all right, next we're going to get into financials. And then you see hygienic gestures
00:05:32before they start talking. So typically you'll see hygienic gestures. So they're improving their
00:05:37appearance before the delivery of something that might be questionable.
00:05:42You're trying to stack the deck in their favor.
00:05:43Yeah. There's no behavior for deception. None.
00:05:47There's no behavior for deception. What does that mean?
00:05:50There's no behavior that's like, this is deception. None. Zero. What we're measuring with behavior
00:05:56is A, stress, and B, changes. Like somebody says, oh, someone tapping their finger all the time,
00:06:05or tapping their finger means that they're stressed and that means they're lying. That's
00:06:08that's total bullshit. Absolute bullshit. So if I just tap my finger all day long, what you need to
00:06:14look for is when I stop. I was going to say, you're just a finger tapper.
00:06:17Yes. Yes. So your first thing that you need to do, like, and people study body language a lot,
00:06:23and I could save you 15 years of studying body language. The only thing that you need to get good
00:06:27out is detecting change. And then learn a few little facial things or a few little tricks, but you get
00:06:35really good at detecting a change. This is the same as doing a polygraph, right? They have to get a
00:06:41baseline first. Yeah. Yeah. And what you're doing is a visual equivalent. Is that a fair assessment?
00:06:45Yeah. Visual and verbal equivalent of all that. What's the cadence that this person speaks at?
00:06:50What's the volume that this person speaks at? Yeah. Or if they've been talking about their kid
00:06:53that's missing on the news, like, he's great, he's great, he's great. And then all of a sudden,
00:06:59they say, how do you think he's doing? And they start using past tense words all of a sudden
00:07:03to describe their childhood they think, or they're trying to say is currently alive.
00:07:08Uh, and they're using past, they shift from present tense to past tense. He is a good kid. He was a
00:07:15good kid. Like those like shifts in tense and language use are really important. And when it
00:07:22comes to behavior, there's none for deception. You got to look for change context. So like somebody
00:07:29says, oh, well, his arms went into his torso. Like, well, did it get colder? Did someone open a
00:07:34door and it's 50 degrees in the room? So context is really important.
00:07:38Was he hungry?
00:07:39Yeah. And then clusters. So like one behavior is not that much to like, if, if you're in something
00:07:47that's high stakes, you want to look for a mountain of behaviors. So like his breathing
00:07:52rate increased. We had pupil dilation. He licked his lips and he was tapping his finger that he did,
00:07:56hadn't done before. And his language shifted. And he started becoming more, he lost his verbal
00:08:02fluency. So he's more hesitant in his language and stuff. We were like, we, we typically want to see a
00:08:08topic of, of, of many different things. And in, in, in body language, I don't know why, uh, I got
00:08:14obsessed with it for a while. I'm really not. I'm kind of over it, but in body language, you deal in
00:08:19likelihood. It's like a meteorologist. It's not like, yes, it's definitely going to rain at 3.15 PM
00:08:27today. And we're looking at, here's historical stuff that's happened. There's something that's
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Key Takeaway

Accurately identifying insecurity or deception requires establishing a behavioral baseline and monitoring for clusters of deviations, such as lip compression, altered language tenses, or defensive protective gestures.

Highlights

  • Insecure individuals exhibit a reduced arm swing and incomplete physical movements.

  • The body protects vital areas like the brachial and carotid arteries by pulling the humerus closer to the torso or hunching the shoulders.

  • Lip compression serves as an initial, primal indicator that an individual is withholding information or emotion.

  • Hygienic gestures, such as fixing clothing or licking lips, often precede the delivery of questionable or deceptive information.

  • Detecting deception relies on identifying changes from a baseline in behavior, verbal cadence, or language tense, rather than relying on a single indicator.

  • No single body language behavior definitively proves deception; accuracy requires observing clusters of stress-related behaviors.

Timeline

Physical Indicators of Insecurity

  • Insecure individuals demonstrate reduced arm swing and incomplete movements.
  • Defensive gestures protect vital arteries to the torso, neck, and abdomen.
  • Men commonly use a fig leaf gesture to protect femoral arteries, while women often wrap one arm around the abdomen to protect the uterine area.

The body displays specific mammalian fear responses when insecure. Arms stay closer to the body to protect the brachial artery, shoulders raise, and the head dips to shield the carotid arteries. These defensive movements are deeply rooted behaviors often cataloged in early studies of human behavior.

Detecting Withholding and Deception

  • Lip compression acts as a primary indicator of withheld information or suppressed emotion.
  • Tongue juts function as a primal signal for saying “no” or withholding, while tongue licking the lips is often a hygienic gesture.
  • Hygienic gestures, intended to increase attractiveness, frequently occur immediately before a person delivers questionable information.

Withholding information is often betrayed by facial micro-behaviors. Lip compression is the earliest way humans hold back information. Before stating something deceptive or questionable, individuals may perform hygienic gestures—like smoothing clothes or cleaning off lint—to consciously or unconsciously improve their appearance and stack the deck in their favor.

Context and Baseline Analysis

  • There is no single behavior that confirms deception; measurements must focus on stress indicators and baseline changes.
  • Visual and verbal baselines—such as normal speech volume, cadence, and tense usage—must be established first.
  • Accurate assessment requires observing clusters of behaviors, such as increased breathing, pupil dilation, or loss of verbal fluency, rather than isolated actions.

Determining intent requires establishing a baseline for how a person normally acts, speaks, and moves. Deception is not a specific gesture but a deviation from that baseline. A single behavior, like finger tapping, is insufficient evidence; analysts must instead look for clusters of simultaneous changes—such as shifts from present to past tense, hesitation, and autonomic stress responses—while accounting for external environmental factors.

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