Shoulder Shrug - body movement - tutorial

I have shown a lot of videos in which I have pointed out this subtle body movement but haven't taken the time to explain what dose it mean. The wikipedia article refers to "an exercise in weight training". For detecting lies this sign represent not knowing something.
This is the full body movement: which is a pretty common sign. You probably seen it when you ask somebody a question and he doesn't know the answer

It's a general rule in detecting lies and emotions that if something isn't done right or doesn't seem natural it's probably wrong. Although in this example if you ask somebody a question and he doesn't raise his shoulders as up as he can it doesn't necessarily mean that he isn't truthful. It can just mean that for example while he is answering he kind of remembers the answer. Or he/she isn't exactly sure about the answer but choose to answer that he/she doesn't know because they're is in a hurry.

You always have to take in account what the subject of the inquiry is and the situation. This is a word of warning regarding all of the future tutorials. You shouldn't assume anything base upon one or two observation. You should take into consideration a lot of facts before you can say that somebody is lying. There isn't anything that can replace evidence in telling if somebody is truthful or not.


The shoulder shrugs that i have shown you are partial body movement. They usually occur when the person isn't sure about what he is saying.
Here are a few examples from the videos that i have analyzed:





The feeling that i have when I'm doing this is that I'm not comfortable in my own skin. I'm usually well aware of this type of sign's when I'm making them yet most people aren't. I have done a few controlled experiments in which this particular body movement is pretty common. I can't show the videos because the people that i have worked with(usually friend and family) wouldn't be to happy about this. In my experiments i ask the person that i would be interviewing a few question which they can answer truthfully or not. After the interview was over i would go over the question with them and get the sentences that are lies and the one's that are truthful and then watch the videos for sign's of deceit. It's not always a intentional misleading. Sometimes i would ask a difficult question and the first answer wouldn't always be truthful.

Hope this short tutorial was helpful and see you soon when i finish the "Chris Matthews Predicts Brown Win" video.

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