This episode is a reshare from Chris Shelton’s Speaking of Cults podcast; the original episode is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEHXmfhMG88.
Can you really tell who’s lying just by watching their body language? Are there any practical takeaways you can reliably and regularly get from studying nonverbal behavior in interrogation/interview settings? In this episode, I, Zach Elwood, author of some well known books on poker tells/behavior, talk to Chris Shelton, host of Speaking of Cults. We take a hard look at the booming industry of self-proclaimed “body language experts,” behavior-based deception detection, and viral behavioral analyses of interrogation videos (popular on YouTube). We unpack why confident claims about blinks, posture, eye direction, and micro-movements are often misleading, how pseudoscience sneaks into true crime media and even law enforcement, and why innocent people can easily be anxious and seem suspicious under pressure. We talk about alleged behavior experts who spread bad information (including Chase Hughes, the Behavior Panel, and Jack Brown). We discuss if there are realistic uses of body language in interrogation and other real-world settings, and what that might look like. If you’ve ever found yourself persuaded by a self-proclaimed “behavior expert,” this talk might change how you think about body language.
Episode links:
- YouTube (includes video)
- Spotify
- Apple Podcasts
Related episodes:
- Questioning if body language is useful for detecting deception, with deception detection researcher Tim Levine
- On the idea that eye direction can reveal thought processes and/or deception
- A deep dive on NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), which is the foundation for many faux behavior experts’ ideas
- The many lies of alleged behavior/influence expert Chase Hughes
TRANSCRIPT
(Transcript is done automatically and will contain errors.)
Chris Shelton: “Do I know what that facial expression means? No, you don’t. You don’t. You can only guess, but we crave certainty. We want it so bad. And so when somebody comes along and says, well, I know all about it. See, I’ve studied this for years. See, and I know that when that man raises his right eyebrow, it means something different than when he raises his left eyebrow.”
“This is just one break point of where I look at these guys doing these analyses and I, I, I, I don’t have years of background in this, but I know what I know about psychology and I see the conclusions these guys make, and I’m like. Oh, please shut up.”
Zach Elwood: “They’re basically ringing blood from a stone. There’s almost no information there—but they’ll find all sorts of meaning in it.”
That’s a clip from Chris Shelton’s Speaking of Cults podcast, on which I recently appeared as a guest. We were talking about the bad, irresponsible information spread by alleged behavior experts, who claim you can get strong, reliable, and practically useful information in interrogation and interview contexts from reading people’s body language. So I’ll be resharing this episode on my own podcast channel. If you want to see the original, you can go to speakingofcults.com or to the Speaking of Cults youtube channel.
This will be one of a few episodes I’m doing focused on the immense amount of bullshit in the alleged “behavior expert” space. I have another episode coming out with an ex-CIA operative soon, talking about the con artist Chase Hughes, and about the general uselessness of using nonverbal behavior in interrogation and espionage-related fieldwork. That talk includes discussions of Paul Ekman, and of micro-expressions.
I have another couple episodes coming out with retired FBI agents, one a quite well known one who you might have heard of, to talk about these topics.
I have another episode coming out where I’ll be talking to a professional negotiator for their thoughts on nonverbal behavior.
Just to say that I have decided to really focus on this for a bit, talking to people who work in high stakes situations, asking them about what they see as nonsense and what they see as realistic when it comes to making use of body language.
Also, I should say that this is the second time I’ve appeared on Chris’s Speaking of Cults podcast. The first one was a deep dive on NLP, neuro-linguistic programming, and the nonsense and pseudoscience in that area. NLP is a foundational aspect of many alleged “behavior experts,” so if you really want to understand this area well you should understand NLP well, and that’s a good video for jumping into the topic.
I’ll also say that if you like these talks, you should look at the couple interviews I’ve had with Tim Levine, the respected deception detection researcher.
In this talk with Chris, we discuss:
- The huge variability and ambiguity in human behavior
- Alleged behavior experts, like those on The Behavior Panel, and the bad, irresponsible information they spread
- The misleading idea that you just need to quote “baseline” someone’s behavior
- My own views on the major differences between game scenarios and real-world, non-game scenarios
- The negative outcomes that can result when people wrongly think they can reliably tell truth from lies based on reading body language
Okay, here’s my talk with Chris Shelton on his Speaking of Cults podcast…
Chris Shelton: [00:00:00] The speaking of Cult podcast is presented solely for general informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from it is at the user’s own risk. The views, information, or opinions expressed by the host and guests are solely those of the individuals involved and do not constitute medical or other professional advice.
Hello, and welcome to the Speaking of Cults podcast. This is Chris Shelton, your host. Thank you very much for joining me again this week. I am very happy to have your viewership and your support. We are, as you know, a, a podcast that dives into the subjects of cults, coercive control, destructive behavior, and you know, the kind of abusive stuff that people get up to with each other.
And we try to shed a light on either abusive organizations or activities [00:01:00] and how these things can be measures of, or reflective of, you know, extreme behavior. Like people just kind of taking things too far, going to, taking a belief, taking a belief set, taking a group, and just kind of dialing it all up to 11 and doing bad things.
As a result, human beings definitely have a tendency to go, uh, too much of a good thing or take a bad thing and, and, and really blow it up. But either way. You know, we, we end up in bad places and one of the ways that we like to look at things on this podcast is to break down behavior and what is behavior driven by what motivates behavior?
Hell, I’ve put a whole psychological model together where I dare to think that I might have some answers as to what drives people to do what they do, you know, in terms of emotions and morality and, and you know, and things like that. But. There’s a difference between trying to like categorize or broadly, you know, look at [00:02:00] behavior and then making claims about human beings that are unfounded, untested, and really do not, people just have no business making these claims, but they have no compunction in doing so anyway.
And so we get this broad field of pseudoscience and we talked a couple weeks ago with Zach Ellison about, or sorry. Say that again. We talked a few weeks ago with Zach Elwood about neurolinguistic programming and Chase Hughes, one of the Grifters, now I’ve just used that word very liberally here, um, in this pseudoscience space of human behavior and, and sort of this idea of deception detection and body language is a whole other thing that Chase has sort of put himself into this world of people who put themselves out there on YouTube mainly.
And in the written, they, they write books, they make videos, they do classes and workshops, and [00:03:00] they, and they present themselves as experts in something that is not really. Something you can be an expert in. If I kind of put my go all the way out on the limb here and really like put these people in their place because there’s no science, their body language analysis is haphazard.
Guesswork is kind of what the science tells us when studies and research get done on this. It doesn’t turn out good for the Chase Hughes of the world, but that doesn’t stop him and other people from forming what they call a behavior panel and getting together and sort of mutually reinforcing each other’s language and ideas around body language analysis.
And they’ll come up with terms and language like turling and baselines and, and this sort of language and jargon enters into it that makes it seem as though it’s, again, [00:04:00] legitimate science and that there’s these concepts that are, that are researched and that people have done a lot of work on this and, and really figured out the percentages and how people act, and that these are universal human principles.
People in Cambodia or in Malaysia or in South Africa are gonna respond the same way as people in Montana. Like really, you know, one of the things you learn in psychology very quickly is how incredibly different people are culture to culture. So, but that doesn’t stop these guys from making these very generalized claims.
So I thought, let’s do a show about this. It is right up against, um, its deception and even coercion when we talk about how law enforcement and, um, regulatory bodies start using this analysis information, this pseudoscience that’s pedaled to them as though this is how they should make decisions to hire and fire [00:05:00] people decisions about whether somebody is innocent or guilty of serious crimes and whether or not they should, you know, be in jail or not.
So these decisions and this data has very large consequences beyond individuals. There’s societal implications to this work and. Therefore it has a, a degree of danger that could even touch your life. Who’s watching this right now through no fault of your own. So all that being said as this big intro here, Zach.
Hi, welcome back to my show and thank you very much for agreeing to be part of this. This is kind of the topic that you really got into this whole thing with the body language tells and kind of through poker games, right? That was kind of how you got into this whole thing.
Zach Elwood: Yeah. Hey Chris. Uh, good to be back.
Thanks for inviting me back. Uh, yeah. I got into this world, like went down the whole rabbit hole eventually, you [00:06:00] know, ending up with the Chase Hughes and behavior panel stuff that we talked about last time. But how I initially got into the space was I used to be a professional poker player and I wrote some, uh, well-known books on poker.
Tells my first book got translated into eight languages total. A couple of those were me doing it, but six other people, uh, publishers published it in other languages. Lots of people called it, you know, the best book on the subject. Uh, I got very good reviews from, you know, both amateurs and very experienced players.
I’ve consulted for World Series of Poker, main event, final table players. I’m consulting for a high stakes player right now. So just to say that was what got me into the, uh, behavior space was my interest in interest in psychology and behavior. And I think, uh, yeah, the interesting thing we could, depending on which way, which direction you want to go, is like, I, as you know, as I’ve discussed on your show, there are, there are many people in this, you know, [00:07:00] kind of like what I call pop behavior space.
These people on YouTube, like Chase Hughes and the Behavior Panel and many other people who just say clearly false things about what you can do with behavior. And that that’s in the realm of like just speaking a about clear, about just plain false things. And then also. Exaggerating things that are realistic or, or known or supported, but acting as if you can do amazing things and reach amazing conclusions with them, you know, and the, one of the main ways that manifest is watching, you know, like interrogation footage or interview footage and, you know, having so much to say about every few seconds about some minor, you know, eye blink rate or some minor way that they move their hands on their legs or what have you.
So it manifests as all these things that are just plain false and exaggerated and don’t have basis in, in real science or, or just lack common sense when you get down to some of these things. And, and then you have a [00:08:00] lot of people that are eating that up because it, it basically functions as a kind of glorified, you know, pseudoscientific gossip, uh, kind of, uh, you know, content where people are just like examining.
Behaviors of criminals or examining behaviors of famous people and using those to kind of like bolster their, you know, views that, oh, I knew Meghan Markle no good, and she’s a liar and a deceiver, blah, blah, blah. You know, just kind of using these things as kind of like a, a glorified, uh, pseudoscientific seeming, uh, or scientific seeming, you know, gossip and celebrity gossip and true crime, you know, kind of content.
And that’s, yeah, I think that’s one of the main ways that kind of junk plays out. But then as you say, some of those ideas have drifted into real, uh, you know, spaces like police work and, and such with the NLP kind of ideas and things like that. But it’s all kind of related in, in terms of like exaggerating what you can do with these things.
Yeah.
Chris Shelton: Very much so, and it’s the, and let’s be [00:09:00] clear that it’s the exaggeration that I take exception to. It’s not the fact that somebody can’t guess or look at somebody else and, and, and have some estimation based on, you know, their knowledge of this individual or the situation in the context. And it come to some ideas about what’s going on in this person’s head or what this withholding or knowing or knowing about or something like that.
We make assumptions and we do this thing, you know, called, um, you know, the heuristics, right? We, we have a, we have a little bit of information and we have to, you know, from that try to figure things out, right? And we use these measurements, these, these, these estimations, these ideas of, okay, well the guy’s wearing a lab coat.
Zach Elwood: Well, maybe he’s probably kind of scientific,
Chris Shelton: right? Or there’s something formal, or there’s something proper, or there’s where these words come out, right, of like, what would we think of somebody who’s wearing a lab coat versus somebody who’s not the, the, these are called [00:10:00] biases or assumptions or, you know, guesses of, and this is just how our mind works all the time.
There’s nothing wrong with this. There’s nothing weird about it. We’re not gonna educate ourselves out of it. This is how brains work. But because they work this way, we have two, we have a couple little factors that kind of get in the way of our lives, right? Uncertainty is a big one, right? But do I know what that lab coat means?
Do I know what those words mean? Do I know what that facial expression means? No, you don’t. You don’t. You can only guess, but we crave certainty. We want it so bad. And so when somebody comes along and says, well, I know all about it. See, I’ve studied this for years. See, and I know that when that man raises his right eyebrow, it means something different than when he raises his left eyebrow.
It is that granular of analysis of body reactions during conversations, during speeches, [00:11:00] during, uh, trials, during job interviews, during interrogations. And these are almost always unusual, stressful situations where we’re gonna see unusual behavior from people. Right. But they’re guided or they’re, they’re judged as though these are normal situations.
This is just one break point of where I look at these guys doing these analyses and I, I, I, I don’t have years of background in this, but I know what I know about psychology and I see the conclusions these guys make, and I’m like. Oh, please shut up. You have no, I mean,
Zach Elwood: they’re, I, they’re just, to me, they’re just ringing blood from a stone basically.
There’s like, there’s like no information there, but they’ll find all sorts of information,
Chris Shelton: right? Yes, that’s right. And it’s, and, and I’m only making this big, I’m only monologuing here because I’m trying to make this point that it is the certainty which, which they deliver it that sells this stuff to people.
Because we all walk around knowing, we’re just guessing. You know, we don’t know if Amber [00:12:00] heard really, you know, did what she did to Johnny Depp. We just know that this is what these guys said about each other in the trial. Right. And so some people are like, but I want her to be the, the, the good person.
And other people are like, no, I know she’s the bitch. Right. And both of them will read into the behavior they see. They’ll
Zach Elwood: filter. Yeah. They’ll
Chris Shelton: filter for
Zach Elwood: what they wanna see. Yeah,
Chris Shelton: exactly what they want to see. So there is this other thing called, we call that confirmation bias. It’s when you’re using your perceptions to confirm that something you want to think is true, is true.
We do this all the time. We talk about it on the channel all the time. ’cause it’s a great way to get people into cults and it’s a great way to fool people. Right. And this is one of the things that, that, that gets a lot of traction in the body language analysis space. Right. Is I, this is one of the reasons why I think, but we’re, we’re probably jumping to the.
So the conclusions before getting through some of the stuff here, but in terms of [00:13:00] describing it, uh, you know, I was really amazed watching some examples of this. I’ve seen clips now from Australian News, from uh, BBC, from Newsmax, from Fox News, from various news agencies as well as behavior panel videos from these YouTubers and individual YouTubers who are talking to TMZ or other celebrity media and offering these deep, very certain, this is the thing I watched over and over and over again with these guys, is they are selling these, uh, conclusions or judgements about these people.
And I was really shocked ’cause I expected it to be a little bit more generalized. So they could get away with it easier, but these people were not, I mean, they were making claims that, you know, they have no business making about people. Could you talk about that a little bit, just as far as like what, what you’ve seen too and, and where this, how this developed?
Zach Elwood: Uh, I [00:14:00] mean, it is shock. Yeah. I, I agree. It is shocking. I mean, it’s the, it’s the certainty and it’s the straight up exaggeration of credentials, right? Like, so for example, the behavior panel people, like, they just called themselves the best behavior experts in the world. Like, they use that to describe their channel.
It’s like there’s no, they have no, no reason to, to, to, to describe themselves as such, right? Like, look at Chase Hughes. We, we examined all of his lies about his past. He’s a clear con artist. He’s a clear serial liar. And I have no problem saying that. Like, ’cause I know I’ll never be taken to court for that.
Or if I did, I would win. Like I have no problem calling him a clear con artist, but. Him, he calls himself, you know, the best in the world. And he, uh, the, the behavior panel promotes that group as the best behavior experts in the world, which gives them this veneer of respectability and credibility. I mean, I could just as easily call myself, you know, the best behavior in the world.
Like it would hold as much credibility as them calling themselves that, right? [00:15:00] Uh, so yeah. And then you look at these examples and it is amazing to me that these people get on TV shows. Like I, I, I think it really speaks, you know, to the desperation for content that is out there, which is a big part of this, why these people get attention, why they succeed at, at these these things.
Because there is such a desperation from news shows and other shows. To just produce content and to Brutus content. That seems exciting. Right? So for example,
Chris Shelton: oh, I gotta say, I gotta say real fast just to, just to, just to throw this in here. I mean the, the watching the endless parade of TMZ, Meghan Markle, prince Harry critiques by these people, I mean, these are, this is a, a, a whole organization with way too much time on its hands as far as I’m concerned.
Zach Elwood: And a lot of this behavior stuff is, is right in the same area because it’s just basically filling the demand for people to watch stuff about true crime or watch stuff about celebrities, right? So, yeah, I mean, one of the first. [00:16:00] Grifters and, and, uh, liars in the behavior space, behavior bullshitter as I called him when I made a, a article about him was this guy named Jack Brown, Dr.
Jack Brown. I think his doctorate was in ophthalmology or something, but he, he presented himself as a, uh, a doctor, you know, and he gave his behavior work more credibility. And I was amazed to find that despite the obvious bullshit in the same way that chase u’s stuff is obviously bullshit. Like you look at the Jack Brown stuff and it’s like, this is ridiculous.
Like, speaking of granular stuff, like he would, one of the reasons he got so popular was because he was always criticizing Republicans. And so it tied into a political. Uh, some people’s political views. Right. We see
Chris Shelton: that too. That’s right.
Zach Elwood: Right. That ha that happens too. On, on, you know, for both sides.
That’s right. So he, he was, Jack Brown was doing this stuff where he was like, I could tell by Trump’s uh, constriction in his pupils that he is some sort of cocaine or other and pH addicts. And it was just like completely, he would show these closeups of his [00:17:00] pupils and it was like, this is based on absolutely nothing.
Right. Like that’s, and he would go into all these, he has all these details, detailed reads, like he said at one point that he thought the pipe bomber that was caught on video during January 6th showed signs of being Marjorie Taylor Green based on his read of the, uh, of the, of the behavior and the way they, that, that the person walked All this crazy stuff.
Right. Yeah. Just to say it was completely nuts and like none of it was based on, he just said clearly false things about eye direction. That’s a common thing that we talked about for NLP. Yeah. For example. And despite all this. He was on, uh, CNN talking to Anderson Cooper about stuff. And I think that was his biggest, luckily, I think that was his biggest, uh, you know, media win.
And I think I had something to do with that because I put out an article that it was like the first thing that came up for if you search for Jack Brown behavior, and I put an article down, I think I kind of like stymied his attempts to get popular basically in the same way. I think I might’ve helped do that for Chase Hughes.
Uh, but [00:18:00] it’s just kind of amazing, the granular things that they will go into where you’re like, how can people, you know, and most people I think, know how complex psychology and behavior are and how complex the world is. So like, most people, I think bulk at hearing like, I’m gonna take this tiny bit of information and make all these deductions from it.
Right? Because we all know in real life, you know, we can reach some deductions about other people, but we know it’s pretty hard because there’s so many factors that govern their behavior and so many un. Unseen things that might explain why they’re feeling, how they’re feeling or how why they act, what, how they act.
So it is, it’s kind of amazing that they will go into these really granular things that just, I think most, you know, reasonable people bulk at that and, and realize that that’s a sham. But for the people that are, I think not as, don’t have that filter. They’re, they’re, they’re, they’ll absorb all that.
That’s right. And that’s, and because of these people present themselves as being, you know, the best in the world and it’s based on science and blah, blah, blah, a lot of people just absorb all that. [00:19:00] And, and their filters are down for just absorbing a bunch of nonsense and fill, filling their heads with nonsense, basically.
Chris Shelton: V, very much so, and unfortunately we deal with a bit of a culture lag in, in actual science versus what, you know, the, the cultural public awareness of science. And so for example, you get, these guys get a lot of traction talking about, you know, the lizard brain and you know, the, the, the, the, you know, the referring to systems of the brain as though, you know, there’s this old idea and, um, and it’s, and it’s, I get where it comes from.
It’s completely understandable that, that people have this idea, it was talked about for years. So it’s not like, you know, that, that they’re idiots for thinking this. I’m not in any way implying that. I’m saying people do the best they can with the knowledge that they’re given. And a lot of people have been given for a lot of years this idea that the brain is sort of like this lizard brain with layers built on top of it.
And, and, and they talk about the brain that way. And [00:20:00] it’s just one example that’s that’s on my mind right now. ’cause I watched this video earlier today about this stuff. MCAP and Yeah, exactly. Muse Cab. She did a great breakdown on this and yeah,
Zach Elwood: her uh, if people are curious, it was called, I debunked everybody language expert on YouTube and
Chris Shelton: yeah, there’s link to it, but I’m putting a link to it.
Yeah. ’cause I thought it was so damn good. Um, and it, um, but my point is that people don’t know that science moved on from that. That’s not how scientists, neuroscientists or psychologists or neuropsychiatrist think about the brain. It’s an integrated organ that evolved as a whole entity. It’s not something that evolved to a certain point.
And then nature just came and slapped some shit on top of it, and now we can think better. It. That’s not how evolution works. And, and by the way, evolutionary psychology is a whole nother area where, you know, we, we, we, we’ll probably have done another show I’ll have to do in the future on that one, but point is that, um, people take what they learned in school or what they [00:21:00] think they know about this stuff and these guys come along and confirm, oh yeah, you’re right, because look right, this is the lizard brain thing going right there.
There it is. There it is. And they show you an example. And a picture is worth a thousand words. So when people see a guy, you know, at a being, being interrogated in a police station, hunched over looking pretty bad. That’s all they see is that little clip. Well, obviously
Zach Elwood: the
Chris Shelton: guy’s guilty. Well, yeah. Look, he’s all hunched over.
I mean, obviously he’s the, the literally the weight of his guilt is pushing him down into the table, right? Like this, like people can start thinking this way. No, he, he’s been in that room for 15 straight hours. I’d like to see what you would look like after being in that little room for 15 straight hours.
Right? But we’re gonna take this little tiny clip and we’re gonna tell you all about how guilty this guy is because of his body posture, right. In an out of context way’s
Zach Elwood: where he knows he is been accused [00:22:00] and he is stressed out and he knows he is suspect. And yeah, I think, uh, I mean, getting back to the, the overall point, it’s like, I think really when you, you people just need to understand there are so many factors involved in why people behave, how they do.
It’s a, it’s immensely complex. And anybody who’s. I, I’ve watched a lot of interrogation footage because it’s something that interests me, and I’m interested in those, those, uh, those videos where they are talking to somebody who’s innocent. But that person has done some things that do seem suspect and strange, and you’re like, why did they do that?
It doesn’t make any sense. And like that kind of stuff would lead you, you know, wrongly to think, oh, this person, you know, then, then that gets into the content of what they say too, which is another important distinction too. But I think even for like behavior of like somebody acting just purely behavioral, like acting stressed, like as you pointed out earlier, they are in a very, uh, stress stressful environment, right?
Like, and then that’s also [00:23:00] true of many of these situations where behavior so-called experts are analyzing, you know, like high stakes interviews by, of celebrities or whatever it may be. Like there’s many reasons for somebody to behave in ways that seem stressed out or unusual or whatever it is. You know, you, I mean, you put me in front of a high stakes.
Situation I’d probably behave in, in all sorts of ways that I, I, I think people would think we’re weird. And that’s under, you know, that’s completely common for people to do those things that you, afterwards you’re like, why did they do that? I, I have no, you know, it doesn’t make any sense, but those are the kind of situations these people are in, whether it’s interrogations, whether it’s, you know, interviews, whether it’s, you know, political situations or what have you.
I think that’s what we really need to understand is like, there’s just so many things going on that that can impact somebody’s behavior and make them uncomfortable about a question. And maybe their discomfort isn’t even about that question, but something related to it. Or, you know, they’re thinking about something else suddenly that they, they’re thinking about.
That’s not even related to that question. So just [00:24:00] say there’s, there’s just so much complexity. Um, but yeah, I think. Wherever you want to go from, from, from that which direction?
Chris Shelton: Well, yeah. I mean, it, it’s a, it’s a layer cake and there’s just a lot going on with us. And to pretend that you can take one layer of that and determine the big picture, maybe, maybe.
To say you can do that a hundred percent of the time, even 90% of the time with certainty. I mean, this is where there it gets a little ridiculous. And I wanted to ask you about something because it seems that one of the things that is used to give this an air of legitimacy is this idea of a baseline.
This is something that’s talked about a lot, this emotional baseline. I’m gonna observe this individual and I’m gonna see their baseline, and then I will note the differences from that baseline. Well, that baseline concept is itself interesting. You can make it make sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s a true thing.
I don’t know that human beings have a baseline emotional [00:25:00] state. In Scientology, we used to have this concept of a chronic tone level, you know, the average emotional state that a person is in most of the time. Uh, he is a chronic angry, right? You go up to the guy, he is always angry or you know, they’re always sad, or they’re always this or they’re always that.
Since when is any human being always anything, we generalize these things, but the fact of the matter is reality doesn’t agree with any of that. We can be anything mood wise at any moment depending on context. So, um, so to make these broad statements and then assert that they’re simply true, ’cause I said so is itself kind of a problem in this space?
The other problem I see in this space that is sort of this accepted sort of foundational thing is that there is some list somewhere, or some paper must have been written somewhere that I can’t find that, that lists or describes what normal human behavior is in a [00:26:00] police interrogation or in a job interview, or in a celebrity interview or at a funeral.
All these places where these analysts have a heyday breaking down the behavior of Meghan Markle or Prince Harry. And, and, and thinking because he is tapping a piece of paper on his leg or he is, you know, or he is a little, a little nervous or he is, you know, doing something with his hands. This means exact behavior, A, B, c, because, and this is how they phrase it.
And because a normal person or a normally you would see this kind of behavior. And so there’s this, there’s this idea that there’s this standard somewhere of how people are supposed to act in these different situations. And I thought I’d bring that up early on here ’cause I wanted to ask you about it and what you’ve seen with that.
Where does that idea come from? They all fall back to it and everybody accepts it and you’re like. [00:27:00] Who, who said normal people act like that? Where is that coming from?
Zach Elwood: Well, I think, uh, to, to, to your start of the baseline thing, like I’ve written and talked about that before in some mm-hmm. My videos, I, there’s, there’s two levels of difficulties there.
As you say, it’s hard to even know what anyone’s personal baseline is. Like, for example, I’ll, I’ll wake up some days and feel pretty down and low energy and not even understand why other days I feel high energy and confident and such don’t really know why. And then even during an activity that that feeling can change.
Like, I might start out one way and end up the other way. So just say, yeah, they, even the idea of personal baselines can be very difficult. There’s, there’s all kinds of factors. Um, then you’ve got on top of that, like theoretically. Yeah. I think the idea of baselining is good. So for example, in poker, I’ve done a lot of an analysis of poker players on video.
And that’s a, that’s very different though, because it’s a very formal environment where they’re doing repeatable actions. It’s a, you know, that we can get into that later. The difference between like games and [00:28:00] sports Yeah. With very formalized environments, with very particular actions versus like a real world scenario where you’re just loosely talking and you can do anything you want.
And there’s, there’s not really any constraints and there’s no specific actions you’re taking. Right. It’s a very different environment. Yeah. So theoretically though, the idea of baselining is good. Like if you, but, but to get a meaningful baseline for some, a specific person Right. Like that in a scientific way to, to map out like, oh, they do these kinds of things in these scenarios this many times.
I mean, that, as we’ve said, that’s such a complex area. So to try to do that scientifically to me, would take like dozens if not hundreds of hours. Right. Like it’s just an that’s undertaking. So,
Chris Shelton: yes, exactly.
Zach Elwood: So if you could do it at all, that’s, you know, that’s even assuming you could do it, but to, to, but for these people that pretend like, oh, you know, you gotta get a baseline in an interview or a baseline in this interrogation.
It’s like you’ve only got such a small sample size to work with. And, and do you mean to tell me that you’re [00:29:00] mapping out precisely like what they’re doing and you know, precisely what all the factors are in that situation that led them to a, a do that one behavior. Like the idea that you can do that kind of baselining on the fly in some sort of like several minute or even several hour scenario is, is ludicrous to me for the, you know, sheer complexity of it that we discussed.
That’s right. Uh, but yeah, that’s, that’s what gets me about the baselining. To me it’s a way to cover up the fact that it is so ambiguous and low practical use, but by saying like, there, there’s a couple benefits to this baselining thing to, to saying that because it’s makes them seem. More credible because a lot of people will balk at a lot of these things.
So by saying you gotta get a baseline first, it makes it seem more credible. Credible. But also for the people that take their classes and their content, when those people find that they can’t actually do anything useful with the content that they’ve consumed, they’ll be like, oh, I guess I didn’t get enough baseline.
Or I guess I don’t know how to baseline properly. [00:30:00] So it puts the idea in people’s minds, it’s like a fallback for, for, uh, putting it in people’s minds that consume this so they can blame themselves instead of blaming the people that gave them this information. So it serves a very valuable practice, and that’s why you’ll hear it so often when they discuss these behaviors, they’re, they’ll always throw in these things like, well, you gotta get a baseline first.
As if, as if that gets them off the hook for the bad information they’re spreading. Right.
Chris Shelton: Uh, there’s a really good analysis of that. Thank you. I, I couldn’t agree more. And I, and, and then this additional point, I think it’s a really, really, really important one, and I think it’s one that goes over the heads of almost everybody watching this crap.
And I, and I, and when it hit me, I was kind of like, oh my God. Right? Which is the point I just made, which is that, you know, you address the baseline thing, but then there’s this other aspect, right? Which is Yeah, yeah. This assumed idea that we all know what a normal innocent person is going to do, and then we take that baseline, that comparative that is completely [00:31:00] imaginary.
People just make this idea up. Well, if I were in that situation and I were innocent, I wouldn’t look like that dude. Reality check right? To any human being watching this, I’m sorry, but I’ve, you know. You don’t know what you are going to do in a situation that is high stakes until you’re in it. Mm-hmm.
Because the way you think right now, lemme just make this really super easy, right? Because the way you think right now is you’re in a calm, rational place where you have time and no threat. Nobody’s pointing a spear at you, and you get to think through all the things you get to think through right now about what you think you would do in that situation.
But when that situation comes around and adrenaline is pumping in your veins and, and you’re not thinking straight, you’re not gonna [00:32:00] remember anything you’re thinking right now. Yeah. We know this, this is studied beha. We, we know this. Right? So, so we are the ones who keep screwing it up by making these unfounded, egotistical assumptions that we know what a normal person would do.
Right. So that’s my bottom line on that, but I wanted to get your take on that. Yeah,
Zach Elwood: yeah. I mean, I, I, I agree. I think, you know, to give us spec some specific specificity, uh, screw that up, but, you know, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Uh, to give, to give some specifics to it. I, I can think of, you know, I’ve watched a good amount of interrogation footage, like I said, and, you know, I do think there are certain patterns that show up, like kind of meta-level patterns of behavior that are useful at.
Uh, that, that are correlated with, you know, guilt or innocence in certain situations. And we could talk about, you know, why I think that and how sure it fits alongside, you know, what I’ve said so far and my skepticism about specific behaviors and deception detection. But I will say there’s plenty of examples for people [00:33:00] that have, have watched a lot of interrogation footage and our interest in that and are, and are not, you know, don’t have major cognitive biases around what they’re trying to see.
I mean, there’s plenty of examples you can find where people, uh, guilty or innocent people acted in ways that seemed quite suspicious. You know, like for example, somebody’s close relative was, was killed. And they act in a very calm demeanor, which most people would be like, how can that, that seems very suspicious.
Why, why would he act that way? Most people would be very distraught or at least showing signs of immense anxiety. But, you know, someone can. Act in those ways. And that can be how some people react to immense, uh, stress and anxiety is just to kind of shut down and act calm. Right. So just to say there can be various things like that where, you know, yeah, like you said, what’s normal is very hard to define for a general population, even if, even if, you know, police officers, interrogators may have some, you know, [00:34:00] justified inkling about what is more common when, but when we get down to it, you know, it’s the certainty we’re talking about here, right?
It’s the, it’s the immense certainty that people can have. That is the problem, not, not the inklings that can develop from, you know, doing a lot of specific work or being in the field, doing a lot of specific work, whatever it is. So, yes, we’re talking about the certainty. Yeah.
Chris Shelton: Well, very much so. Because I wanna be clear that there is, there is such a thing as experience and there is such a thing as working with people and there is such a thing as, you know, reading people’s.
Body language for, for, for lack of a better term, right. The way they move. And
Zach Elwood: general de general deductions too. It’s like we do that every day. Yeah. About, oh, they said this and they said this while they were doing this. We’re reaching some deduction. Like they’re uncomfortable or they don’t wanna talk about that.
Or, you know, we’re, we’re reaching those conclusions every day. And I think that, I think the main difference is most of us know that we’re often wrong, you know, about, about those deductions that we can reach or, you know, and so we shouldn’t be overly certain about it. And, and that’s where, yeah, that’s where we’re get getting into the certainty part of it to,
Chris Shelton: well, for sure.
That is definitely my [00:35:00] primary criticism with this. The other point that I think needs to be made about this exact point though, is that there is no. Person who is able to separate their pure observation of somebody’s body language from their other perceptions and observations of the language the person has used, the way they talk, when they talk, when they don’t talk, when they, when they, you know, yes.
How they stand, how they sit, how they posture, how they move. All of these things on top of where the person lives, what their background is, what their educational level is, what who, what culture they’re from. All of these things are in the mind of the interrogator coming together to form a picture of an estimation of this person in front of them.
You cannot, there is no human being who can credibly and reliably separate out [00:36:00] just the body language part of this.
Zach Elwood: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Chris Shelton: And decide accordingly. Right. We c we integrate all of this together. Mm-hmm. So it’s a little ingen, you know, disingenuous for somebody to go, oh, the body language tells me when, in fact, it’s a combination of all of these things, if we’re being honest.
And those are the things that give you that experiential advantage. ’cause you’re putting mm-hmm. All of this stuff together.
Zach Elwood: Right.
Chris Shelton: You know,
Zach Elwood: and usually, I think it’s mainly about the, for the, for the people that are experienced and actually have reliable, you know, useful deductions. Sometimes I think it’s mainly about the content.
Right. It’s mainly about what people are saying. Yeah. I think they might, I think sometimes they, as you say that they sometimes may be getting confused about like, which is which, because I think exactly a lot of, a lot of times it all rolls up and they’re like. Oh no, the behavior is very useful, but they, they might not be distinguishing between [00:37:00] like, oh, it was what somebody was saying or not saying, coupled with that person, you know, looking up uncomfortable and, and the fact that the person looked uncomfortable was actually very minor and in context there, or like completely meaningless compared to like the things the person was actually saying.
Which gets back to what I often say is like the verbal, the statement analysis or, you know, just analyzing what people are saying or not saying in their stories is so much more meaningful than focusing on the non the, the nonverbal behavior. To me it’s like, you know, it, it’s, it’s such a huge difference in importance to me.
Like the nonverbal is just so low importance to me. Yeah,
Chris Shelton: exactly. And in fact, studies that were done on this, and there have been studies done on this and meta studies done on this, indicate that if you turn the sound off. Just to back up exactly what you just said. You take a trained interrogator. You take, you take people who supposedly know what they’re doing and you show them with the sound turned off somebody in an interrogation room and with body language alone.
[00:38:00] Right. Can you tell, this guy’s lying? Can you tell this person’s guilty less than half the time? These skilled interrogators on body language alone? And that tells you something. Right? That’s the kind of
Zach Elwood: science they, and they did better. They did better when they, uh, turned
Chris Shelton: the sound on when
Zach Elwood: they heard, yeah.
Yeah,
Chris Shelton: that’s right.
Zach Elwood: Yeah,
Chris Shelton: exactly. In fact, you could turn the vol, you could turn the video off and turn only the sound on.
Zach Elwood: Right.
Chris Shelton: And by sound alone, they were getting 64% accuracy versus
Zach Elwood: Right
Chris Shelton: less than 50,
Zach Elwood: which makes sense. It’s like, as we’ve talked about, it’s like the behavior stuff. The nonverbal behavior is so complex and so many spots are ambiguous.
But what people say contains a lot of information. Like that’s, that is literally like where we get most of our meaning from in life is words, right? Like, so the idea that you’re gonna get some. You know, a much more information from the, the nonverbals and the verbals is, is to me, um, you know,
Chris Shelton: that seems to be the point where of departure for me too.
It seems to be a point where they’ve taken a, a mole hill and turned [00:39:00] it into a mountain. Yeah. Statistically, right. Statistically speaking, we know, again, through studies and research on this with controls, put in that through body language reading alone. You know, you are, you’re, you’re we’re talking about a difference of less than 1% of accuracy in determining whether somebody is.
Telling a lie or telling the truth when body, you know, as far as what, how much of a contributing factor is the body language analysis in determining the accuracy of a liar? Well, it turns out it’s like one, 1% or less. You know, when you, once you do all the math and break it all down. Did I read that right or am I misunderstanding what I read?
Zach Elwood: Oh, I can’t remember that exactly. But I was gonna say, if you wanted to talk about the deception detection research, you know, specifically, and, uh, yeah, I, I could talk a little bit about that if you want. Please regale me. Yeah, I think, I think that’s, uh, when I was going through, you know, preparing for this, I’d been wanting to put some of these thoughts in order.
And I think the, the rea I, I think so often people are talking past each [00:40:00] other because it’s like, yeah, there is no, when you talk about deception detection, especially in the research setting, you’re talking specifically about getting people to say a lie or say a truth, and getting people to make guesses about reading that.
And when it comes to that, like it seems pretty clear to me. That there is no, that there’s evidence against the idea that there are general, uh, non-verbal behavior markers that we, that, that will make, uh, you know, that, that are tied to, to lying significantly tied to lying. So Tim Levine, uh, I think, I think he pronounces it.
Tim Levine, I’ve interviewed him for my podcast. He’s a well-known deception detection researcher, and he has written papers and talks about, uh, how there’s no good evidence for general behavioral markers for deception detection.
Chris Shelton: Right.
Zach Elwood: And I, I believe that, but you know how that maps over to me working on poker tales and believing that there’s, you know, many people would think like, how can you believe that?
And also believe that there’s valuable poker tells or valuable other, uh, tells and, you [00:41:00] know, interesting reading spots in interrogations or games or sports or whatever. So the way I map it out, well, not just me, uh, the, the way to map it out I believe is. Recognizing that, you know, for example, let’s take poker.
There’s no, all the, all the tells that I and other people use in poker are not about deception detection. They’re not, we’re not, we’re not like getting a read that we think somebody is lying or telling the truth. We’re getting reads about level of relaxation or level of, uh, how much alertness someone is paying to their cards or to the board or whatever, these kinds of things.
And the, these are not about deception because the person is not just, you know, in a, like, in a research setting. And it has no, has no analogy to someone just saying something and you reading whether they’re telling the truth or telling a lie. It, it does. So it, this, this lets us see the distinction between like, oh, we’re getting, we’re getting clues about how they might be feeling.
Now, you know, me getting, making a read in poker, there’s some general population things. That I have [00:42:00] no problem basing decisions on because I know that they’re so common in the general population. And, uh, and there’s also, you know, things that I think are lo much lower liability where I’d like to see it present a few times before I base a big decision on that, you know, player specific reads.
Uh, so this, and I think the similar, similar things are in other, uh, games and sports environments, but I think the important thing is recognizing that games and sports and these kind of formalized competitive environments where there’s repeatable actions and you do specific things like there’s no correlation.
Uh, analogy between that and real world non-game scenarios where you’re just talking to people, right? There’s, there’s not like specific things you have to do. There’s not specific turns you take. There’s not specific physical actions you have to do. You know, for example, in like in, in soccer, you might, you know, you can get reads maybe that someone’s looking a certain direction and gonna kick that way or something like that, right?
There’s, there’s not that kind of thing. This, this, uh, physical turn base kind of thing in, uh, real world scenario. So it’s [00:43:00] much more open-ended, it’s much more dynamic. And that to me is the big distinction about why these things are so much more useful in games and sports than in real world scenarios.
And the other big difference is that. You know, to make a, uh, there’s so many small decisions you make in, in games and sports, and even if it’s not highly reliable, you’re so often in close spots, like you’re so often in 50 50 spots that could go either way in poker and in other games. So if you think a reed is like, even like 60%, you know, above chance or more, that, that’s like a, that can be a huge edge in spots where you’re 50 50 to, you know, you, you’re not really sure which way to go.
Right. So, uh, just to say it’s a, these scenarios are very different, which is what gets into me thinking, you know, me working on poker towels while saying I all, there’s so much bullshit on these other, you know, real world scenario, uh, behavior expert, uh, things people say. Uh, so that, I think that helps map out the, the area a little bit more.
But also I think [00:44:00] it also helps us understand, you know, when people like, uh, ’cause Joe Navarro talks about this in his book, the FBI guy who I have some problems with some of the things he does in the behavior space, but I think he’s much more. Uh, much more, uh, credible and respectable than, you know, the, the behavior panel people of the world.
Because Joe Navarro will say like, yeah, there’s not evidence of, uh, you know, no good evidence that there’s, uh, specific behaviors tied to deception detection. But he’s also saying, well, you’re just getting, you know, reads about, uh, likelihood of what someone is feeling at any given moment, which is, you know, defensible.
Getting back to people, having a lot of experience, uh, interviewing a lot of people, they may get reads Again, I think the problem is when it gets into this high certainty areas, because I think a, a, a good practitioner, whether in poker tells or in interrogation scenarios, a good practitioner knows that there prob, you know, often could be wrong because we’re just talking like, you know, things that increase, things, increase likelihood a bit about what someone is feeling.
They also [00:45:00] know that there could be many reasons for why that person is feeling that way. So, you know, I think that most. I think when it comes to defending what people do with behavior and interrogation kind of settings, I think the main thing that to me, the most useful and, and uh, reasonable way to use it, is just when they get an inkling that likes, oh, I asked this question and this person seemed uncomfortable, so maybe I’ll follow it up with a few more questions.
I won’t, like, reach some grand conclusions. Uh, so there’s that, that kind of thing. But then there’s also like the metalevel thing of like an interrogator, like we said, using all these things, like not just nonverbal behavior, but the whole multitude of how a person has acted in a setting, right? That’s, that’s like a whole meta-level analysis of like what they’ve said.
How they’ve said it, how the pauses, they, maybe they’ve, you know, done various things throughout that has made this person to form a picture. And I think often they may be, like we said, they may be focusing too much on the [00:46:00] behavior part and not realizing that their meta level picture is mostly about the content of what that person has said in the, the, the, maybe the, the unusual mannerisms they had.
Like they, you know, like one extreme example is, you know, suspects who act like they’re crying, but there’s no tears or, uh, you know, uh, liquid coming out. Right? That’s, that’s weird. So just to say that there can be these metal level, uh, you know, more extreme things that rise to give a a, an interrogator a picture of what’s happened.
And to, to tie that, you know, to, to, to tie that to the nonverbal behavior, like specific granular examples is a mistake because that person has built up that read over, you know, using a lot of data points and things that are not even related to, to nonverbal behavior. So I think that’s, uh. That’s kind of how I mapped out the territory of like meeting in the middle in terms of like, yes, there are some things that I think can be useful for, for people that are skilled practitioners.
They, some of those things may be just [00:47:00] getting a read of somebody being uncomfortable and maybe that helps them, you know, ask a few more questions about something. I don’t know, but mm-hmm. But I think the, the main thing we can say is like, even if that’s true. The, the main thing we’re talking about that the, the main bad thing is when those things get into more highly certain areas where you use a few behavioral things, like a cop using a few nonverbal behavior things to be like, oh, this person’s guilty, and I know that now, you know, that’s, I think that’s where all the bad stuff happens.
And then, then you’ve got the, these behavior experts, you know, so-called experts. Spreading such kind of high certainty ideas to other people, which is, has a just a general, you know, filling people’s heads with, uh, bad ideas and leading them to, you know, more cog co confirmation bias and hate of celebrities and, you know, these kinds of
Chris Shelton: things.
Oh, it’s, uh, it’s, it just constantly used to rile people up. But I think that it really is dangerous when we enter into the interrogation context. And the, and it’s a, it’s a little old chicken and egg. I’m [00:48:00] not really sure which is, uh, I, I mean, I think obviously cops were around before these grifters were, but I think that the idea that, you know, that there are these techniques or ways of making police work easier, whether it’s reading bumps on heads, uh, you know, or whether it’s, you know, measuring, you know, finger nails or something, or know.
Zach Elwood: Yeah.
Chris Shelton: What’s that?
Zach Elwood: We want easy answers for, for
Chris Shelton: understandable reasons. Exactly. Have reasons. Yeah. There have been people peddling these ideas to the police for a very long time, and when they have the, you know, the air of science to it and they start using jargon and science, sciencey concepts or ideas or things that people think are sciencey, then they get a lot more traction in that world, in that law enforcement world than you might imagine.
People think, you know, oh, this stuff gets, you know, side checked and fact checked and this and that. No, it doesn’t. No it doesn’t. These guys take it on in the police forces and sheriff’s office all over the [00:49:00] United States. These guys take this stuff on because they’re looking for easier ways to get their job done and, and if some expert comes along and says, well, I know how to do it.
’cause I used to interrogate people in the military and I’ve interrogated people, you know, like to Chase Hughes, you know, this guy is just so in disingenuous. He, he, you know, he says things that he’s never done and. Puts out there that, that he has this experience. He doesn’t have to sell these techniques and ideas, which have no credibility, but they believe they do because of the packaging.
And so, so that little round robin thing tends to be going on and on and on in law enforcement for quite some time. Mm-hmm. And I wanted to, um, say that we need to be aware of that fact because Right. We should be as citizens who are, who are at the receiving end of this stuff. You know, I do think we should be pushing back on that a bit.
Zach Elwood: Luckily, uh, and I will say, yeah, there is this kind of, uh, snowball effect like Chase Hughes getting [00:50:00] on, you know, one, one podcast appearance leads to another podcast host. That’s right. Believing that he is more credible. It has the same effect, and it can have the same effect in, you know, police or law enforcement organizations where you get one gig, like say, chase gets invited to one small department somewhere.
Um, and this is, I think this has happened, you know, with many people, not just single all Chase, but you get one invite invited to one small organization, then you use that in your, on your resume, it looks, it looks legitimate to some other organization, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, but yeah, the, um, oh yeah, what I, I think I lost my,
Chris Shelton: I mean, this is how the false memory folks got around.
By the way, the whole repressed memory thing from the, remember the whole Satanic panic thing in the eighties and all the repressed memory stuff from the eighties, that’s how it got to law enforcement was the same drill. It was experts coming along. Oh, I’ll tell y’all about it. And then these law enforcement guys looking like complete idiots when they start repeating.
What these people have told them and taught them, and then they come up with felt false confessions. People are in jail who [00:51:00] shouldn’t be. And, and it really does have these downstream consequences. You know,
Zach Elwood: I do think, uh, yeah, I think we talked about this a little bit last time. I, I’m not really sure. I, I don’t, on the plus side, IWI do think that law enforcement in general these days, most of them understand that these things are mostly debunked.
You know, there’s been a lot of coverage of like, the TSA program that yielded no results. That got, you know, that got some headlines. Uh, I think there is more examination and awareness that those things, you know, I think, I think a lot of this stuff goes through cycles where in different formats, right?
It’s like there can be cycles of thinking like. Back, you know, back in the eighties or nineties, I think it was like, oh, can we use these NLP concepts for, uh, that’s
Chris Shelton: right,
Zach Elwood: that’s right. You know, for policing, you know, now it’s like you, they were using, uh, ekman’s, you know, stuff that, oh my God, formed that.
And some of it has overlaps, but just to say there’s these rounds of like, oh, can we use this system? You know, and, and, [00:52:00] and maybe, and some of the systems, I mean, some of the theoretical systems might have some value, but, you know, just theoretically like, not to say there’s specific ones that I, I, I don’t know if there are specific ones, but just to say like, I can imagine versions that could have value, but I think that, I think there’s always this, you know, demand for these systems.
Like, you know, we need to, we need to solve this problem of the border checking or this flight stuff. Yes. Or whatever, you know, flights ’cause of nine 11, you know, there’s a demand for like, what can we do? So who out there has ideas that we could run with, and so, so that we can show that we’re doing something right.
I think, I think a lot of it’s just proving. That we’re doing something and showing that we’re taking the problem serious. Like, and then, then when it doesn’t work out, they can say like, well, you know, at least we threw some money at it and we, we tried to do something Right. Which, which is under understandable kind of thing, you know, as long as we’re not running with, uh, really bad ideas.
But yeah, I, I do think there’s, on the plus side, I will say, I think a lot of, I think most, uh, you know, serious, educated [00:53:00] cops and, um. Mil military type people understand that these things are, you know, have, have dubious or, or low use, you know, for the most part, despite what the chase use of the world say that acts as if you military and, uh, PSYOPs people are using all these advanced things to read and control people’s mind, you know, leaving that bullshit aside.
You know, I think most people, oh
Chris Shelton: yeah, no, let’s, yeah, screw the conspiracy crap, but it’s just, yeah, no, the real world effects of this stuff are bad enough. We don’t have to go conspiratorial. I, um, you know, and I’m pretty down on this, you know, and I, and I, and I look at the negative consequences of it. And I, and I think I’m, I, I, you know, I think I have good reasons to, to get down on these guys, but at the same time, I understand that they are trying to, as you say, there’s a, this is a, you know, every few decades, there’s another thing, right?
And, and when it comes to, let’s, let’s talk about this for a second. ’cause this goes back to also to, um, some of my education and coercive control when I was reading papers on police interrogation and the history of it. And, and I, and I did quite a dive on it, [00:54:00] and as part of my, my learning. And so, you know, the third degree beating, taking people into the back of the, of, of the, of the precinct and beating them up.
Standard procedure. That’s how you did law enforcement for a very long time. Then the Reed technique came in ’cause people got sick and tired of, of, of pe, police brutality. And that became a thing. And public outcry and injustice, uh, as tons and tons of racial injustice with that. And so we come over to the Reed technique, which is now we’re gonna apply that same level of physical pressure, but we’re gonna turn it into the psychological arena and we’re gonna use coercive methods, sleep deprivation, food deprivation, stuff like that, isolate you in a room for hours.
You can get false confessions that way and stuff too. All of this I recognize, is coming from a place where you’re doing work that is really, really hard. Finding criminals [00:55:00] and getting them to say that they were criminals is hard work. I don’t, yeah, it sounds real hard when you put it
Zach Elwood: that way.
Chris Shelton: Yeah. I don’t pretend it’s easy.
Right. It’s a job that has a lot of trauma and a lot of not nonsense, connected with it. I recognize that. Right. In the desperation to either meet the quotas, get the job done, enact justice, whatever the motivation is, you know, people’s logical fallacies and deficiencies are gonna come out and, and when they go in this direction, right, people’s lives are ruined.
Um, you know, seemingly, I mean, a, a person’s life can be destroyed overnight because of this nonsense. So that’s why I stress that it is nonsense. But I, but I, I say all that because I really wanna make it clear. I don’t think of police as a bunch of bad guys or ignorant boobs or nonsensical people, but I do wanna recognize that they’re just as [00:56:00] fallible as anybody else, too.
Zach Elwood: Yeah. Have you seen, I was just thinking of that documentary, American Nightmare. Have you seen that by chance? Mm, it’s about this, it’s about this, uh, murder. Uh, well, actually it was a kidnapping, uh, and it’s really convoluted because you start, you start out thinking. Uh, that her boyfriend did it because of how it goes down and you start thinking, oh, somebody else did it.
And, but it also involves cops to, uh, reaching conclusions too quickly about who’s guilty and such. It was a really good documentary. It’s on Netflix. That’s, but yeah, there, I think it gets back to this, you know, this certainty idea of what we’ve been talking about. That’s, that’s, and I think, you know, there are, there are these abusive, unfair things that happen.
I mean, especially like the whole, the whole lie detector thing is very, a very, the lie, the lie detector, everybody knows, well, I mean, most people know that it’s not useful, you know, it, it doesn’t, it’s not reliable. Most people know that. Uh, but it’s, the main way it’s used is just as an intimidation technique.
Right?
Chris Shelton: Yeah.
Zach Elwood: [00:57:00] Which, you know, I, and I’ll claim to be an expert on the. Or have even strong opinions on the ethics of that. But some of the instances I’ve seen where they talk about, they just deceptively lie to people and say, oh, we know you’re guilty from that lie detector. That to me seems, uh, you know, I’m okay with some of like, you know, I, I, I can understand why there’s an inclination to use ambiguous language and kind of imply things that aren’t there to get the job done, to get a confession.
Some of that makes some sense to me, especially with some safeguards, you know, like ensuring you’re getting information that only the murderer or the, the, the criminal will know. That’s like a big safeguard that they do a lot, is trying to get them to say something that, you know, will ensure that they’re not, don’t have the wrong person, but, you know, getting straight, straight up lying to people and saying that, you know, the, uh, lie detector’s infallible.
We know that you’re guilty now. Like that is, that just straight up seems abusive to me. So there’s other [00:58:00] things. In that realm that I think are,
Chris Shelton: yeah,
Zach Elwood: just quite, quite unethical, even in the context of like, I know what they’re trying to do and I know why they, like we said, it’s a hard job. We know they’re in tough spots.
They’re trying to solve murders that, or even find missing people that might still be alive, you know, these kinds of things. Uh, so yeah, it’s a tough thing, but there are definitely some things in those areas that stand out to me as, as quite bad practices. And I think some of the worst stuff happens like that, that, uh, documentary I mentioned American Nightmare.
Yeah. Some of the worst stuff happens when you have police that wrongly reach overly confident views of who’s guilty. That’s right. And that ends up like dictating how they go about the case. Right. Because, you know, with, uh, they, they, they should, they should be willing to know that in many of those situations things can point in different directions than they know.
Right. And especially like that’s even just talking about. Evidence, like real evidence, [00:59:00] but let alone, like not if you’re talking about, be reaching certainty about someone’s non-verbal behavior, that is just absurd. And that should, you know, that should, that should never be, never happen, you know?
Chris Shelton: Well, and that’s the thing that really bringing it back to the behavior panel now, right?
And these guys, right, these are people who really, it really is entertainment. I mean, if we’re gonna really categorize this somewhere, it really should be categorized that way. I,
Zach Elwood: they might even have a, they might even have a disclaimer. ’cause I know like Chase Hughes and his books would put like, this is for entertainment purposes or something like that.
Chris Shelton: Right?
Zach Elwood: So they, if they’re, if they’re being smart, they really should they, and they might have it. I haven’t watched enough of their shows to remember if. Do do
Chris Shelton: have that.
Zach Elwood: Right.
Chris Shelton: Well, you know, obviously, I mean obviously if you’re watching this podcast, you know, I have an intro that says, Hey look, this is professional advice.
Don’t, you know, don’t run with this. Well that’s ’cause I need to protect myself. Right. And I, you know, I wanna make sure the audience understands that, you know, this is two guys talking, um, it’s
Zach Elwood: opinions. Yeah.
Chris Shelton: And they don’t do that though. And that’s one of the things that [01:00:00] really bugs me about their work is maybe they do bury a disclosure, you know, uh, say in the fine print, but they really don’t lead their shows with that.
And they don’t present as though what they’re offering are opinions. They offer it, you know, they offer it up as though it’s scientific fact and they throw these, you know, jargony words around and, and know that that will. Kind of muddy the issue enough with people, um, that they can kinda get away with it.
And it is, it bugs me that these guys do that. And you know, if we can just think of it as entertainment. I know that’s kind of funny and Oh, print, you know, Megan is at it again. Oh, look at that. You know, today she didn’t wear any makeup. What does that mean? Oh, well, clearly it means they’re about to get a divorce.
I mean, if people want to think that, fine. Right. But when it ha, like I said, I, I bring it to those real world consequences ’cause they happen so often that I, I think it’s, it’s not just entertainment, it’s not just silly. Laugh it off goofiness. You know? I think that there are, I think there’s, there’s a good reason to be talking about this
Zach Elwood: and also bullying [01:01:00] online.
You know, I mean, there’s, there’s people like, um, oh, what’s her name? Who got accused of murder in the other country? I, I always forget her name, but the, uh Oh,
Chris Shelton: right. The, uh, Italian. Yes. Yes.
Zach Elwood: Uh, Amanda Knox. I mean, like people, yeah. Amanda Knox, uh, and other, and other people. Like, there’s people that. Are just normal people that wind up in these situations.
And even just, I’m just talking about celebrities too, where you have people analyzing their behavior in irresponsible ways. I mean, this stuff leads to just straight up bullying and hate from a large number of, of people when you, when you’re acting like, oh, I can confidently read that They’re, you know, they might have some psychopathic tendencies, or they, that’s a sign of them withholding something and these, these kinds of silly things.
So I think, you know, I mean, Amanda Knox is a good example. I mean, she and you and, and, and, uh, she, she’s experienced a lot of hate Yeah. And stressful situations because of the ways people reacted to her, the public reacted to her and [01:02:00] various media. Um, but yeah, that these things have real world effects. I mean, just imagine that you were an innocent person who wound up on one of these.
Interrogation or interview police interview videos. And everyone thought, you know, people were reading your body language in wrong ways. Imagine how you’d feel. And everybody’s like, I know he is a piece of shit. You know, kill him. You know, like, just imagine that’s, that’s a pretty maddening thing. And you have people doing this about so many videos where they just know so little about the situation and, you know, but, but that doesn’t stop people these days from just lashing out online.
And that has real impacts to people, you know, people, you know, become depressed and maybe, you know, even kill themselves over that kind of stuff, you know?
Chris Shelton: Well, there’s, there are consequences. And, um, and I, and I, and I just don’t want people running around thinking they know more than they do. It’s, it’s because, it’s, because it’s, this is hard enough.
This work is hard enough. Helping people is hard. Working with people is hard. Working with people who have stress and trauma is significantly harder. And [01:03:00] working with people who have stress and trauma, when a criminal act has been committed is even harder. So I know that, you know, we’re, like I said, we’re looking and these guys are just looking for any, any help they can get.
But, um, but some help is better than others. And, you know, and, and, and, and on that note, just to kind of put it there for the audience, in case you all don’t know, you know, this to the level that we look into it, you know, the UK right now, uh, is actually doing a whole new system that is not the Reed technique in terms of police interrogations.
They’ve, they’ve kind of changed up their game in terms of how they go about interrogating and talking to people and treat it more as a data collection rather than a, uh, I’m gonna beat you into submission so that you tell me what I want to hear. It’s okay. What do you have to tell me? And let’s explore this and let’s investigate this, which is kind of what you imagine police have been doing the whole time, but kind of not really.
So the more you look into this, the more kind of like, wow, it really kind of becomes in, in some ways. Okay. So moving on [01:04:00] from cops and robbers and crime and all of that kind of stuff. And, and by the way, I, I, I do think the, the lie detector, uh, comparative or bringing that up earlier was a, was a great point because it’s kind of exactly the right and wrong of this.
If you know about lie detector, we’ve talked about lie detectors a lot, right? And one of the things about lie detectors is that, is that in the hands of an amateur or in the eyes of an amateur, it is a yes no device. And in the hands of a trained professional who uses it as a, in their job, when you hear polygraph operators interviewed, it’s not a binary yes no device.
It’s a device that is, is helps you go down a trail of questioning, uh. W with movements that may or may not indicate something, and so it, it’s an investigative kind of thing. In that sense, I think body language could be useful and interesting as a guide, maybe to a skilled interrogator, [01:05:00] but to assume or think that any of these points are binary yes nos, this means this a hundred percent of the time because I said so.
I think that really is the bottom line of where we lose the plot with this whole subject. Having
Zach Elwood: said that, I just meant, and many of the things are just straight up false, like the I direction, you know? Yes. Giving clues. We should, we should also say like many of these things are just straight up silly and have no evidence, you know?
Chris Shelton: That’s fine. Yeah, but I, but I kind of tend to go in that place in terms of wrapping this up as sort of like,
Zach Elwood: yeah,
Chris Shelton: it’s not all throw it in the trash, but, right.
Zach Elwood: Exactly. Exactly.
Chris Shelton: If you don’t have the right look at this, if you don’t have the right attitude about this, you are gonna make massively stupid mistakes.
Sorry,
Zach Elwood: I didn’t, people, I didn’t mean to screw up your, uh, outro your, your
Chris Shelton: wrap. No, no, you’re fine. You’re good. So anyway, so that’s, those were some of the thoughts I had on that. So, um, did, what were your sort of, now that I’ve said all that in my conclusion, what are your sort of, uh, [01:06:00] overall sort of, uh, thoughts about this?
Zach Elwood: Uh, yeah, I mean, I, I actually wanna write something up because, you know, you, you, you asking me to. Come on. The show was getting me to think through some of these ideas more and I was gonna write something up about it. So maybe I’ll share that later. But I did, I did. I do think the main thing is, you know, for people interested in this stuff, just stay skeptical.
Like I think it’s okay, it’s, it’s good to be interested in behavior. I think there’s a lot of interesting things, especially like the statement analysis things. I think those are interesting about analyzing, like the patterns that people have in their speech and such.
Chris Shelton: Yes.
Zach Elwood: And uh, I think there’s a lot of interesting things in behavior.
I just think people need to be very skeptical of these people that are claiming to have all these answers. And basically like ringing blood from a stone is how I view it as like taking something that might be a few interesting things to talk about and like trying to get all this amazing information out of it.
You should be very skeptical when people try to do that thing. That kind of thing. Yeah.
Chris Shelton: Absolutely. All right. Well I want to thank you very much, Zach, for taking the time to appear on my show today with me [01:07:00] and, and responding to my invite. Um, and I hope that, uh, we will have cause do this again, because I really do enjoy talking to you and, and your, and your take on this stuff and the way you kind of, you know, take a measured look at it and, and you’re looking at the pros and the cons.
And that to me that’s always great. ’cause I love it when people will also check me with positivity, you know, check my negativity with some of their positivity too. I really appreciate that. ’cause sometimes I know I can be a little down on Oh, it’s all bad. It’s all bad. Well, it’s not all bad, so.
Zach Elwood: Well thanks Chris.
No, I appreciate it and thanks for having me on.
Chris Shelton: You bet. Alright, folks out there, thanks for coming around, listening to us, uh, Gabon and Madre about all this. I know debunking videos are not, you know, uh, enticing and wonderful, but they are necessary, uh, in this space. And so I hope that this was useful and formative and, you know, mildly entertaining this week.
And I will see you guys next week. Bye-bye.