Deception Tip 59 – Pick Up Legs – How To Detect Deception

Hello and welcome to the Deception Tips podcasts, where you will learn amazing cues to detect deceit that will help you read people like never before. I’m your host Spencer Coffman, let’s get started.

Welcome to episode 59 of the Deception Tips podcast. Thanks again for tuning in, I’m so excited you’re here. Before we dive into this episode, we are going to recap what we talked about last week. Last week, we spoke of something that is important and it’s mainly prevalent on men more than women, that’s because men have a larger Adam’s apple.

When people lie, as we’ve talked about before, their mouth becomes dry, this leads to obviously their throat becoming dry and a lot of different things that could happen because of that. 

Their voice may crack, which we talked about in episode 53, and they may also lick their lips quite a bit, which we talked about in episode 32. Then there are other things that will happen that we mentioned throughout those episodes, but we haven’t had a full episode on them yet.

Keep in mind that when people lie, they have a dry mouth, which obviously, they’re not swallowing that saliva to moisten their throat, therefore, their throat is dry. 

When they speak, their voice may crack and stutter, and that Adam’s apple may jump or move around irregularly. This is due to the fact that they are not in a normal functioning capacity. Why? It is because they do not have a sufficient amount of moisture down there.

Why is this, why is their mouth dry? Well, as we’ve mentioned before, when people lie, there is a lot of stress and tension involved in telling that lie. That means when they’re stressed and when they’re tense, the body has different reactions, it has a fight or flight. 

Are you going to fight the enemy or are you going to flee and run away? Hopefully, you make the best decision for the situation but what that means is when your body goes into that fight or flight, generally, you are going to have less energy going towards the central processes of the body.

Things like digestion, production of saliva, etc. because most of the energy is going to go outward to your limbs so you can either fight or run away. Therefore, the mouth becomes dry because you’re not producing the saliva and then that starts that chain reaction of all those symptoms that can occur because of that. Keep that in mind when you see these little symptoms and say, why is your mouth dry?

Well, maybe they just had some kind of a cinnamon or mustard powder or something that they ate and now their mouth is dry. Maybe they just had a bunch of French fries and no water, or maybe they’re on some kind of medication that causes dry mouth, or it could be that they’re lying. It could be any number of reasons, so pay attention to them and why they may be occurring.

Today we have another deception tip, this one piggybacks on quite a few that we’ve spoken of before. I won’t get into them all now because it’ll take too much time and I want to introduce it to you, but we’ve talked about it briefly at least five times before, and it was mentioned. Also, some of the tips that we’ve already had have played on this, as in, they are a part of this, or they could be considered in a cluster or a pattern of behaviors that go along with these.

So, what is this behavior? Well, it goes on when people tend to take up less space. So, we’ve talked about that one, which was back in episode 40 with ‘taking up space.’ How when people lie, they tend to curl up and take up less space so that obviously there’s less for other people to see. Remember when you lie, everything is displayed on your body unconsciously.

So, the conscious may try to curl up to take up less space so that other people cannot read all of the leakages that the unconscious is doing. Whereas the unconscious says, alright, I’ll let you curl up because I know that that’s a form of leakage in and of itself because generally, most people do not curl up when they are speaking with someone, they tend to stand up and talk to them.

So, here it is, this is deception tip 59. Some people tend to pick up their legs and sit with them on the chair when they are being deceptive. Here it is again, deception tip 59. Some people tend to pick up their legs and sit with them on the chair when they are being deceptive. So, what does this mean? Well, it’s kind of complex, but it’s really not, some people tend to pick up their legs and sit with them on the chair.

What does it look like? Are they just sitting on top of their feet? Are they sitting on one leg? Are they curling up with their knees up to their chest, with their ankles right under their butt, and hugging their legs? 

Well, it could be any and all of those. Anytime someone is sitting with their feet up under them, it is a comforting gesture. Take a look when you invite guests over to your house, how are they sitting? If it’s a guy, typically, he’ll be sitting normally, with his feet on the floor.

If he’s a little bit more comfortable, he may even put his feet up or recline a little bit, slouched down, sink in. Take a look at the women, they’re either in some form of a rocking chair or hardback chair where they can just sit and be rigid, so they’re not comfortable because they’re rigid or they’re sitting in a different chair and they usually have at least one foot under them.

So, they’ll put one foot on the chair, sit on their foot and hunch up whether they fold an arm in or something like that or they’ll be sitting with two feet under them. Why are they doing this? It is because it’s a comforting gesture, they’re not yet fully comfortable at your house or wherever they are, so they’re giving themselves that little bit of a hug or that comfort.

We spoke of that way back in episode number one, ‘folding arm’ that sometimes people may just be folding their arms to give themselves that hug feeling, that comfort gesture. So, that’s what it is, pay attention to other people and see that, so it’s not always a deceptive behavior when someone sits with their feet under them, it’s a comforting gesture.

So, if they’re uncomfortable, they may be doing that, so notice that pay attention to that and when you see it you don’t need to make a comment on it but you can do things that might help make them more comfortable. “Hey, if you need something let me know” or “Feel free to help yourself, the kitchen is right over here, if you want, I’ll show you where everything is, don’t be bashful.” Let them loosen up, open up a little bit and see that.

It’s the little things that go a long way when trying to make someone feel a little bit more comfortable in their space or in that space. People tend to take ownership of that little space that they’re in, so if it’s a small space, they’re going to do things that make them feel comfortable, at home. One little side note here is that the behavior of tapping one’s foot or tapping their fingers is also a comfort.

So, let’s say you’re in your bedroom and something you typically do in your bedroom is tap your fingers on your desk, well, what are you going to do to make yourself feel a little bit more at home when you’re in a foreign environment? You may tap your fingers to jog that memory of being at home at your desk.

Whether that’s unconscious or conscious, it can be determined, but the point is that you will be doing those behaviors in the foreign environment in an attempt to make that environment feel a little bit more like yours. So, before we continue, I’ve got a story coming up for you but before we do that, we’ve got to take a little break, so it’ll be coming up right after this.

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Welcome back, today we’re talking about deception tip 59 which is all about how people tend to pick up their feet and sit with them on the chair when they are being deceptive. 

I told you before we went to that little break that I had a story coming up for you, so here it is. I remember one time when I was in college, we were having Sociology class and it was talking about male and female interactions and attraction and how to know whether or not someone likes you.

Well, obviously, if you’ve been listening to this podcast, you’ve got 59 little tips that will tell you whether or not someone likes you. I’ve also talked a lot about attraction and about the little different things that can happen such as the pupils, the breathing, the orientation of their body, space, etc. So, here’s another thing, one of the topics came up and the teacher said so guys, how do you know if the girl likes you? I said if she has her feet down and everybody laughed but I was serious.

When a girl puts her feet down, she’s comfortable there. How do you know if she likes you? Well, if you meet her for the first time and you guys are together and she has her feet on the floor instead of curled up underneath her, she’s more comfortable with you, that was my point there.

Now, I don’t think you want to take that as a solid chunk of gold, but you can take it and put it in your repertoire with all of the other behaviors. Say, hey look, I’m hanging out with this person, it’s a girl, she has her feet down, her pupils are dilated and she’s breathing. 

She’s facing me, she’s leaning toward me, she must like me, that kind of thing. You can put that together with the cluster and pattern of behavior because remember it is so important to look for these clusters and patterns.

Ladies, sorry, for guys, we pretty much always have our feet down or sprawled out. So, you can take it to one further extreme, how do you know if the guy likes you? Well, he’ll be more comfortable, natural, and probably layout a little bit more. Guys tend to take up a lot more space, we just do. We like to spread out, we like to extend our feet, and we like to take over the little area we’re in.

Whereas women are a little bit quainter, whereas they want to just sit in their spot, and they don’t want to impose. Guys don’t have that courtesy or that consideration for the other space. That’s not a bad thing all the time but it’s something to be aware of. 

I’m not dogging anybody on guys or girls I’m just stating what the general truth is. It’s generally a stereotype and if you want to label it like that you can because all of these behaviors then would generally be considered a stereotype.

When someone lies, what is a stereotype? They do this, this, this, and this. Well, it’s not a stereotype because the stereotype is a false type of belief whereas this is something that happens. Generally, most of the stereotypes ended up coming from the truth anyway because if you examine them, a lot of them may be true but that’s a discussion for another time.

So, we’ve talked about picking up feet before, where have we talked about it, and when, let me give you a little recap. So, we’re going to go all the way back to episode number one when we talked about folding arms. 

When people fold their arms, there are a number of reasons, one of those reasons could be taking up less space, hiding their body, concealing their body, taking control of their hands, fingers, and limbs, and covering up their chest area.

That is preventing a lot of nonverbal communication from leaking, so that’s the concealment right there. We talked about it again in episode number 22 with ‘locked ankles’. They’re concealing, they’re locking those ankles, they’re hiding in, there tucking it, they’re preventing the disclosure of other information. Then we talked about it again in episode 29, ‘step backward’.

Well, when people step backward, they’re trying to take up less space, they’re retreating, and they’re reducing the space they occupy. Then the big episode was number 40 where we said the title obviously was ‘take up space’ if you remember. Hopefully, you do, if you don’t, go back and listen, take up space, episode 40. This was where we talked about the entire thing of it, how when people are deceptive, they take up less space.

Why? Because they’re not as confident in what they’re saying, confident people, tend to dominate the space they occupy. I’ve got a future tip, a future podcast coming up. If you follow the blog or you’ve read the books, you’ll know which tip it is, so I won’t spoil it here. I encourage you to take a look, get a little prepared, and do a little pre-study, like your little homework assignment if you will.

We talked about it again in episode 56 with ‘ankles backing away’. This was a combination of tucking the ankles, so like the step backward, and also locking the ankles and pulling them back. In addition, it also combined the calf muscle at the x to block off the perceptions, so they do that, they tuck it under and they’re taking up less space.

Picking up the legs is taking up less space and it hits on all of those that we talked about previously. So, pay attention to this because guys, it is important, when people are being deceptive. There is a huge battle going on between the conscious and the unconscious mind. They’re the same brain, you have one brain in your head, one mind, at least we hope, that’s sanity.

For some people who have multiple personalities or split personality disorders, there’s a new movie out called Split. Not a plug for them or anything but it’s a pretty good movie that explains it, the guy is just completely out there, he’s got so many different personalities. 

There are a lot of case studies too, Sybil and all these people, I think it’s called 49 or 47 or something. She had 49 different personalities but either way, it is a real deal, so pay attention to that, this is what we’re talking about.

When people are deceptive, there is a huge battle going on, the conscious wants the lie to get away, they’re self-serving. The unconscious wants the truth to get out, there’s a fight. 

Pay attention to all of these unconscious behaviors, make them a part of your conscious so that you will be able to read people and detect deception so that you will know what’s going on and you will know when someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. It will never happen to you again because you will be able to see it and prevent it and call them on it.

So, I want to thank you for listening to the Deception Tips podcast. I hope that you’ll share it with your friends, subscribe to the feed, watch the deception tips videos, check out the blog, and take a look at the books I have available as always, tune in next week for a new deception tip.

Hey guys, my name is Spencer Coffman, thank you for watching the Deception Tips videos, they’re all about teaching you how to read people and detect deception so that you will be able to tell if someone is lying to you. Today, we are going to talk about a very specific tip that is related to a single area of the body. This tip is something similar to what we’ve talked about before in deception tip number 40 with Taking Up Space.

We talked about how when people lie, they tend to reduce the amount of space that they take up so that other people cannot read their body language. It makes sense because if you have a very open posture, there’s more surface area for people to see whereas if you’re clenched up then there is less for other people to observe and less chance that your body leakage or your unconscious, nonverbal behavior will be picked up by others.

So, this is related to that, however, it is on a specific area of the body, the legs and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. So, here it is, this is deception tip number 59. Some people tend to pick up their legs and sit with them on the chair when they are being deceptive.

What this looks like is usually when someone is sitting down, maybe it’s on a couch or in a chair or if it’s an office chair, anything like that, they would take their feet and pull them up and put them either right in front, on the chair, so their heels are on the chair then they may be hunched around their feet. Sometimes people even hug their knees, or they could sit with their feet completely under them so they’re sitting on top of their legs.

Typically, you would see the first one in a smaller chair where they are hugging their legs, that may be more of a comforting gesture as we talked about in deception tip number one with folding arms. It could be a comforting gesture like giving themselves a hug and so when they’re hugging their knees or their legs, it’s a similar type of a pattern or similar type of behavior.

Therefore, it could be related to that, it could be one of those comfort or something like a pacification or to make them feel better in that situation. As a result, you could deduce that that situation could be something uncomfortable for that person or something that they don’t really like, they’re sheltering themselves, they’re trying to make that situation more comfortable.

Also, the second one where they would sit with their feet completely under them, you typically see that in a larger chair, typically like on the couch or something and it’s also a little bit more common with females. Males tend to spread out a little bit more, females like to be cozier, cuddled up a little bit more than the males do.

Keep that in mind when you’re seeing this behavior, that if you see it on a woman you don’t automatically assume, oh, she must be lying because she’s sitting with her feet under. Well, they typically sit like that more so than men anyway, like with crossing the legs, men cross in figure four, women, leg over leg. There are different behaviors that are more specific to certain people like males or females.

An example is when we talked about folding arms, how men may fold them higher on the chest, women lower on the chest, obviously, due to the anatomy. Again, don’t automatically assume simply because you see something it is the same on every single person. Yes, the meaning behind the behavior is the same, these expressions, this body leakage, this unconscious, nonverbal stuff that the unconscious is pushing out to find the truth or to get other people to see the truth, that is universal.

However, the situation in which it occurs is not universal, someone could display it when they’re cold, when they’re tired, it could be anything. They could just want to sit and be cozier, maybe they want to sit with their feet under, maybe they need some pressure on their ankle that is hurting or swollen, you never know. This is why it is very important to always be on the lookout for patterns and clusters of behavior.

As I mentioned before, this tip of the legs, sitting with your feet or picking up your feet is related to another tip, the Taking Up Space, deception tip 40. When you are looking at these and you see that this person is sitting on their legs and all of a sudden, they’re folding their arms and maybe they’re curling up, they’re taking up less space now you’re starting to see multiple.

You saw that they’re sitting up with their feet, they’re folding their arms, they’re taking up less space, that’s three right there, what else could be going on? Do you have enough to form it into a pattern or cluster of behaviors that tells you that that person is lying?

So, if this is your first time watching these videos, I’d love to have you subscribe to this channel on YouTube, feel free to comment with any questions you might have as well. Also, if you’d like some more information, check out the blog posts, books, and other information that’s all available on spencercoffman.com that is all dedicated to helping you understand exactly what every body is really saying.

Until next time.