4 Signs He's Hiding Something By Bethany Heitman

Fact or Fiction

Samia Sheikh

Rutgers University

Nonverbal communication is the process of one person creating meaning in the observance of another person through nonverbal behaviors (Solomon & Theiss, 2013, p. 156). Nonverbal cues play a crucial role in interpersonal communication, allowing communication to occur and be interpreted without the device of oral language. Nonverbal cues can be interpreted in many different ways depending on the communicator, the receiver, and the context. Behaviors play a key role in communication in all relationships, especially in romantic relationships. In a Cosmopolitan magazine article, “4 Signs He’s Hiding Something,” author Bethany Heitman (2010) discusses four behaviors

Along with the popular magazine Cosmopoltian, an academic journal article investigates the use of nonverbal behavior and cues in the act of deception. Researchers Henningsen, Cruz, and Morr (2000) discuss their hypothesis in their article “Pattern Violations and Perceptions of Deception” that people are more likely to associate deception with pattern violations, inconsistencies in nonverbal behaviors, instead of the presence of particular nonverbal cues. They also take into consideration the correlation between nervous nonverbal behavior and deceptive nonverbal behavior. They ask university students to act as a jury and analyze the witness testimonial for nonverbal behavior cues. They run two identical studies for fear that when the first study was conducted the presence of a specific instruction may have altered results, thus running a second study without the instruction. Both articles focus on a mutual vital component: the relationship between nonverbal cues and deceptive behavior. Utilizing the academic research article and class material, an analysis can be made of the Cosmopolitan article’s accuracy of the information presented about

In Heitman’s (2010) article, she focuses on cues, both verbal and nonverbal, to decipher if a man is being honest or not. However, her article encourages readers to rely on observation mostly, not taking into consideration the context of which the deemed “deceptive” behavior is occurring in expect for in a conversation in the relationship. On the contrary, Henningsen et al. (2000) consider the nonverbal deceptive behavior in a jury context, making the evaluation of nonverbal behaviors not as broad as Heitman (2010) and directly connected to a possibility of deception. Furthermore, even though Heitman (2010) has sources like Janine Driver, president of The Body Language
Institute and author of You Say
More Than You Think and Krista Bloom, PhD, a
psychologist in Florida, she still does not provide enough substantial research like researchers Henningsen et al. (2000) do to support her claims. Henningsen et al. (2000) conduct two studies to provide reliable and valid support to their claims, and also apply several findings from previously done studies in the field. Thus, it is important to acknowledge that Heitman’s (2010) article does not have as much as intellectual evidence to support her claims, as Henningsen et al.’s (2000) article