Rhea Chakraborty’s Body Language
Perhaps one of the most sensational media news storming every home right now is the untimely death of Sushant Singh Rajput. Because his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty has spoken up in multiple media interviews, we as a company specializing in nonverbal communication have been getting inquiries about whether she was saying the truth or not. Unfortunately, as made popular by other “experts” observing a mere video clip and extending their opinions, making sense of whether someone is lying or telling the truth is not a simple case. Well, here are the factors one would need to consider before coming to a conclusion:
Watchful body language: This is one of the first giveaways when the brain is taking time to process information – the body language of the person changes while they are conversing. So for example, if you saw Rhea using her hands a lot to explain her points in one place and then suddenly in another place the use of hands to gesture disappears completely, this is her being watchful of what she is communicating. The same is the case with other body language like changes in how frequently the eyebrows are raising, whether the intonation of the voice is staying similar, and lots more. The moments of these changes would suggest not necessarily that she is lying, but she sure is weighing her words before speaking.
The onset of emotions: Any social scientist who has worked on emotions will confirm this for you – if you are genuinely feeling an emotion, the body language shows this pretty quickly, and just when you feel it. If a person is showing a very gradual build-up of emotion while speaking, like is visible in Rhea in the picture below, it is difficult to believe the Genuity of the same. But does this make her a killer, an accomplice, or just someone who wants to show that she is grieving in front of an audience that is expecting this of her?
Change in baseline: Though this is the third in my list, for seasoned body language analysts, we generally try and see how a person’s behavior through various body signals is changing in any given situation. This is mainly because each of us has our own way of communicating. Some of us are highly expressive nonverbally and use lots of different parts of the body to express ourselves. Others are milder or more mellow and reading them is more difficult, but never impossible. So if you are noting someone’s body signals, you would need to compare that against their usual body language. For example, we had previously taken up this through the example of shoulder shrug in the ball-tampering incident which you can read here.
Stress Signals: Stress is difficult to hide. Our body behaves in different ways when we are feeling uncomfortable. Some of us repeat movements like rocking back and forth. Some of us touch for comfort. Watch Rhea here constantly rubbing her nose on and off. This signal is missing in the other interviews. What was different in this one? Stress or something else? Deciphering this is deeper than just a superficial look at the person’s body language in these two clips. Another thing – when we are stressed because we lie, and when we feel stress for some other circumstances, our body language is similar. See below how in this particular interview one can see Rhea constantly touching her face in different ways frequently. Is she stressed because she has come forth or because she is lying?
Lying is visible only if intentional: Rhea’s body language would leak clues showing that she is lying only if she herself knew about this. If, and in case, she was not aware of whether the facts she is stating in front of media have anything do to with the death, no matter how much deep a body language expert tries to dig, all it will prove is that Rhea was innocent. For example, below is a snippet from when Rhea is facing a question about the direct accusation of financial fraud. Does her body language contradict her words? They would, only in the situation where she actually knew about the fraud. If she were unaware, it would be difficult to spot through her nonverbals.
All in all, deception detection is not as simple as may appear. Here is some interesting statistics: on average, people are as likely as the toss of a coin to be able to tell if someone is lying. People who have trained vigorously to tell the difference between honesty and lying can improve their success rate from 50% to up to 75-80%. Experts can help point out instances during the interview which can be dug deeper by the investigating teams so that the truth can be revealed faster.
So if you were looking for a conclusive statement about whether Rhea is lying or not in her interviews, I am sorry to have disappointed you… That analysis is not as simple as just looking at one video!
About Simply Body Talk: Simply Body Talk undertakes paid consultancy assignments for analyzing situations and circumstances using the latest developments in nonverbal science like threat assessment, deception detection, identifying weak links in teams, spotting communication gaps, improving the effectiveness of advertisements, and reality shows, etc. To know about our previous assignments, you can write to us at contact@simplybodytalk.com
Picture credits: NDTV, India Today
