There is a significant disconnect between our internal emotional state, our physical motor patterns, and the language we use to describe our feelings. These three streams of behavior only correlate at about 0.2, meaning what someone says they feel often doesn't align with their body language.

Most people rarely lie and therefore operate with a "truth bias," assuming others are also being truthful. This cognitive default, while efficient for most interactions, becomes a major vulnerability that people with dark personality traits exploit. They can lie frequently because it rarely occurs to others to question them.

There are no universal cues for lying. Instead of assuming a gesture like crossed arms means someone is being deceptive, view it as a change in their state. This change is a signal to become curious and ask clarifying questions.

Our cognitive wiring prefers making harmless errors (false positives, e.g., seeing a predator that isn't there) over fatal ones (false negatives). This "better safe than sorry" principle, as described by Michael Shermer, underlies our susceptibility to misinformation and snap judgments.

During negotiations or high-stakes conversations, observe hand gestures. Confident individuals spread their fingers, occupying more territory and signaling comfort. Fearful or anxious people do the opposite: their fingers come together, and in extreme cases, their thumbs tuck in as a self-protective measure.

We are cognitively wired with a "truth bias," causing us to automatically assume that what we see and hear is true. We only engage in skeptical checking later, if at all. Scammers exploit this default state, ensnaring us before our slower, more deliberate thinking can kick in.

A key reason biases persist is the 'bias blind spot': the tendency to recognize cognitive errors in others while failing to see them in ourselves. This overconfidence prevents individuals from adopting helpful decision-making tools or choice architecture, as they instinctively believe 'that's them, not me.'

Negreanu suggests we're born with the ability to read people but learn to distrust it. He practiced by observing strangers in public, creating stories about them, and then at the poker table, looking for behavioral patterns (like gum chewing) that correlate with bluffing or truth.

Manipulative individuals often betray their intentions through "danger zone" cues they cannot control. These include lip pursing (a universal withholding gesture), physically distancing from a statement, and a significantly increased blink rate, which indicates the high cognitive load associated with deception.