Emblematic Slips: What Unintentional Gestures Reveal
Just as slips of the tongue can occur in speech, there are also mistakes in our body movements—these are called emblematic slips. Such gestures can reveal information a person is trying to hide.
How to Recognize an Emblematic Slip
You can tell that an emblem is a slip, rather than a deliberate gesture, by two main signs:
- The action is incomplete or only partially performed.
For example, a shrug can be done by raising both shoulders, turning the hands palms up, making a facial expression by raising the eyebrows while lowering the eyelids and curving the mouth, or a combination of these actions—sometimes even tilting the head to the side. When an emblem is an unintentional leak of information, usually only one element is shown, and even that not fully. Someone might raise just one shoulder, and not very high, or stick out their lower lip, or only slightly turn their hands palms up. The gesture of pointing with a finger typically involves not just the fingers but also thrusting the hand forward and upward, often several times. When this gesture is an unintentional sign of suppressed anger, only the fingers move, not the whole arm. - The gesture is performed outside its usual position.
Most emblems are shown directly in front of the body, between the waist and the neck. When performed in the usual position, such a gesture is impossible to miss. But with slips, the emblem is never performed in its typical spot. If the gesture were done fully and in the usual place, the liar would realize what was happening and correct themselves.
These two factors—being fragmentary and performed outside the usual position—make emblematic slips hard for others to notice. These telltale gestures can happen repeatedly, but usually neither the liar nor their target notices them.
Why Emblematic Slips Matter
Not every liar shows emblematic slips, but when they do occur, they are a reliable sign—you can trust emblematic slips. They are genuine indicators of information that has slipped out unintentionally.
Some people always speak evasively, but very few regularly make emblematic slips. Verbal mistakes can indicate stress, but stress isn’t always related to lying. Emblems, on the other hand, have very specific meanings (in this way, they are like words), so emblematic slips are usually easier to interpret. If someone lets slip a message like “I don’t care about you,” “I’m furious,” “It wasn’t on purpose,” or “over there”—all of which can be shown with an emblem—there’s little difficulty in interpretation.
Learn More
To learn more about the meaning of gestures and body language, as well as which gestures are most effective in different situations and what facial expressions appear depending on a person’s emotions, check out Paul Ekman’s book “Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage.”