Your boss tells you that “this change is for the best,” but as she speaks, you notice her stiff body posture and forced smile. Is she being honest with you?

Your co-worker says he’d be happy to help you with your project, but he seems to pause a long time before answering – and while talking, his eyes stay focused on his computer monitor. Can you trust what he says?
“It wasn’t my fault.”“You can count on my support.”  “You’re next in line for a promotion.”  Really?

Wouldn’t it be great to know when we’re being lied to? And, wouldn’t it be nice if exposing falsehoods were as easy as it is portrayed on television shows like “Lie to Me” and “The Mentalist?” But of course, those are entertaining fantasies.

In real life, human beings are more complex than that. And, as commonplace as deception is, deception detection remains an inexact science.
For the vast majority of the individuals you work with, the act of lying triggers a heightened stress response. And these signs of stress and anxiety are obvious, if you know where to look.

Basically, what we’re finding is that the mind has to work a lot harder to generate a false response. One theory – posed by Daniel Langleben, a psychiatrist at theUniversity of Pennsylvania – is that, in order to tell a lie, the brain first has to stop itself from telling the truth and then create the deception, and then deal with the accompanying emotions of guilt, anxiety, and the fear of being caught.

Spotting deception begins with observing a person’s baseline behavior under relaxed or generally

Your nonverbal signals don’t always convey what you intended them to. In fact, when people read your body language, you can count on them making five major mistakes.

Body language was the basis for our earliest form of communication when the split-second ability to recognize if a person or situation was benign or dangerous was often a matter of life or death.

Today, nonverbal signals play a key role in helping us form quick impressions. But, as innate as this ability may be, not all of our impressions are accurate. Although our brains are hardwired to respond instantly to certain nonverbal cues, that circuitry was put in place a long time ago – when our ancient ancestors faced threats and challenges very different from those we face in today’s modern society. The problem is that the world has changed, but our body reading processes are still based on a primitive emotional reaction that hasn’t changed much since humans began interacting with one another.

For example: In our prehistory, it may have been vitally important to see an approaching person’s hands in order to evaluate his intent. If hands were concealed they could very well be holding a rock, a club, or other means of doing us harm. In business interactions today, with no logical reason to do so, we still instinctively mistrust someone who keeps his hands out of sight -- in his pockets, below the table, or behind his back.

Here are the five mistakes people make when they read your body language:

1) They won’t consider the context.

When it comes to body language, context is king. You can’t really make sense of someone’s nonverbal message unless you understand the circumstances behind it.