Emblems of Audacity:  Obama’s Emotional Leakage

During Barack Obama’s campaign stop last week in Allentown, Pennsylvania, he scratched his head with his middle finger as he named the mayor of Bethlehem, John Callahan, a Hillary Clinton supporter.

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Right before the 2008 election, presidential candidate Barack Obama made a remark about his opponent, John McCain. As he made the remark, Obama scratched his face with his middle finger. Rush Limbaugh and others were quick to ask if Obama was giving the finger to Senator McCain. Dr. Anna Salter’s research on sexual predators gives us some clues as to why we are so often unable to spot a liar. Although her work is focused on deviants, her findings about deception detection are easily generalized to generic liars. Some of Salter’s most interesting work is her study of emotional leakage. Understand that there are no reliable behavioral cues of deception. However, if the emotional content of the lie is sufficiently high, there is the risk of emotional leakage. That is, the emotion associated with the words unconsciously leaks out. Dr. Salter describes “emblems” as “gestures that are self-explanatory within a given culture and do not require words for interpretation.” If the gesture is made consciously, say, for example, flashing the peace sign, there is no deception. If there is deception, the gesture will be unconscious. Thus, the gesture may be only part of a complete gesture. The middle finger is one of the emblems that commonly leaks out. Salter also cautions that we are more likely to be fooled if we have a stake in believing the liar. Like, say, he’s the hope and change messiah. Many Americans and the media have a lot invested in Obama emotionally. The most savvy among us will also be the most reluctant to admit they were duped; it could be a long wait for the elites in media and DC to acknowledge they fell for the Obama hoax. (Obamanutz: A Cult Leader Takes the White House).