Numerous studies have attempted to prove how one can tell when a person is lying, when they’re interested in something or someone else, or when they are trying only to appear so. It could very well be that all of them were looking in the wrong place, Professor Geoffrey Beattie, Head of School and Dean of Psychological Sciences at the University of Manchester, says on the heels of a new study shedding light on the “language of feet,” as the Telegraph can confirm.

Prof. Beattie spent years analyzing human behavior and a lot of time looking into research on how people can give themselves away by feet movement. The idea behind the most recent study, commissioned by shoemaker Jeffery West is that, while it can become extremely easy to control one’s facial expression, smiles, eyes and hand movement, most of the time we’re not even aware what we’re doing with our feet.

“Firstly, attraction – and how people behave when they laugh. If you are meeting someone for the first time, laughter is not necessarily a good thing. What psychologists argue with laughter is that there are ambiguous signals – some psychologists think it is a whole series of signals which determine whether the laughter is a good thing. People can be laughing at you, or with you. If a woman’s feet move when she laughs, it is one of the most powerful signals that she likes you. If they are crossing the feet, or crossing the legs – not good. I know that’s true generally speaking but during laughter, it is more so,” Beattie says of the research. [Read more...]