Nonverbal Leaks: Ahmadinejad

Introduction
In 2007, Iranian President Ahmadinejad welcomed an interview with CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley. The interview takes place in Tehran, technically on Ahmadinejad’s turf. Pelley and Ahmadinejad conduct the interview outdoors, across from each other in simple wooden chairs that have armrests and side tables. Throughout the interview, Ahmadinejad sits with his feet crossed, his right hand occasionally gripping the armrest. Ahmadinejad speaks his mind, and so his contempt for President Bush is honestly verbalized, as when he says things like “President Bush needs to correct his face.” Not knowing Farsi makes it difficult to detect tone of voice leaks. Beyond the content of his answers, though, multiple micro-expressions and nonverbal gestures leak deeper information, possibly offering further insight into Ahmadinejad’s attitudes.
The Face and Eyes
The “most expressive channel of communication,” especially for divulging emotional content, the face reveals much about what Ahmadinejad is saying beyond his words (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1998, p. 2). When analyzing Ahmadinejad’s face for nonverbal leaks, it is important to pay attention to all aspects of the visage including eyebrows, mouth area, cheeks, and of course all aspects of the gaze itself. Due to limitations with the camera and not being able to see closely things like the subject’s pupils, it is impossible to know if arousal has led to nonverbal leaks like pupil dilation. Furthermore, even when resting Ahmadinejad’s eyes are somewhat squinted. The squinting serves the purpose of veiling his feelings, even when he looks directly at the interviewer and appears to be making and maintaining eye contact. On a handful of occasions during the interview though, Ahmadinejad turns his gaze to the camera, speaking directly to the American audience. The gesture is undoubtedly conscious, as it requires effort and foresight to seek out the appropriate camera and look directly at it, and signals a tone of defiance that Ahmadinejad belies throughout the entire interview. For example, when he is speaking about religion and ethics, Ahmadinejad looks directly at the camera for a brief moment as he pontificates.
One of the most persistent of all of Ahmadinejad’s nonverbal leaks is the furrowing of his brows, consistent with narrow eyes. This combination of facial expressions constitutes contradicting behaviors, which indicate the subject is sending a mixed message or double meanings (“Nonverbal Communication,” n.d.). Ironically, though, Ahmadinejad will exhibit these expressions when he is saying negative things about the United States, possibly indicating that his antagonism is more of a show for the Iranian people or the anti-American elements in his country than his true feelings.
On several occasions, particularly while constructing some of his monologues like the one about religion, Ahmadinejad glances to the right and slightly downwards. He does this while raising his brows. As Ahmadinejad appears to be right handed, judging by his almost exclusive use of the right hand when making gestures, the direction of his eye gazes indicate “constructed feeling,” (Nonverbal Communication,” n.d., p. 161). Constructed feelings are essentially inauthentic, manufactured feelings. The eye gesture indicates that the speaker is a primarily emotional processor, and it also indicates that the emotional content of his communication may be insincere. When he hears President Bush is a “religious man,” Ahmadinejad launches into an emotional discussion, using rhetorical questions about whether any religion condones violence and killing. His eye movements indicate that Ahmadinejad constructs feelings of disgust and righteousness when he speaks about the hypocrisy of claiming to be religious while using violent political tactics.
When asked what he admires most about President Bush, Ahmadinejad unleashes a torrent of nonverbal leaks that mainly include brow and smile microexpressions. Because each question is being translated live, there is an unnaturally long pause between question and answer, making it hard to know what part of the pause is a nonverbal leak and what part is Ahmadinejad listening to the translation. Yet it is immediately apparent when he does hear the full question because his mouth twitches—an involuntary gesture even the subject may not have been aware of. “A twitch of the mouth or the eyebrow can suggest that the emotion being communicated is not the emotion actually being felt,” (“Nonverbal Communication,” n.d., p. 162). After the slight twitch, the subject quickly glances to the right—another microexpression—before furrowing his brow and responding that he believes President Bush should change his face. Ahmadinejad is, in fact, frank that he admires little to nothing about Bush. He even grins and then throws the question back at the interviewer, asking, “Tell me, as an American citizen, what trait do you admire about President Bush?” The act of throwing the question back mirrors the defiance Ahmadinejad showed earlier.
Likewise, Ahmadinejad retains a stiff grin throughout the interview. The grin constitutes a false smile: which uses fewer facial muscles than an authentic smile, and could even veer into a sneer, which signals contempt (“Nonverbal Communication,” n.d.). For example, Ahmadinejad smiles largest when he hears what President Bush said about his making “terrible decisions” and turning Iran into a “pariah.” The smile is inauthentic, and sends the message that he thinks President Bush is a joke. Yet when he considers Bush’s harsh words, Ahmadinejad’s face erupts into one of the few full, almost genuine smiles of the interview. Unlike the inauthentic grin he wears during the bulk of the conversation, the full smile involves the speaker’s entire face, including the muscles in his cheeks.
Because all of the nonverbal leaks exhibited during the interview indicate that Ahmadinejad may be lying, it is certainly possible that his vocalized contempt for American foreign policy is an act. He wants the audience to believe that he is antagonistic towards Bush and America. Yet as Ambady & Rosenthal (1998) point out, the face is the least leaky of the three main channels of nonverbal communication; the most leaky is the voice, followed by the body (p. 777). The body, more than the face, “escapes efforts to disguise communication or conceal information,” (Ekman & Friesen, 1974, p. 209).
Body
The camerawork clouds Ahmadinejad’s body language during the majority of the interview, frequently focusing mainly on the neck upwards. The camera only occasionally offers a glimpse of the subject’s torso and even less frequently a shot of the entire body. Ahmadinejad seems self-controlled, remaining upright, and not using any complementary movements like leaning into the conversation. He does not seem to change the position of his legs or feet during the interview, and maintains an erect back.
At key points during the interview, the subject’s body language leaks deception and emotional content but only a few times does Ahmadinejad visibly shift his posture. The first time is when he listens to Pelley quote from President Bush, who accuses his Iranian counterpart of “making terrible decisions.” When he hears this being said, Ahmadinejad shifts in his chair, moving forward for just a second but quickly controls himself. He makes it look like he was just making himself more comfortable, and perhaps this movement was a form of self-comforting. On a few occasions, Ahmadinejad tilts his head slightly to one side, but otherwise keeps his body tightly controlled except for his use of hand and arm gestures. When he tilts his head, he does so only to the left, which is the exact opposite direction of the movement of his eyes. The cluster of nonverbal leaks (eyes plus neck movement) occurs in conjunction with his speech about religion, particularly when he says as if speaking to Bush himself: “You shouldn’t sit in a room, a dark room, and hatch plots.”
Gestures
Ahmadinejad uses several gestures that leak information. The most notable is his use of finger waving, which is a form of “emphasizing,” and imparts the sense that he is admonishing the audience. Because Ahmadinejad uses finger waving during the time he responds to the quote from President Bush, his admonishment and emphasis refer to not just the interviewer and the American public, but also President Bush.
Religion is also a hot topic for Ahmadinejad, evidenced in part by the way his gestures change during this part of the conversation. He uses the finger waving as well as a cupped right hand, when Ahmadinejad places his right hand with palm facing up and cups that hand like a ball while also moving that forearm up and down. Interestingly, an open-handed gesture like this one may indicate that the speaker is soliciting comments, welcoming responses from the audience (“Nonverbal Communication,” n.d.).
One of the few times Ahmadinejad uses a nonverbal leak betraying discomfort is when he touches the sides of his lips with thumb and forefinger briefly, as if wiping food from his mouth. When he does this, though, he is still grinning. In fact, his grin grows when he learns that the harsh words were a direct quote from President Bush. The unconscious gesture of touching his mouth is what Ekman & Friesen (1974) refer to as an adaptor: an emotionally driven adaptive response (p. 212). Given that Ahmadinejad is in the process of digesting a brutal verbal assault from the American President, an unconscious gesture that looks like he is wiping food from his mouth indicates a certain level of self-consciousness, as if he has internalized the reprisal from Bush. Perhaps the insult triggered the same emotional response of public embarrassment or shame, stemming from a deeply rooted memory of his parent or other guardian admonishing him for having food on his mouth.
Voice and Regulation
Without knowing Farsi, and even more so because the translator is dubbed over Ahmadinejad while he speaks, it is difficult to use voice as a means of detecting verbal leaks in this interview. He does sometimes seem to speak louder than at other times. However, Ahmadinejad does give away valuable information about the issues that he feels most emotional about, such as religion and American foreign policy mainly by controlling the length of his responses. He often inserts a pause after a rhetorical question. He does this by using the opportunity to dominate the flow of the conversation, speaking for long periods of time and not pausing to allow the interviewer to speak.
Conclusions
In the 2007 60 Minutes interview with Scott Pelley, President Ahmadinejad leaks substantive emotional content that lends insight into the leader’s attitudes and intentions towards the United States and its allies. Oddly, the speaker does not hide his contempt at all. What is surprising is that the nonverbal leaks indicate that the concept he displays for the United States may be an act: that anti-Americanism is a persona that he uses to rile up the Iranian people and foment a normative culture of hatred for the West. Ahmadinejad does not actually believe the rhetoric, but he wants his listeners to think that he does. Finally, Ahmadinejad reveals insincerity in that he pretends to have compassion on those who suffer. When he speaks about ethics and religion, Ahmadinejad unconsciously indicates a false sense of self-righteousness, claiming verbally to have great feeling for the suffering of people who die from Bush’s war while his eyes indicate that his emotions are manufactured. Therefore, Ahmadinejad has constructed a political persona that he uses to retain the support of those who have strong anti-American values and a strong sense of religious righteousness.



References
Ambady, N. & Rosenthal, R. (1998). Nonverbal communication. Encyclopedia of Mental Health. https://ambadylab.stanford.edu/pubs/1998Ambady.pdf
Ekman, P. & Friesen, W.V. (1974). Nonverbal behavior and psychopathology. http://www.ekmaninternational.com/ResearchFiles/Nonverbal-Behavior-And-Psychopathology.pdf
“Nonverbal Communication,” (n.d.). https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/53604_Gamble_%28IC%29_Chapter_6.pdf