Body Language Expert Dissects Iconic Pelosi/Trump Photo

[ECSkeptic]

7. You have to be careful...

...with analyses like these. The problem is that the analyzer already knows the content of the meeting, what was said and the effects it had, and that can inject bias into the analysis. If you already know the general emotional state of the participants (and we already know Trump was getting his fat ass handed to him), it's almost impossible not to interpret everything you see in a manner consistent with your knowledge of the events.

That's not a knock on the writer or their expertise; it's an observation about how human brains work. Confirmation bias can and does creep in subconsciously into observation and analyses. The best way to analyze the body language of a photo would be to have it coded using a consistent coding scheme by more than one body language expert, all of whom should have no knowledge of the event other than the photo itself. Then their codings would be pooled/averaged. However, given the widespread exposure of these events, I don't think that's feasible in this case.

It's still an interesting article, and makes some very intriguing observations, but I would be cautious about making scientific or psychological claims based on this kind of analysis.