Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2021 and was updated in April 2026 to reflect Ideapod’s current editorial standards and The Sovereign Mind Framework.
We often sense more in other people than they explicitly say. A pause, a shift in posture, a mismatch between words and expression — these small signals can shape how we interpret trust, interest, discomfort, or sincerity.
Reading people well, though, is not about decoding a few magical tells. It requires attention, restraint, and an understanding that human behavior only becomes meaningful in context.
In this article, I’ll look at what peer-reviewed research suggests about nonverbal cues and human behavior — and how to use that knowledge with more clarity and less assumption.
1) Consider the context
The first rule for knowing how to read people is to consider the context.
Tons of websites give tips by generalizing behavior. You’ve probably heard these common misconceptions:
Crossed arms means the person is disagreeing or closed off to your ideas
Feet pointing towards the door means they’re not interested or want to leave
Touching their face means they’re uncomfortable
Looking to the right means they’re lying
But humans are way too complex to be reduced to a set of generalized gestures. As researchers have said, “all nonverbal behavior must be interpreted within context.”
Let’s look at three levels of context you must consider to read people correctly.
Cultural context
The same gesture can have very different meanings across cultures. Nonverbal communication researchers Foley and Gentile explain:
“Nonverbal cues cannot be interpreted in a vacuum. No single behavior or gesture means the exact same thing in every conceivable context. For example, consider the hand gesture of extending only the index and middle fingers, spread apart in a V shape, while closing the rest of the hand. This might signify a number, two. In the United States if the palm is facing the individual using this gesture it signifies “victory” and if the palm is facing others it is identified as a symbol meaning “peace.”
In England, however, making the American “V for victory” sign is an insult with sexual connotations. In London, displaying the American peace sign instead represents victory.”
We might expect cultural differences with hand gestures – but they are present in many other behaviors: distance between people, physical touch, eye contact, smiling, and posture.
Think twice before assuming you know exactly what someone’s body language means, particularly if you don’t know their culture.
Situational context
The second type of context to consider when reading people is the situation.
Foley and Gentile give a great example:
“Crossing one’s arms across the chest might mean the patient is not open to pursuing a particular avenue of exploration; however, in another case it might simply be indicative of the office temperature being too cold for comfort.”
Any kind of nonverbal behavior must be treated with the same consideration: Are their feet pointing towards the door because they’re not interested or did their feet just land like that? Are they touching their face because they’re uncomfortable or do they have a bad habit of picking at their skin? Did they glance to the right because they’re lying or did they just see something shiny?
Individual context
The third level of context needed to read people accurately is the individual one.
Foley and Gentile once again bring this to light:
“Some individuals are naturally more expressive in terms of general animation, gestures, and affect. Others may carefully control and modulate their feelings. Certain cultures have different rules as to when it is acceptable to express a particular emotion and to what degree”
By now you may be getting an idea of how complex reading people can be. In most cases, you will not have all of this information about context. But remember that there’s never just one interpretation for something a person does.
2) Look for clusters of cues
Our second tip for learning how to read people is to consider clusters of clues.
As mentioned above, nonverbal behavior cannot be judged in isolation. But certain clusters of cues can give very accurate indications of certain thoughts and feelings.
A great example of this was found in a study on trustworthiness. The participants were paired up, had a “get-to-know-you” interview, then played a game involving money. They could either split the money fairly or trick their game partners.
Reviewing the interviews, the researchers identified a cluster of 4 nonverbal behaviors done by the deceitful participants: touching their hands, touching their face, leaning away, and crossing their arms.
The more often participants showed all four of these cues, the more they acted in their own self-interest during the game. But just one, two, or even three of the cues didn’t mean much.
So aside from cultural, situational, and individual context, also consider the context of other behaviors.
3) Look for hints on traits in the right situation
Of course you can get to know a person in many ways, but there’s no doubt that certain signs are much more telling for some traits. For example, it would be difficult to judge a person’s extroversion based on what they order for lunch.
But on the other hand: A person’s home can tell you about their conscientiousness, and a person’s blog or website can tell you how open they are.
When you’re trying to gauge a certain characteristic, make sure the context you’re looking at it in makes sense.
4) Trust your gut
If you want to read people, you might feel tempted to memorize lists of signs, like the cue clusters mentioned above. But obviously, you can’t watch out for all the cues at once and still act remotely normal in a dialogue with someone.
Research published in Cognitive Science suggests that overanalyzing can actually make people worse at detecting deception, while more intuitive processing may sometimes improve lie-versus-truth judgments.
The study participants watched videos of honest and deceptive people. Right afterwards, half of them were asked to ponder who was trustworthy. The other half were distracted by a different task. The second group was significantly better at identifying who was honest.
Why? Because their subconscious minds could analyze what it saw and heard without being bogged down by conscious analysis.
Bottom line: when you’re trying to read people, don’t overanalyze. Instead, get busy with work or watch a series. Your subconscious mind will be hard at work in the meantime.
5) Separate your biases from objective observations
To read people like a book, you must become aware of bias and separate it from your perceptions — or at least try to.
There are many different types of bias, and they could all lead us to read someone the wrong way: Halo effect might make you perceive someone attractive as nicer than they really are. Confirmation bias might make you look for signs that confirm your current opinion of the person, ignoring those that contradict it. Anchoring bias might make you place too much importance on your first impression of them, even if it is clear it was incorrect.
But of course, this happens to everyone else except you, right? Think again — research shows one of the biggest biases is believing that you are less biased than others.
This is one obstacle to reading people that is very difficult to remove. Even becoming aware of biases doesn’t do much to reduce them. That’s why it’s important to understand that they are always at play and keep this in mind in your interactions.
You can take Harvard’s Project Implicit questionnaire to find out what biases might be affecting your thinking.
6) Consider how your own behavior affects them
You’re learning how to read other people — but don’t think that your own behavior has nothing to do with it.
Our own nonverbal behavior can influence other people’s, to a great deal. This is demonstrated by a study conducted during psychotherapy sessions.
A patient brought up past sexual abuse, then quickly changed the subject. During the session the psychotherapist thought this was a sign of the patient feeling uncomfortable.
But when the psychotherapist later reviewed a videotape of the appointment, she realized that she herself had looked uncomfortable: she leaned back slightly in her chair, and crossed her own arms and legs. The patient was responding to the psychotherapist’s own signals of discomfort, and that’s why she switched to more superficial topics.
This may be hard for you to determine without having a videotape or recording of your interactions — but if by any chance you do, review it and look at yourself carefully. Or, ask for feedback from a third person in the conversation.
7) Watch people’s facial expressions
We’ll go through many strategies for how to read people, but don’t forget that one of the main ones is still to watch facial expressions.
They are relatively straightforward and intuitive to identify. You’ve probably heard of the six “universal expressions“: surprise, fear, disgust, anger, happiness, and sadness.
But don’t assume that facial expressions always tell you how the person is feeling. A 2017 analysis of around 50 studies showed that people’s faces rarely reflected their actual feelings.
Instead, finding that expressions are not so much a mirror of your emotions, and much more a signal of what we want to happen next. For example: A “disgusted” face could mean someone isn’t happy with the way the conversation is going, and wants it to take a different track. A friend’s scowl doesn’t necessarily mean they’re angry — they just want you to agree with them.
Talya Rachel Meyers goes so far as to compare us to puppeteers: our expressions are like “invisible wires or ropes that you are trying to use to manipulate the other.”
In a nutshell, do watch people’s faces, but don’t assume you’ve got them all figured out. As another researcher explains in the same BBC piece, “You have to have some kind of knowledge of the person’s role with respect to you, and also your history together, before knowing what that face means.”
8) Listen for emotions in the voice
We just saw how facial expressions are useful for reading people, but not always accurate reflections of emotions. Well, that’s where voice comes in.
A 2023 study shows that our sense of hearing is much better at detecting emotion than seeing facial expressions. In fact, we are better at identifying emotion when we only listen to a person’s voice than if we both listen to their voice and see their facial expressions.
For example: Quick breathing, clipped words, and many pauses could mean the person is anxious or upset. Slow, monotone speaking could show they are exhausted or sick. Quick, louder speech could mean they are excited.
Another study found that we can identify not only basic emotions in the voice (positive vs negative, or excited vs calm), but also fine nuances.
So if you really need to know how a person feels about something, arrange a phone call rather than an in-person meeting.
9) Pay attention to their voice
Aside from showing emotions, a person’s voice can also help you read their personality.
One study examined the connection between pitch and the Big 5 personality traits. There were no significant relations found for agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, or openness.
But they did find people with lower pitched voices tend to be more: Dominant, Extroverted, and Interested in casual sex.
Speed can be another helpful indicator. A 2022 study found that introverts react slower – that is, they pause a bit longer before responding.
Another study took this even further and compared speech characteristics to people’s Myers-Briggs Personality Type. They found a few more indicators: “perceiving” types speak faster than “judging” ones, “judging” types are louder than “perceiving” ones, “intuiting” types use more discourse markers than “sensing” ones, and extroverts respond faster than introverts.
10) Listen to their words
We use words to express our thoughts. It’s no surprise they are a powerful tool to read people.
LaRae Quy, a former counterintelligence agent, explained it like this:
“As an FBI agent, I found words were the closest way for me to get into another person’s head. Words represent thoughts, so identify the word that is freighted with meaning.
“For example, if your boss says she’s “decided to go with brand X,” the action word is decided. This single word indicates that most likely your boss 1) is not impulsive, 2) weighed several options, and 3) thinks things through.
“Action words offer insights into the way a person thinks.”
If you’re trying to gauge status between people, also listen for how many times each person says “I”. In The Secret Life of Pronouns, psychology professor James W. Pennebaker mentions that the person with highest status in a relationship tends to use “I” the least, and the person with the lowest status uses it the most.
11) Look at their posture
Posture is another helpful clue in learning how to read people.
Research has shown that emotionally stable people tend to stand in a relaxed stance. In comparison, neurotic people stand in a more rigid and tense way.
Another thing to keep in mind is distance between two people. When people are flirting, the space between them often decreases, according to a behavior analyst.
But of course, it could also mean that the room is too loud and they can’t hear – remember not to look at cues out of context.
One thing seems clear – posture is rather difficult to control, and therefore to fake. Even if a person can control their facial expressions, their posture is usually natural.
12) Watch how they tilt their head
Head inclination is only a small part of posture — but it also helps identify a person’s emotions.
When we speak, we often move our heads in an expressive way. A study examined these movements and people’s emotions, and found: when expressing positive emotions people tilt their head up, and when expressing negative emotions people tilt their head down.
When people are talking, watch if their head tilt betrays any emotions they’re trying to hide. This is a tiny detail, but still one more piece of the puzzle.
13) Look how often they nod their heads
To understand the relationship between people, watch how often they nod their heads.
A study found these tendencies: both men and women nod more often when talking to an authority figure, and women also nod more often than men to their peers.
A lot of nodding could therefore signal a person sees someone with a lot of respect, or considers them an authority figure.
Furthermore, exaggerated nodding often means they’re worried what the other person thinks of them.
14) Look at their smile — but don’t overestimate it
In the section on facial expressions, we mentioned that facial expressions rarely reflect people’s actual feelings. But researchers found one strong exception: amusement, which usually leads to smiling or laughing.
Nonetheless, don’t assume that you can see everything from the smile. Researchers used to believe that a genuine smile was impossible to fake. But actually, a more recent study has shown that people are pretty good at faking a “genuine smile”, even if they’re not feeling happy.
What does this mean then? If you feel like a person’s smile is fake, you might be right. But just because a person’s smile looks genuine, doesn’t mean it really is.
15) Look at their clothing
This is one strategy for reading people you’re surely already using, even if just unconsciously: look at the persons’ clothes.
A 2020 study showed that we judge people’s personality just based on appearance. And it turns out, we’re usually quite spot on.
Study participants looked at photographs of people they didn’t know in natural, expressive poses. They accurately judged 9 out of 10 major personality traits, including: Extraversion, Openness, Likability, and Loneliness.
Of course, this wasn’t done solely based on clothes: posture and facial expression played a big part. But even when the photo subjects were in a controlled pose with a neutral expression, the participants could still accurately judge some major personality traits.
It’s clear that clothing plays an important role in expressing personality — use that to your advantage.
16) Watch their hands
Another tip for reading people is watching their hands.
If someone is playing with their hands excessively, this could signal anxiety. We can try to control our faces, voices, and words as best we can, but pent up stress usually comes out one way or another.
But of course it isn’t always that straightforward — successful businessman and global educator Dan Lok says:
“If a person is playing with their hands too much while talking, it actually means, ‘I like this.'”
He also mentions that tapping their fingers together means they are thinking. So if you see this in the context of a business negotiation, it could be a great sign that they’re seriously considering your offer.
17) Watch how they walk
Walking is another behavior that is hard to control and fake. Most of us don’t even realize how we walk, and what impression it might give – we rarely get to see ourselves walking. But others do — and a 2017 study suggests it can tell a lot about us!
Everything comes into play: speed, step size, and the position of our arms.
As with all the other tips here, don’t assume that a sign is 100% accurate. But here are some walking styles that might indicate certain personality traits: A fast walker might be highly outgoing, conscientious, open, and low in neuroticism. A slow walker with head slightly down could be cautious and looking out for themselves, or introverted. Veering slightly left might indicate anxiety in general or in the moment. Strolling with head up and no real direction could show confidence, self-assurance, and lack of urgency.
18) Watch their legs
Our legs are the largest part of our body — yet many people don’t pay much attention to them when trying to read someone.
But we should. Psychologist Susan Krauss Whitbourne points out, “anxiety can translate very directly into an unconscious leg-shaking or foot-tapping.”
This can happen especially if the person is sitting down. We might pay a lot of attention to keeping a neutral face, or pay attention to our hands as they are more easily seen. However, we may not realize we are moving our legs, or care to notice, especially if they’re hidden under the table.
19) Check out their shoes
Above, we talked about the role of clothing in reading people. Well as you eye the person’s attire, don’t forget to glance all the way down — at their shoes!
Research shows that shoes tell us a surprising amount. People were able to judge the shoe owner’s personality with reasonable accuracy even by looking at pictures of the shoes alone! And when they could see the shoe along with the owner, their predictions were much more accurate still.
The attractiveness and comfort of the shoe were particularly important.
Here are some correlations the study found: masculine or high top shoes suggested less agreeable personalities, flashy shoes correlated with extroversion, old but attractive and well-kept shoes indicated conscientiousness, shabby and inexpensive shoes suggested liberal tendencies, ankle shoes correlated with aggressiveness, uncomfortable shoes suggested calm personalities, new shoes indicated attachment anxiety, and practical and affordable shoes suggested agreeable and friendly personalities.
20) Trust the process
Reading people is both an art and a skill that develops over time. The key is to remain curious rather than judgmental, and to hold your observations lightly rather than as absolute truths.
Remember that everyone is complex, multifaceted, and constantly changing. What you observe in one moment or context may not represent who they are in another situation. The goal isn’t to categorize or judge people, but to understand them more deeply and connect more authentically.
The Sovereign Mind lens
Learning to read people authentically requires moving beyond quick assumptions and cultural programming. The Sovereign Mind framework offers three perspectives that can deepen your ability to understand others.
Unlearning: Release inherited beliefs about what certain gestures “always mean” or assumptions that all cultures communicate the same way. Challenge the social scripts that tell you crossed arms equal hostility or that eye contact always signals honesty.
Restoration: Cultivate calm attention that can notice subtle cues without rushing to judgment. When your mind is regulated and present, you’re better able to perceive the full context of someone’s behavior rather than fixating on isolated gestures.
Defense: Protect your observations from the noise of bias, stereotypes, and snap judgments. Maintain awareness that your own emotional state and preconceptions can cloud your ability to see others clearly.
Building your observation skills
Developing the ability to read people well requires consistent practice and self-awareness. Here are several approaches to strengthen these skills over time.
Start with yourself: Notice your own nonverbal patterns throughout the day. When do you cross your arms, fidget, or change your posture? Understanding your own behavioral patterns helps you recognize similar cues in others.
Practice the pause: Before jumping to conclusions about someone’s behavior, take a mental pause. Ask yourself what else could explain what you’re observing, and consider the cultural, situational, and individual contexts at play.
Focus on clusters, not isolated signs: Train yourself to look for patterns of behavior rather than single gestures. Notice how voice tone, facial expressions, posture, and word choice work together to create a more complete picture.
Observe in different settings: Watch how the same person behaves in various contexts — formal meetings, casual conversations, stressful situations. This helps you distinguish between their natural patterns and situational responses.
Check your assumptions: When possible, verify your observations by asking open-ended questions or simply spending more time with the person. Sometimes direct, caring conversation reveals more than any amount of behavioral analysis.
Cultivate genuine curiosity: Approach people-reading as a way to understand and connect rather than to gain advantage or make judgments. This mindset shift often leads to more accurate and compassionate observations.
