‘They seemed so ordinary’: why we’re so easily fooled by charm
When somene is exposed for a serious crime, those who knew them often say they seemed perfectly ordinary. A body language specialist explores why we fail to spot warning signs and what really tells us about someone's character
By 
Words: Carole Railton FRSA, Global Body Language Specialist
After a serious crime comes to light, there’s often a moment in the news coverage when someone who knew the offender says, ‘They seemed so ordinary.’ It can sound baffling. Surely someone who could do such harm would give themselves away? Then we picture the person being described: a neighbour who took in parcels, a colleague who remembered everyone’s birthday, someone we might have happily sat next to at dinner. That is what makes the remark so unsettling. We recognise the very things that would have put us at ease.
What charm tells us
Think of someone who greets you warmly, remembers a detail you mentioned weeks ago and gives you their full attention when you speak. You may come away thinking, ‘I liked them.’ It’s a small step from there to ‘I’d trust them’, and it’s easy to take that step without noticing. The warmth was something you experienced. Trustworthiness is a judgement about how that person will act when you have something at stake.
Psychologists Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson illustrated how far a first impression can travel. In their experiment, students watched one of two recordings of the same instructor. He came across as warm in one and cold in the other. The students who saw the warmer version rated his appearance, mannerisms and accent more favourably. Many failed to recognise how much their overall impression had coloured those separate judgements. Psychologists call this the halo effect. [1]
You can imagine the same thing happening in an ordinary conversation. If we already like someone, a joke at another person’s expense may strike us as an awkward attempt at humour. From someone we’re less fond of, the same joke might sound cruel. The remark is identical. The credit we give the person saying it is different.
We each see a different side of someone
Imagine a colleague who is generous with their time, makes people laugh and offers to help a new starter. Someone who knows them at home may describe a very different experience. The colleague can speak honestly about the kindness they received. Their account still covers only the part of the person’s life they saw.
That helps explain how people can give apparently conflicting descriptions of someone and both be sincere. Familiarity gives us information, but it also gives us a sense of how much we think we know. You may have spent years chatting with a neighbour at the gate. What you know well is how they behave when you chat at the gate.
What I look for as a body language specialist
People sometimes ask me what they should look for in someone’s face. I’m often more interested in what happens after someone hears a quiet, ordinary ‘no’. Do they accept it and carry on with the conversation? Do they keep asking until the other person gives in? Is this a one-off moment of frustration, or something that happens repeatedly? Those are questions about conduct you can observe over time.
A smile, a steady gaze or a relaxed posture can make an interaction feel easy. How much those cues tell us about honesty is another matter. In a large analysis of deception studies, people judging lies and truths without special aids or training were right about 54 per cent of the time. [2] Watch an interview after you know the verdict and a smile can suddenly look chilling. Show the same clip to someone who knows nothing about the case and they may see a person trying to put an interviewer at ease.
When we revisit a case, there’s a temptation to imagine the one gesture that would have revealed everything. It can be more revealing to ask what was observable at the time, who saw it and whether anyone had enough information to put it in context. The responsibility for concealing and committing harm lies with the person who did it.
I keep coming back to the neighbour at the gate. The warm greeting may have been entirely sincere. You can remember it as a pleasant moment and still leave room for someone else’s account of what happened behind closed doors. It takes some humility to say, ‘They were always kind to me,’ and let the sentence end there
