L’analyse de la communication non verbale : Les dangers de la pseudoscience en contextes de sécurité et de justice

For security and justice professionals, the thousands of peer-reviewed articles on nonverbal communication represent important sources of knowledge. However, despite the scope of the scientific work carried out on this subject, professionals can turn to programs, methods and approaches that fail to reflect the state of science. The objective of this article is to examine (i) concepts of nonverbal communication conveyed by these programs, methods and approaches, but also (ii) the consequences of their use. To achieve this objective, we describe the scope of scientific research on nonverbal communication. A program (SPOT; “Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques”), a method (the BAI; “Behavior Analysis Interview”) and an approach (synergology) that each run counter to the state of science are examined. Finally, we outline five hypotheses to explain why some organizations in the fields of security and justice are turning to pseudoscience and pseudoscientific techniques.