Did psychologist Paul Ekman say that Yulia Navalnaya could not contain her joy and relief when speaking after the death of her husband?

In February 2024, the media and social networks reported that the author of the best-selling book “Fool Me If You Can” analyzed the behavior of Alexei Navalny’s widow and drew attention to her “strange smile” during a statement to the press. We checked to see if Ekman claimed this.

First reports of the death of politician Alexei Navalny in a special regime colony appeared February 16, 2024 and found his wife Julia in Munich, where an international security conference was taking place. During her press appearance, Navalnaya notedthat at that time she had no reason to trust Russian government sources telling about her husband’s death, and called on the world to unite against Vladimir Putin and his regime. Subsequently she confirmed information about the death of a spouse.

The next day, February 17, numerous posts appeared on social networks that psychologist Paul Ekman, the prototype of the main character of the series “Lie to Me,” analyzed Navalnaya’s behavior during her speech in Munich and drew attention to facial expressions that supposedly indicate joy and relief. “Yulia Navalnaya’s reaction is not the reaction of a woman who recently learned about the death of her beloved husband. Before us is a powerful woman who, after the death of her husband, finally received all the attention of this world. This is what she wanted, so that the whole world would talk only about her,” this is a quote from Ekman given by most Telegram channels. Many such publications are accompanied by videos.

According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, such posts on Telegram received a total of about 1.5 million views. They appeared in the channels "KB"(271,000 views), "Uncle Slava"(208,000), Voblya (155,000), "Sheikh Tamir"(149,000), "First People's" (128,000), "Rosich | Rosich"(104,000), "Angry Bunny 18+" (55,000), "Isn't it a Russian bear?" (53,000), "Signal" (44,000), etc. In addition, the TV channel "Constantinople", "Notebook", Topress, also similar posts gain tens of thousands of views on VKontakte (examples here, here And here), "Zene" (here And here) and social networks X (here, here And here). English-language tweet from a pro-Russian account Zlatti71 received almost 330,000 views.

In a viral video lasting almost two minutes, Navalnaya appears several times before beginning her speech at the Munich conference. smiled to those present in the hall. The English captions in the video read as follows:

Paul Ekman: Yulia Navalnaya could not contain her joy and relief.

University of California psychologist Paul Ekman was surprised by Yulia Navalnaya’s reaction to the news of her husband’s death. The author of the book Telling Lies, Paul Ekman, commented on Yulia Navalnaya’s speech at the Munich Security Conference after the news of the death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison. “Yulia Navalnaya’s reaction is not the reaction of a woman who recently learned about the death of her beloved husband,” noted Paul Ekman. The psychologist added that to the average person, Yulia Navalnaya’s smile may seem nervous. However, the specialist believes that this is not so. “I have been studying human reactions for 30 years. And I can say with confidence that before us is a powerful woman who, after the death of her husband, finally received all the attention of the world,” says the psychologist. “This is what she wanted - for the whole world to talk only about her.” Yulia Navalnaya’s thirst for attention and power breaks through the mask of grief at the very beginning of her speech. “The first seconds give it away. Yulia Navalnaya could not contain her joy and relief. This is the face of a person who has finally stepped out of the shadow of her husband, and this makes her very happy,” added Paul Ekman. “There’s no one else to share everyone’s attention with.” This is what she dreamed of. Now she is truly happy." Paul Ekman has spent over 30 years studying deception theory and is the world's leading expert in the field. He also acted as a consultant and prototype for the main character of the famous television series Lie to Me.

In the upper right corner of the video is the logo of the American Psychological Association (APA), and the closing title card also invites viewers to read the full story in the new issue of APA's Monitor on Psychology. However, “Verified” did not find a similar article about Navalnaya on any website publications, nor in any other reputable media, nor on official resources Paul Ekman Group. In addition, the video did not contain Ekman’s own words, but only archival materials with superimposed captions.

TV channel "Rain" appealed to the psychologist's press office and received a response from Ekman's representatives: “Thank you for contacting us and sharing your appreciation for Dr. Ekman's work, however, the scope of our work does not include advice on personal, legal or political issues. It is also Ekman Group's policy to refrain from commenting on the truthfulness and/or nonverbal behavior of others."

In turn, “Verified” studied the viral video and found signs of fakery in it. Thus, the ending with a proposal to read the full version of the story in the magazine is found only in a certain type of APA videos - for example, in the YouTube channel of their association post in shorts format. Previously organization talked with more than a hundred psychologists and learned from them what problems they will face in 2024 - these are the topics similar videos are devoted to. However, all of them were voiced by a female voice, lasted about half a minute and began with a special splash screen, which was different on the viral recording (the inscription 2024 Trends was missing, a different font was used). “Verified” sent a request to the APA press service with a request to comment on the video about Ekman and Navalnaya, but at the time of publication of this text, it did not receive a response.

Thus, Paul Ekman did not give a public comment in which he analyzed Yulia Navalnaya’s behavior several hours after she learned of her husband’s death. Another fake video has been spread across the Internet. mimicking under the story of an authoritative Western publication.

Cover photo: video screenshot @dwrussian (YouTube)

Fake

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