A video showing a physical interaction between the French president and first lady went viral with many speculating what was happening when cameras caught them.
The Associated Press filmed French President Emmanuel Macron’s arrival in Hanoi, Vietnam this week, intending to capture the beginning of a visit to Southeast Asia with his wife, Brigitte.
But the video went viral for a different reason. As the airplane doors opened, the video captured Brigitte Macron pushing her husband’s face. Once the president realizes they’re being filmed, he steps away from her and waves at the cameras.
People have chimed in on what they think was happening, with many finding the interaction concerning.
But as much as laymen and experts might try to read into the clip, it is impossible to glean much from it without more context, says Karen Quigley, a psychology professor at Northeastern University.
“I don’t think it’s fair to necessarily make strong assumptions about what was happening at that moment,” says Quigley. “Admittedly, the body language (with) the hands on the face and his response after made people uncomfortable. But the reality is we don’t know what led up to it.”
Macron dismissed the idea that the interaction was anything serious, telling reporters he and his wife were “joking around.”
Macron is not the first public figure to have an interaction scrutinized. But Quigley says facial expressions and body language offer little insight into what was actually going on in that moment, especially given that it was such a brief clip.
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Research shows that when people read someone’s facial expression, they’re actually also picking up clues from their body language, Quigley says. It’s very difficult to make inferences based on facial expressions alone.
Additional context also comes into play, such as your relationship with the person with whom you’re speaking.
Some people, when trying to “read” the clip, have looked at the Macrons’ relationship, which began when Emmanuel Macron was 15. Brigitte Macron, 24 years his senior, was his high school drama teacher.
But even with this information and readings by body language experts, Quigley says the reality is it’s impossible to determine what actually happened through reading the body language.
“What would be most helpful to know is what led up to the moment, and that we can’t see because the plane door is obscuring it until you see hands on his face,” she says. “It’s hard to know why he reacted the way he did. Was it because he was embarrassed? Or could it be something more nefarious? We are not going to know. … None of these signals taken by themselves should be used in making an inference.”
Quigley pointed out there’s additional context people might not be taking into account as well, such as the fact the two had just been traveling and may not have been in the best moods.
“It’s helpful to think about the possibility that you caught someone at less than their best moment,” she says. “Is it possible that they were unhappy with each other? It seems like a reasonable possibility that they were unhappy with each other, but many couples are unhappy with each other once in a while.”
Some of the fascination people may have with decoding what happened is from the discomfort they feel watching the clip, especially in the United States, Quigley says.
“I do think Americans as a general rule tend to think that you can read things from seeing someone else’s behavior,” Quigley says. “The reality is that isn’t true. But it is so ingrained in us, and such it feels so intuitive that it’s very hard to sort of talk people out of that.”