Friday, April 6, 2012

Romance, Dating & Marriage - Body Language Secret # 1500:
Six Degrees? Leaning In, Head Touching and the Manubrium -
Kyra and Kevin are 10th Cousins, Once Removed


























Turns out Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon are distant cousins. The couple has been married for more than 23 years and have two grown children, Travis and Sosie. During their inclusion in the recent PBS series, "Finding Your Roots", DNA analyses were perform and it turns out that there is a bit more than "Six degrees of Separation" between the Hollywood couple. According to Kyra, her and Kevin are, "....10th cousins, once removed". Truth be told, if similar studies were performed on all married couples, this would be much more frequent than most people would think. It was even common knowledge at the time that FDR and Eleanor were 5th cousins, once removed.

I include the image above to demonstrate a powerful body language tell. When true affection is present, there is a leaning towards one another - often of the entire body. Sedgwick and Bacon are very often photographed displaying variations of this nonverbal. This universal nonverbal phenomenon is particularly true for the head & neck regions - and very often even a touching of heads is seen (in all cultures and even cross-species). Conversely, when affection begins to wane, this "leaning-in" and "head touching" will start to diminish and eventually cease altogether. 

In the video segment below, where Kyra is featured on Late Night with David Letterman, she also revealed that she's distantly related to President Nixon, President Carter and Marilyn Monroe. Near the end of the video, when Sedgwick discloses her common ancestry with her husband, note that she touches the upper portion of her breast bone (the manubrium) - just beneath her neck. This "Manubrial Touch" is an extremely common body language signal of anxiety. A very similar maneuver is often seen when women will touch/move back and forth the pendant of their necklace and men will falsely adjust their tie or collar. Despite the fact that Sedgwick is a fantastic actress (she's a winner of both a Golden Globe and an Emmy) and she gets paid very well to suspend our disbelief - the sharing this information publicly - produces significant anxiety and even and accomplished and skilled actress cannot hide it. Nor can we.

See also: Secret # 21: The Romantic Height Ratio

See also: Secret # 54: The Manubrium Touch Betrays Our Feelings

See also: Secret # 1209: Even Putin Has Anxiety - False Tie Adjust




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