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Bush, State of the Union & Tongue Thrusts

I taught my Emory "Meeting of the Minds" class last night, so I had a short reprieve from analyzing President Bush’s body language in the State of the Union speech. This morning I turned on the DVR recording (a version of TVO) and started watching him.

Surprise, he is still giving his habitual tongue thrusts. A tongue thrust is when someone sticks his tongue part of the way out of the mouth. Typically this is done very quickly in what is called a micro facial cue. A body language cue done so quickly you only notice it at a subconscious level. So you may feel, “Humm, he seems aggressive, but I don’t know why.”

Bush has a habit of giving slow, definite tongue thrusts after making a comment he is uncomfortable with. I have to be very objective about my reads when I am being interviewed by the media, but hey, this is a blog. I believe he does it to gear himself up and feel more confident. He does not give tongue thrusts when he talks about Iraq or war or attacking. In reading Bush, it is clear to me he is most comfortable when he is aggressive. For a detailed interpretation of the state of the union address two years ago, see go here . I will be watching more of last night's address and blogging about it. Of course, that means I have to watch the speech over and over, so pray for me.

Gidget. The power of handshakes

So I am back from Canada on the touch campaign. The first order of business is to answer that trivia question. Gidget the 60’s surfing movie teen, got her name from Moondoggie, the boy she was so smitten with she learned to surf. Moondoggie created her name by morphing Girl with Midget to make Gidget. A name she hated in the first movie, but soon everyone, even her dad, was using it. I love the feisty character; she was surfing, back when few women were accepted in any men’s sports.

Ok, so I am back from the Media tour in Toronto. One of the highlights as body language and touch expert was an interview on an afternoon talk show. The previous day the new prime minister had his photo taken shaking hands with his small son. The host asked me about that. I personally think it was just a photo op. hopefully; the new prime minister does more than shake hands with his young son! Any touch is preferable to none. And you know my threes years of research on handshakes has found that a handshake is equal to three hours of continuous interaction. That means if you do not shake hands at the beginning of the meeting it will take three hours of talking to get to the same level of rapport you can have with one handshake. Powerful stuff touch.

Touch

I am off to Toronto today to do a media tour for Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion.
As part of the campaign you can go to their website and take a fun survey. So go try it out!

Gidget

Ok, Trivial Pursuit. Who gave Gidget her name and what does it mean?

Who gets touched the most

I told you about the research in Canada in the United States — When asked who got the most strokes (physical touch or signals to show "I know you’re there"), 44% of those surveyed said their pets got the most strokes, 18% said their children got the most strokes, and 18% said family members got equal strokes. I am off to Toronto for the touch campaign...more later!