Of all the ways we communicate with people, eye contact is the most powerful. "How we look at other people, meet their gaze and look away can make all the difference between an effective encounter and one that leads to embarrassment or even rejection." Whether it's a loving gaze, hostile stare, nervous glance or a refusal to look altogether, the duration of the contact (or lack thereof) reveals our interest in the other party and the situation.
Looking at people and meeting their eyes are the first steps toward striking up friendships and making positive impressions. The best advice is to make short frequent glances in social situations. Making eye contact for too long a duration can be seen as threatening; the subtext of interest becomes distorted. Failing to look at others causes suspicion as they wonder what signals are being masked. "Honesty and the ability to look someone in the eye are very closely related" Refusing to make eye contact also sends messages of arrogance and contempt communicating to the other person that they are insignificant, a non-person. There are subtle, silent rules to eye contact and they vary from culture to culture.
With people we don't know where our personal "bubble of space" is also being invaded, eye contact hardly exists. In an elevator, on a plane or on the street, make contact if you wish, but break it immediately. Any glance longer than a brief one becomes a sign of recognition or rudeness. In general conversation, you can make eye contact for a few seconds at a time before breaking it. And in public speaking situations, glances of even longer duration are vital to getting your message across
In normal conversation, eye contact plays an important role as the regulator of turn taking. To start a conversation with someone, you need to first establish eye contact. If that person looks back, "permission" has been granted to begin speaking. As soon as the conversation begins, you will find that as the speaker, you look away from the listener glancing back only intermittently to check in. If you're speaking to a group, be sure to check in with all sets of eyes to maintain their interest. When you are done, grant permission via eye contact to the person who has signalled his intention to speak next. If you don't want to be interrupted by someone, avoid his gaze. Without eye contact, your listener will find it more difficult to interrupt which will keep you in control of the conversation.
When we pause to choose our words, we usually look away from our audience. Some people look to the left, some to the right. Experts tell us that those who look away to the right are more scientifically minded. Those who look to the left tend to be more religious or artistic. If we're gathering our thoughts to answer a question, the hemispheres of our brain determine which way we look. If we're asked a verbal question, we tend to look right to gather our thoughts. A spatial question will cause most of us to look to the left. In public speaking situations, skilled speakers look directly at their audience when they want to emphasize a point or display conviction. At other times, they sweep with audience with their eyes taking a few seconds to "click" with each set of eyes. Their goal is to appear as though they are having a mini-conversation with each member of the audience
It is important not to make eye contact look deliberate or controlled. The goal is always to use your eyes in a relaxed way so that you never make others feel uncomfortable
• Listeners typically look at the speaker about 75% of the time in glances lasting 1-7 seconds
• Eye contact rarely lasts longer than three seconds before one or both viewers experience a powerful urge to glance away
• In Japan, listeners are taught to focus on a speaker's neck in order to avoid eye contact, while in the U.S., listeners are encouraged to gaze into a speaker's eyes.
• If someone should surprise you, stay calm. Look him right in the eye--always maintain eye contact. That way you don't look shifty-eyed, but, more important, all he will notice is your eyes.
• When speaking with others, people who have a hard time making new friends are more likely to look down at the ground, or look away. They rarely will look at the face of the person they are talking with.
How many of us thought we are Raj from Dilwale Dulhaniyan Le Jayenge... Thinking that our Simran will look back when I say "Palte ke deek".
How many of us might have thought about someone when we made some sort of Eye Contact in School and College...
Come on Bring back some spark from old days
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2 comments:
I don’t think this need to be this complicated.
If you know how to listen then you should be automatically looking into the eyes of the speaker without any uneasiness. If you are the speaker, and if you are true to yourself, then also you should be automatically looking into the eyes of the listener. Eye-contact is something that should happen without you even realizing it. Any conscious effort to create an eye-contact would result into nothing but a disaster. Being in a western country for so long, I have had situations where I had to talk to ladies who are scanty dressed where our (men’s) attention could easily be diverted to their cleavages. On such situations, without any embarrassment I look once at what they are intended to show us (with them too knowing) and continue talking without any further furtive glances or uneasiness. Even while talking to enemies, I never had problems talking with proper eye contact because I listen to them genuinely as I would with anyone else. Instead of teaching people how to make proper eye-contact, we should be educating people to have understanding and tolerance with one another so that they will learn to listen to one another; eye contacts are established automatically when such people talk each other. Those who have problems having proper eye contacts while talking are mostly non-genuine and they should better not talk with whom they are not comfortable talking.
Being a very good listener, I never had problems to have proper eye-contact while listening to anyone. I listen actively to people whether the talker is genuine or not. One of two things can happen, either the conversation will continue interestingly or it can end abruptly. When you genuinely listen, many people tend to be honest because they know you are listening and anything they say not correlating each other could be easily be caught. I had personal experiences with many people who others say are great talkers. These people could not stand a stance with me even while I not opening my mouth at all. They feel uncomfortable very soon they start talking because they know what they talk is mostly crap and since I am listening very actively with proper eye contact, they could not continue. Whereas talking with genuine people never been a problem because they know what they are talking and so am I. I never succumbed to any glib talker. You need to be extra vigilant and cautious in such circumstances; in fact you need to be always that way in life, with presence of mind.
In my opinion, those who have problems keeping an eye contact with people to whom they are talking are cowards and they should be looking into themselves to see what could they do to make them brave instead of looking for a training class to ‘have a proper eye contact’ while conversing. When you are confident in life eye contacts come automatically. Some people say they cannot look at Matha Amrthananthamayi’s eyes or Sathyasaibhava’s eyes. I cannot understand why not if you know you are not guilty. If you feel guilty and going to see these people for comfort and solace, may be true, power of their eyes indeed are to be great (for such people), and you won’t feel brave looking at them because you know you are culpable. But, otherwise why you should feel guilty? I vividly remember a scene from ‘Benhur’, the famous movie. Slaves are flogged and transported to other cities in very hot days. On one such day, they stopped at a small village for the soldiers and even for their horses to have water but not for the slaves. Christ happens to be in that small village and he came out with a pan of water and gave it to a slave who was dying of exhaustion. A soldier, seeing a villager giving water to a slave, got so angry and came rushing towards Christ (soldier does not know the villager is Christ) and about to whack his rope at him when Christ raised his head and looked at the soldier. The hand that rose to beat the villager stood in the air and soldier’s eyes suddenly jerked as if a person’s eyes shirk away from a blistering sun. Soldier could not look into Christ’s compassionate eyes. It is one of many beautiful scenes in that movie. Anyway, the point here is, soldier is not able to make an eye contact because he is inherently guilty. I do not think I would ever have problems talking with any great man/woman looking at their eyes.
Those who have problems having proper contacts are those who are either shy (not brave), or not genuine (those who know they lie). So, in order to have proper eye contact while talking 1) Be genuine. Never disguise things. Don’t tell lies. 2) Don’t talk crap while pretending you talk gold when you know what you talk is crap. 3) Language is a means to communicate not to manipulate. So, make sure there is clarity in your language and never use it to manipulate things however versatile you are in your language, because those people who are not as ‘smart’ as you can take what you say for granted because of its ‘seeming clarity’ (only you know you are bull-shitting) and fallen prey for your gullible plans. Though this is what happening all around the world, this is not meant for a genuine and honest person. So, if you are genuine and honest, your intention should be to have clarity in what you say and do and in that case, eye contact comes automatically. 4) Don’t be shy, if you want to look at someone’s cleavage while talking, do so (with a smile, it helps to alleviate your uneasiness a little bit) because they are showing their cleavage for everyone to look at it. So why feel shy? Once you look at it, I do not think you then will have problem having an eye contact. If even afterwards you have problems talking with that person with a proper eye contact, you should consult a mental doctor. 5) Always feel confident in what you are and never try to show something which you are not. Doing so greatly help having a proper eye contact while talking with anyone. 6) If you are in a stage and feeling numbness and having problems keeping eye-contacts, step out of the stage and let someone else to do your part. If you ‘genuinely’ (look at my points before) wanted to do it, then you should be able to do it without any problems.
If you can think of any other situations where you think people might have trouble keeping an eye-contact, let me know, we will discuss. Looking at someone’s neck or looking through their eyes is not a lasting solution for someone who is ‘suffering’ from lack of eye-contact.
Have you ever had problems having eye-contacts with kids while you talk to them? Think about it and learn from it.
Hilal:
Interesting to read, both the post and the so much long comment by Anand...
Eye contacts can be 'potentially dangerous' -- that was the lesson I had at college :)))
Nonetheless I still choose to keep the 'necessary' contacts with the other's eyes while communicating...it comes natural.
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