Look ’Em in the Eye: Part I – The Importance of Eye Contact
by Brett & Kate McKay
How often have you talked with another guy who never looked you in the eye during the entire length of the conversation? Or perhaps he did meet your gaze a few times, but then his eyes shifted back to his shoes or to some point off in the distance. I’d like to say that the ability to make good eye contact is one of the social skills a lot of young men seem to be struggling with these days, which would be true, but I’ve encountered enough gaze-averting middle-aged men to know that it’s a multi-generational problem. And actually, it’s probably something men have always struggled with – females are on average better at making and holding eye contact than males, and in fact, it’s been found that the higher the levels of testosterone a fetus is exposed to in utero, the less eye contact they make as infants – across genders. Interestingly, the exception to this rule are male babies who have the very highest levels of T; they end up being as adept at eye contact as their female counterparts – alpha babies aren’t afraid to look you in the eye! But just because making eye contact doesn’t come naturally to us men, doesn’t mean you should just shrug your shoulders and accept this predisposition. The ability to make high-level eye contact is a skill every man should work on, as it has been shown to create some incredible benefits for the gazer. Numerous studies have shown that people who make higher-levels of eye contact with others are perceived as being:
And not only does increased eye contact make you seem more appealing in pretty much every way to those you interact with, it also improves the quality of that interaction. Eye contact imparts a sense of intimacy to your exchanges, and leaves the receiver of your gaze feeling more positive about your interaction and connected to you. In short, making greater eye contact with others can increase the quality of all of your face-to-face interactions; there’s no area of your life where being seen as more attractive, confident, and trustworthy wouldn’t be a boon. Being able to look people in the eye and hold their gaze can help you better network with others, land a job, pitch an idea, make a moving speech, woo the ladies, and intimidate your enemies. It can help a lawyer win over a jury, a boxer psych out his opponent, and a minister connect with his congregants. It can even aid a musician in winning over new fans; studies have shown that the more eye contact a musician makes with his audience, the more they enjoy his music – take note ye members of struggling bands! And the best part of all this is that improving your eye contact is something you can do relatively quickly and easily. Next week in the second article of this two-part series, we’ll cover all the practical nuts and bolts on how to do that, and offer some really helpful eye contact tips for both general conversational situations as well as specific scenarios. But today we’d like to begin with an exploration of why making eye contact is so important in forming relationships with other people, and why it can be so hard to do. Why Eye Contact Is Vitally Important for Creating Positive Connections with OthersWhy does making eye contact with people have such a dramatic effect in improving their perception of you? There are four main reasons:
1. Our eyes were made to connect. It’s easy to see why the eyes of others capture our gaze: they’re free-moving orbs lodged in an otherwise stationary face; eyeballs are really kind of weird when you think about them, aren’t they? But they also grab our attention for a reason that is distinctly human. While our irises and pupils float on a bright white canvas, none of the other 220 species of primates have white in their eyes at all, or at least whites that can readily be seen. The whites of our eyes make it very easy for others to see exactly what we’re looking at and notice when our focus changes direction. While primates will typically turn their gaze in the direction a person points his whole head towards, a human infant is more likely to follow the person’s eyes, regardless of which way the person’s head is tilted. Anthropologists think our uniquely human eyes evolved to help us achieve a greater level of cooperation with others, which is helpful in survival and building a civilization. All of which is to say: your eyes were made to communicate with the eyes of other people. 2. Our eyes reveal our thoughts and feelings. You’ve probably heard the old expression: “The eyes are the window to the soul.” While that may not be literally true, they do reveal a great deal about what we’re really thinking and feeling from moment to moment. Think of all the eye-related expressions we have in our language. We’re seduced by “bedroom eyes,” wary of “shifty eyes,” and afraid of getting the “evil eye.” We’re attracted to people who have “kind eyes” and eyes that “sparkle,” “glow,” or “twinkle,” while we’re repelled by those who are “dead behind the eyes.” When someone is eager and peppy we say they’re “bright-eyed;” when they’re bored we describe their eyes as “glazed over.” Love stories in both fiction and real life very often begin with two pairs of eyes meeting across a room. And Bryan Adams says you can gauge your love for a woman from your ability to see your unborn children in her eyes! Kind of romantic, kind of creepy. That we give so much credence to the idea that we can read someone from what’s in their eyes is due to the fact that even when we hide what we’re really thinking and feeling in our body language and facial expressions, it’s often still revealed in our eyes. “The eyes don’t lie” as people say (although good liars can, in reality, get their eyes to fib for them). This is why poker players often wear sunglasses in order to disguise their reactions to the hands they’re dealt.
The human propensity to look to someone’s eyes in order to decipher what they’re thinking starts very early in life. Around 9-18 months, infants will begin to look to their parents’ eyes to figure out what they’re trying to convey when their face is otherwise ambiguous. And we continue to do this for the rest of our lives. Finally, we lend a lot of weight to eye contact in our interactions because it's a form of simultaneous communication. You don't have to take turns expressing yourselves as you do with talking. If you've ever had a whole mini conversation across the room with your spouse, using only your eyes, you know how this works. 3. Eye contact shows attention. Sociologists tell us that people are starved for attention these days. Despite the fact that we’re more “connected” than ever, folks are hungry for face-to-face interactions and someone to really, sincerely listen to them. This hunger for attention can manifest itself in things like “conversational narcissism.” And if you read our discussion about that social malady from awhile back, you’ll remember that we talked about how you show your attention to someone with whom you are talking by using “support-responses,” such as nodding your head and offering “background acknowledgments” like “mmm’s” and “yeah’s.” Well, eye contact is another form of background acknowledgement – and a very important one at that. It shows the speaker that you’re tuned in to what he's saying. Think of how crappy you feel when you’re talking with someone and he's looking all around the room for someone else to ditch you for. The ability to give eye contact to someone as they speak is an especially powerful tool these days; it has become so common for people to break their gaze to check their phone during a conversation, that giving someone your complete and undivided attention can truly win them over.
February 9, 2012 Copyright © 2012 The Art of Manliness
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