Adrian Furnham Ph.D.

A Sideways View

The Secrets of Eye Contact, Revealed

Who we look at, and for how long, can have far more impact than our words.
Posted Dec 10, 2014

Source: Racorn/Shutterstock
Trivial, irrelevant, and essentially of no scientific interest."
This was the initial reaction to my Ph.D. supervisors most quoted paper,
published almost exactly 50 years ago. The topic was eye gazewhen,
where, and why people look at each other, particularly in the eye. But since
then it has attracted a great deal of interest.
The eyes are the messengers of the soul. We keep our eyes open (or
peeled), we see eye-to-eye with some but turn a blind eye to others.
Some people are more than meets the eye, some are the apple of your
eye, and some a sight for sore eyes. You may prefer not to bat an eye
but be sure that no one can pull the wool over your eyes.
We can accurately read emotions just from eye slits, which is why talking to
people wearing dark glasses, or worse, mirrored lenses can be so
problematic.
Where, when, and how we look at others are all part of the phenomenon of
eye gaze, one of our most important and primitive means of communication.

Gaze plays a crucial role in conversation. Looking at another person is a way

of getting feedback on particular points. It is also used as a synchronizing
signal. People tend to look up at the end of utterances: This gives them
feedback and hands over the conversational baton. People also look up more
at the end of grammatical breaks, but look away when hesitating, talking
non-fluently, or thinking. There is often mutual eye contact during attempted
interruptions, laughing, and when answering short questions.
Gaze functions to encourage and persuade in all human beings. For instance
we know that:

A gazer may invite interaction by staring at another person on the

other side of a room. The target's studied return of the gaze is
generally interpreted as acceptance of the invitation, while averting
the eyes is a rejection of the request. We deal with embarrassment by
looking away; it discourages further conversation. We ignore and
punish behavior simply by gaze aversion.
(At school we used have fun shaping teacher behavior. The game went
like this: If the teacher was a perambulator who wandered around the
room, every time he or she moved to the left side of the room you
looked up, smiled, and maintained eye-contact. Every time he or she
moved to the right, you looked away. Then you measured how much
time the teacher spent on either side of the room. We learned that you
can powerfully influence others by simply maintaining or avoiding eye
contact.)

There is more mutual eye contact between friends than others, and a
looker's frank gaze is widely interpreted as positive regard. Lovers
really do gaze more into each others eyes.

People who seek eye contact while speaking are regarded not only as
exceptionally well-disposed by their targets, but also as more
believable and earnest. Politicians "sweep" room with their gaze.
Salesmen know to look at each member of their audience.

If the usual short, intermittent gazes of a conversation are replaced by

gazes of longer duration, the target interprets this as meaning that the
communication is less important than the personal relationship
between two people.

The amount and type of eye gaze imparts a great deal of information. Pupil
dilation, blink rates, direction of gaze, widening of the eyes all send very
clear messages.
The causes and consequence of pupil dilation are particularly interesting,
because it is one of those communication behaviors of which neither party is
much aware during the communication. Consider this: People are shown two
identical photographs of a woman with the only difference being that in one
of them her pupil size is detectably (and artificially) enlarged to be double
the normal, natural size. When asked to rate which is more attractive, 6080% will nominate the photo with the falsely dilated pupils. However, if you
ask them to point out how the photographs differ, very few will be able to
identify pupil dilation (or its manipulation); instead, they point to skin, hair
texture, lips, or facial shape.
Pupils dilate for various reasons: In bright light, they contract; in dim light,
they expand. But they also dilate when strong emotions like sexual
excitement or rage are experienced. The latter visibly manifests in cats or
dogs that are about to fight. What's more, people respond to others who
appear to be sexually attracted to them. Women used to put belladonna
plant extract (which literally translates as beautiful woman) in their eyes to
cause pupil dilation (and, consequently as it turned out, vision problems).
This could be a painful and dangerous process but was considered worth it to
attract men. Thus a man, unaware of why he was attracted to the woman,
may have responded to the dilated pupils.
This is an example of power of visible signalsnot one that may be the most
relevant or applicable in the workplace, however.
Consider 10 factors that determine our amount of eye gaze:
1. Distance. In elevators, we turn to face the door because we stand too
close and reducing eye gaze helps reduce the discomfort of having our
body zones invaded. Note how conversation before, during, and after
the ride changes. As soon as the distance between people drops below
6 feet, their eye contact patterns decrease.
2. Topic of conversation. It's no accident that Catholic confessionals
and psychiatric couches are arranged to attempt to reduce the amount
of contact between the priest or therapist and the confessor or patient.
When people are talking about shameful and embarrassing things or
looking inward, it is better that they sense but do not actually see
others, and that those listening do not (cannot) stare at them.
Similarly, people often find that they can have good conversations
while walking or doing a co-operative activity, such as washing up,

because they are close to, but not looking at, their companions.
Intimate talk can be inhibited by eye contact.
3. Conversation task. Doctors look more at patients when talking about
emotional rather than physical symptoms or conditions. People in
general look more at co-operators than competitors. Persuaders look
more when trying to influence.
4. Attention. Hitchhikers, charity-tin shakers, and others maximize eye
contact to increase attention. People look at each other about 75% of
the time when talking but only 40% of the time when listening. One
looks to get, and keep, the attention of others.
5. Interpersonal relationships. People look at those they like more
than those they do notand our pupils dilate more when we are
looking at those we like. Gaze also signals dominance: More powerful
people are looked at more (partly because they tend to look more and
speak less). Threat is also indicated by gaze: Direct gaze signals threat,
while cutting off or averting your gaze is likely to signal appeasement.
6. Co-operation. The extent to which people are willing to co-operate
rather than compete is often communicated by gaze patterns. The
amount and type of gaze is important: The common meaning of a high
level of gaze is that the gazer is interested and attentive. However,
combined with certain expressions it could as easily indicate threat.
7. Personality. Extroverts look more often, and for longer, at their
interlocutors than introverts do. The confident, the bright, and the
socially dominant look more, while it is the opposite for the socially
anxious. Females look more at those they are talking to than males do.
8. Physical appearance. People look less at the disabled and less
attractive individualsand vice versa.
9. Mental illness. Many psychopathologies are associated with reduced
and/or odd gaze patterns, especially autism and paranoia.
Schizophrenics and depressed people tend to avert eye gaze.
10.
Ethnicity. Contact cultures like those in the near East look at
each other more than non-contact cultures like those in Europe.
People disguise eye contact by wearing dark glasses or sunshades. Blind
people do so to indicate their blindness but also because they cannot look
people in the eye or always face others directly. Security guards wear dark
glasses so that possible suspects cannot see the direction in which they are
looking. Traffic police wear reflecting, mirrored glasses to help reduce the

possibility of an argument; irate or nervous drivers can be put off a

confrontation if they not only cannot see the eyes of the policeman but are
also forced to see their own eyes. They experience objective self-awareness,
seeing themselves as objects and not seeing those they are engaging with.
Most of us know people who close their eyes while speaking. This may
indicate that a person is bored or feels superior. They deny both speaker and
listener the opportunity to receive and give feedback. (Shy, introverted
people also tend to have less open eye gaze.)
The way rooms are furnished can maximize or minimize eye contact, as with
psychiatric couches and confession rooms described above. But the position
of chairs, desks, and other office paraphernalia might also be a clue to a
hosts preferred mode of communication and personality. It can also dictate
how close you sit to one another, how easy it is to look at each other in the
eye, and the angle of contact, or orientation: It can be very uncomfortable
having to sit face-to-face at a very close distance, or particularly relaxing.
So, our gaze: Trivial non-verbal behavior or an important way we
communicate consciously and unconsciously with each other?

A Sideways View
New stirrings in business psychology

Adrian Furnham, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at University College

London and the Norwegian Business School.