Want to become more persuasive?

Want to become more persuasive?

Improve your eye contact.

Want to expand your friend circle?  Enhance your chance of getting a promotion? Improve your eye contact.

Learning to use your eyes – not just to see, but to communicate – is a critical life skill (yet one we’re rarely taught). And worries grow that current societal trends – more time glancing at the Smartphone, less time making eye contact with others – may interfere with long-term relationship development (more on that developing story, in future columns).

How important is eye contact?  A legion of studies link eye contact to respect, sincerity, confidence and credibility. And eyes often reveal more to the listener than words or facial expressions. 

In one study, in which verbal and nonverbal signals contradicted one another, people were five times more likely to believe the nonverbal signals. In another study, in which individuals were asked to read emotions from photographs (individuals were shown either the whole face or just the eyes), “seeing the eyes alone produced significantly better performance than seeing the mouth alone, and was as informative as the rest of the face,” according to an article in PsyBlog, at www.spring.org.uk.

Other research findings: 

·         Standing your ground – According to Sue Shellenbarger, in an online piece for the Wall Street Journal: “Prolonged eye contact during a debate or disagreement can signal that you're standing your ground.” On a related note, one executive, after viewing a video of himself in presentations, noticed that he “instinctively . . . would avoid eye contact” when he was uncertain about a topic (subsequent training enabled him to break this habit).

·         Connection time – In groups, it’s recommended that people look directly at another person for about 3-5 seconds, but when it’s one-to-one the recommended time increases to 7-10 seconds. In her article for the Wall Street Journal, Shellenbarger noted: “Adults make eye contact between 30% and 60% of the time in an average conversation, according to the communications-analytics company Quantified Impressions. But the Austin, Texas, company says people should be making eye contact 60% to 70% of the time to create a sense of emotional connection, according to its analysis of 3,000 people speaking to individuals and groups.”

·         Benefits of strong eye contact – A group called Conversation Aid, cited in an article by Michigan State University Extension, explains these major benefits:

a.       “Increased eye contact is associated with credibility and dominance;”

b.      “Lack of contact and blinking are interpreted as submissive;” and

c.       High status people tend to look longer at people they’re talking to, compared with others.  

·         Cultural differences – Not every culture, of course, encourages more eye contact. The PsyBlog article points out that “In many Eastern and some Caribbean cultures, meeting another's eyes can be rude. Asians are more likely than Westerners to regard a person who makes eye contact as angry or unapproachable, says a 2013 study in the online scientific journal PLOS ONE.” And PsyBlog adds: “Westerners do not have the monopoly on high levels of eye contact . . . In some Arab countries people often look much more intently into each other’s eyes than many Westerners would.”

How do I increase my eye contact?

Here are a few key recommendations, crafted by Steven Aitchison, at www.stevenaitchison.co.uk:

1.       Talking to an individual – Aitchison recommends breaking eye contact every 5 seconds or so, and adds: “When breaking the eye contact, don’t look down as this might indicate the ending of your part of the conversation. Instead, look up or to the side as if you’re remembering something.  Try it just now: don’t move your head and think about the first time you started school.  You will notice your eyes might move up or to the side as you try to remember this.  So when your listener sees this they will think you are trying to remember something and keep on listening to you.”

2.       Listening to someone – Naturally, Aitchison cautions against staring (it makes the talker uncomfortable) and therefore recommends “The Triangle” – that is, “look at one eye for about 5 seconds, look at the other eye for 5 seconds and then look at the mouth for 5 seconds and keep on rotating in this way.” He adds: “If you feel you are staring at them, move to their other features such as their lips, their cheeks, their nose and then back to their eyes.”

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