Vol.III, No.13
www.renewssource.com
July 1, 2017
How’s Your Eye Contact Working For You? By Pat Farrell
PRSRT STD U.S. Postage PAID San Antonio, Texas Paid Permit #1590
Have you ever spent time speaking with someone who never once looked you in the eyes during the conversation? If so you probably found the encounter to be pretty unsettling as you were left uncertain as to whether the other person heard and understood what you had said, or if they even cared. There is little doubt that eye contact is one of the most important forms of nonverbal communication we have as it tells others about us while it reveals to us as much, or more about them. With the exception of one’s brain, the eyes are considered the most complex organs we possess and only one sixth of them is actually exposed to the world. The eyes are made up of more than two million parts and are thought to process about 36,000 bits of information every hour. For your edification, as it pertains to social science, oculesics is the name given to the
study of eye contact, focusing on deriving meaning from eye behavior as it relates to nonverbal communications. Oculesics looks at not only eye contact, direct or indirect, but also the change of eye direction or focus, change in pupil size in relation to a reaction to appearance of objects and the direction a gaze may take. We have already heard that the eyes are the windows to the soul, so in order to interpret where someone “is coming from,” we need to experience some form of eye contact with them to be able to “read” what we believe we are learning from what we “see” in their eyes. We may be able to determine if one is open and interested in, or closed and nonreceptive to a subject being discussed. Perhaps, during direct eye contact, we may also detect hostility and can drop the subject before it gets out of hand, or maybe we are able to note some disinterest or boredom from those who do not make any direct eye contact with us. Eyes can communicate something about one’s soul and character so when we are “seeing eye to eye” we may be able to determine another’s mood, whether it be serious, happy, sad, angry or maybe hurt. We may, upon meeting someone new, determine if they are friendly and welcoming or if they are aloof, or perhaps uptight. And if we are carrying on a deep conversation with another we can tell if they are attentive or distracted, or are really even listening. How we each use eye contact to our benefit will depend upon our goal for each situation. We can certainly agree that one’s attempt to succeed in a personal matter such as friendship or a romantic relationship would be far different from that for initiating a successful business transac-
tion. All of us who work in the real estate field, be it in sales or marketing, or as a REALTOR® or affiliate, need to know what is considered to be an acceptable eye contact so it will be perceived as appropriate by our clients. There is little doubt that the most sought after public speakers, most productive salespeople and most acceptable politicians have mastered the art of effective eye contact. They have learned to control things like eye gaze and its direction along with being able to send a very clear message through pupil dilation, blink rates and widening of the eyes. You might think that eye contact is really no big deal – you just have to look someone in the eye and you see them, and they see you. But take note that it is a two-way street, which is why knowing how to read the eye and body language of others is so important, regardless of whether you are trying to initiate a personal or a business relationship. So, when you are gazing at another, how intense should that gaze be and how long should it last, and what do you do if they look away from your gaze? When it comes to personal or romantic encounters there is a lot of literature out there that addresses the issue of “two strangers’ eyes meeting across a crowded room” and they immediately know that this will be “the one.” Oh, please!! So, for our purposes here let’s just leave the subject of flirtation and romance to the romantics. Any discussion of the do’s and don’ts of eye contact is quite difficult because one individual’s perception of what they see in someone else’s eyes is, as they say, “in the eyes of the beholder” so there would be a lot of qualifiers used as many people don’t always fit into finite categories. Mastering the art of eye con-
tact can be very tricky, but a good conversationalist will establish eye contact immediately and their eyes will have a lot to say even before they begin speaking. They also know they must concentrate on listening with their eyes too. To exhibit confidence and interest, using a 50/70 rule has been suggested where one maintains appropriate eye contact without staring, for 50% of the time while speaking, and for 70% of the time while listening. We probably all know people who close their eyes when they speak, which can be taken in one of several ways, i.e. the individual may be bored or may actually feel superior to the one to whom they are speaking, or they may be shy and rather introverted. And, while gaze is very important, as is where it is focused, there are few that would welcome being constantly stared at during a conversation, so although a 7- 10 second gaze might be recommended, it could prove better to use the triangle formula. This plan superimposes an imaginary inverted triangle over the listener’s face, with the upper angles positioned, one over each eye, and the lower one over the mouth. There is then no need to spend more than five seconds at each angle as the eyes move from point to point around the triangle. Also be aware that pupil size is a very telling factor, as the more the pupil is contracted the less the individual seems to like what they see, while dilated pupils indicate an interest (especially for romance). This discussion of the importance of eye contact is very relevant in the Western culture which would include The United Kingdom, The United States, Australia and Western Europe but perhaps not so much in other cultures. Eye contact in most Middle Eastern cultures is less