Eye contact: direct gaze, eye contact

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Eye contact is the basis of effective communication and is simply something that comes naturally to all mentally healthy people.

Children look into the eyes of at least their parents, at least to other people around them — easily and naturally. A child can run up close to you, directly and calmly look into your face, into your eyes — without any smile and not responding to your smile — and then just as calmly and quickly turn around and run away. Looked at myself and moved on.

In the process of raising children (often not quite consciously) they are taught not to look into the eyes. They set a natural example by how they look (more precisely, they don’t look into the eyes) themselves, sometimes everyone says directly: “You shouldn’t look into the eyes like that, it’s indecent!”, sometimes they just get angry when the child doesn’t lower his eyes.

As a result, the child grows up, weans to look into the eyes and becomes dumb, like all other adults.

It becomes dull — because it deprives itself of the most valuable information. All the most valuable information about what is happening in a person’s soul is in his eyes, on his face.

However, some children did not succumb to this pressure of adults and continued to look at people’s faces. Usually these people later become leaders.

Watch the video: during the conversation, the manager looks directly at the employee, almost without looking away.

According to available research, people make eye contact 20 to 50% of the time during communication. Lovers — from 60 to 80%. Managers are professionals — from 80 to 100% of the communication time.

For a self-confident and mentally healthy person, looking at the interlocutor without hiding his eyes is natural.

What is the right way then?

It is sometimes said that it is normal to watch up to 70% of the time of contact, and perhaps there is some sense in this. Namely, it is useful for most of us to learn to maintain eye contact to a greater extent, but there should be a measure in everything: if you feel that the person is now uncomfortable under your gaze, look away and think with him. And the most important thing, apparently, is not how long you look at another person, but how you do it. What kind of look do you have — nervous or calm? Pressive or supportive?

Therefore, if you decide to train the ability to look people in the eye, do not make the traditional mistake: do not stare at the bridge of your interlocutor’s nose or into the so-called «third eye». This makes your gaze for the interlocutor oppressive, and you lose sight of the face of the interlocutor as a whole. Moreover, the habit of staring, unceremoniously looking at others does not paint a person — this is not eye contact, but elementary bad manners.

Okay, no need to look down the nose. Where then to look? — Here for many the answer will be a little unexpected. Tell me, where does an experienced driver look when he drives a car? To what point? Answer: in no way, the driver looks broadly, at the road as a whole. That’s right, the answer will be the same in this case: practice a wide, defocused look.

Staring at a person creates a feeling of pressure in him (which is hardly included in your plans), and distracts you. If you look at a person with a wide, slightly unfocused gaze, nowhere exactly, but simply in the direction of the person, you switch mainly to peripheral perception: this does not distract you, and you catch all the micro-movements of the person’s face unconsciously, without noticing it yourself. And if you also like the person, your expression will become warm.

The rest is just practice. A specific exercise has been known for a long time, it is called «calm presence» — an exercise that trains a state of calm when perceiving what is happening. See →

The most difficult thing is to look into the eyes of a person and at the same time think and speak

Maintaining eye contact with an interlocutor when you are listening to a person is actually not difficult, you either already know how to do this, or learn without much difficulty. But learning to look at the interlocutor even when you not only listen, but speak yourself is more difficult. Here, most people (especially women) already need special training: start training this with a variety of people, at first not in the most significant situations. Some hints to help you:

. Assume that the most important person in the world is the one in front of you. However, this does not mean that you are below him if your internal attitude is that he does not evaluate you, but you evaluate him. And even better — do not judge, but warmly support and guide him. However, this is already the following technique:

. When you do something with the interlocutor (at least in the internal plan), your look becomes more energetic, collected, and your state becomes more confident. What can be done, what internal actions to perform? Yes, very different. In your imagination, you can straighten a person’s hair, tilt your head to the left or right, change a person’s clothes into other clothes … — no one will restrain your imagination. At the same time, keep in mind that the nature of your internal actions will be reflected in the expression of your eyes, so your partner should do something kind and reasonable.

​​​​​​​One of the easiest things you can do in your mind is control and support. How to do it? With one hand (for example, left) mentally hold the interlocutor by the shoulder — this gives you control over the situation, and with the other hand (also mentally) gently stroke him on the shoulder or arm (this will make your look warm).

. Empathy is the ability to directly, bodily feel the state of another person. When meeting a person, before any conversation, instantly, first of all, try to jump into this person, internally model (try on for yourself) the expression of his eyes, the line of his lips, the tension or characteristic line of the neck and shoulders. If you are used to doing this and you succeed, you read the state all the time you communicate with it. Training «Communication skills».

When you catch this state, you will never look away anywhere else, because the feeling of unity with the interlocutor that you feel is worth a lot! This gives both a sense of closeness and the ability to manage it as efficiently as possible.