Communication mistakes can even happen when using eye contact. Have you thought about eye contact as a skill? Consider for a moment using eye contact to show empathy, concern for others, to manage feelings or to help with communication. Those are all life skills that youth will develop as they mature into successful adults. Likewise, each time a youth talks to a judge, reads minutes of a meeting out loud or provides a how-to demonstration, that youth is presenting.
Presentation skills, like eye contact, can be tricky. Because such skills can be tricky, we will explore some common mistakes in eye contact communication and how to remedy those mistakes.
The Conversation Aid website is a great tool that explores many facets of communication. One of the greatest mistakes in eye contact is staring. They suggest the following tips to help maintain good eye contact without staring:. This article is the third and last in a series of articles that examined eye contact in communication. Remember that eye contact is a skill and it often takes time and practice to fine-tune our skills.
This article was published by Michigan State University Extension. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content.
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Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Eye contact anxiety can interfere with everyday social interactions. By the same token, the ability to maintain good eye contact is an important aspect of social interaction. People who look others in the eye are perceived as friendly and welcoming. However, many shy and socially anxious people have difficulty with this part of communication. Eye contact anxiety refers to the discomfort a person feels when looking at someone directly in the eyes.
A person with eye contact anxiety may avoid making eye contact when talking to someone. If they do make eye contact, they may feel like they are being judged or scrutinized.
People have eye contact anxiety for many reasons. For those without a diagnosed mental health condition, avoidance of eye contact could be related to shyness or a lack of confidence.
Looking someone in the eye while speaking can feel uncomfortable for those without a lot of practice making conversation or who tend to prefer not being in the spotlight. Often, people with social anxiety disorder SAD describe looking someone in the eyes as anxiety-provoking and uncomfortable.
This is likely due, in part, to genetic wiring. Research has shown that people diagnosed with SAD have a pronounced fear of direct eye contact. If you have SAD, the part of your brain that warns you of danger your amygdala can be triggered by eye contact. A review published in Current Psychiatry Reports found that social anxiety is related to a mixture of being on guard and avoiding processing emotional social stimuli.
This means that at a party, you might both be on the lookout for people who seem to be judging you, but also try to avoid situations in which you feel you are being judged. In addition, the review showed that socially anxious people tend to avoid maintaining eye contact.
Again, this is likely due to the fear of being judged. Research on autism shows that autistic people are hypersensitive to eye contact such that their brains show higher than normal activity in the pathways that process expressions on people's faces. This means that they may avoid eye contact because it can cause extreme discomfort and even pain. Making eye contact during conversation is an important social skill. It can affect how you are perceived by others both in personal and professional relationships.
In fact, researchers have uncovered numerous benefits of maintaining eye contact during a conversation, including:. We all have varying levels of comfort when it comes to maintaining eye contact. While some people may be predisposed to fearing or avoiding eye contact, most can learn to improve their skills and become better at making good eye contact, starting with:. People with a diagnosed anxiety disorder may benefit from treatment including cognitive behavioral therapy CNT or medication.
Most people with social anxiety disorder can learn to overcome their fear response and maintain better eye contact. Where should I look when listening to someone else speak? And how can I stay focused on what they are saying when the conversation starts feeling awkward? The internet is full of advice on how to make eye contact, and most of that advice does more harm than good.
As we discussed in our article on avoiding awkward silences , a social interaction only becomes awkward when you become visibly nervous, and the other person starts to wonder whether they should be uncomfortable too.
Practice making eye contact even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Like any other social skill, eye contact gets easier the more you do it. Start by practicing with people you feel comfortable around, such as close friends or family members. You can then try making more eye contact with people who intimidate you slightly, such as your boss or senior coworker. When we improve our self-esteem and mentally position ourselves on an equal level to those we come across, it becomes easier to maintain eye contact.
However, improving your self-esteem can take years. Study one eye at a time. Trying to look at both simultaneously is difficult and feels awkward. Tap into your natural curiosity by privately asking yourself questions about the discussion topic. Was it fun? Did she get jet-lagged? This technique makes it easier to move the conversation forward because it helps you come up with new questions to ask.
Too little eye contact can come off as nervous, submissive, or untrustworthy. Too much eye contact can come off as aggressive or overly intense. This includes those brief pauses where you or the other person thinks about what to say next. Maintaining eye contact during silent moments comes off as intense and creates an awkward atmosphere.
Move your eyes slowly and smoothly. In general, you should aim to make direct eye contact for approximately seconds at a time.
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