There is yet another argument for intense eye contact. In addition to awakening feelings of respect and affection, maintaining strong eye contact gives you the impression of being an intelligent and abstract thinker. Because abstract thinkers integrate incoming data more easily than concrete thinkers, they can continue looking into someone’s eyes even during the silences. Their thought processes are not distracted by peering into their partner’s peepers.6
Back to our valiant psychologists. Yale researchers, thinking they had the unswerving truth about eye contact, conducted another study that, they assumed, would confirm “the more eye contact, the more positive feelings.” This time, they directed subjects to deliver a personally revealing monologue. They asked the listeners to react with a sliding scale of eye contact while their partners talked.
The results? All went as expected when women told their personal stories to women. Increased eye contact encouraged feelings of intimacy. But, whoops, it wasn’t so with the men. Some men felt hostile when stared at too long by another man. Other men felt threatened. Some few even suspected their partner was more interested than he should be and wanted to slug him.
Your partner’s emotional reaction to your profound gaze has a biological base. When you look intently at someone, it increases their heartbeat and shoots an adrenalinelike substance gushing through their veins.7 This is the same physical reaction people have when they start to fall in love. And when you consciously increase your eye contact, even during normal business or social interaction, people will feel they have captivated you.
Men talking to women and women talking to men or women: use the following technique, which I call “Sticky Eyes,” for the joy of the recipient—and for your own advantage. (Guys, I’ll have a man-to-man modification of this technique for you in a moment.)
Technique #2
Sticky Eyes
Pretend your eyes are glued to your conversation partner’s with sticky warm taffy. Don’t break eye contact even after he or she has finished speaking. When you must look away, do it ever so slowly, reluctantly, stretching the gooey taffy until the tiny string finally breaks.
Back to our valiant psychologists. Yale researchers, thinking they had the unswerving truth about eye contact, conducted another study that, they assumed, would confirm “the more eye contact, the more positive feelings.” This time, they directed subjects to deliver a personally revealing monologue. They asked the listeners to react with a sliding scale of eye contact while their partners talked.
The results? All went as expected when women told their personal stories to women. Increased eye contact encouraged feelings of intimacy. But, whoops, it wasn’t so with the men. Some men felt hostile when stared at too long by another man. Other men felt threatened. Some few even suspected their partner was more interested than he should be and wanted to slug him.
Your partner’s emotional reaction to your profound gaze has a biological base. When you look intently at someone, it increases their heartbeat and shoots an adrenalinelike substance gushing through their veins.7 This is the same physical reaction people have when they start to fall in love. And when you consciously increase your eye contact, even during normal business or social interaction, people will feel they have captivated you.
Men talking to women and women talking to men or women: use the following technique, which I call “Sticky Eyes,” for the joy of the recipient—and for your own advantage. (Guys, I’ll have a man-to-man modification of this technique for you in a moment.)
Technique #2
Sticky Eyes
Pretend your eyes are glued to your conversation partner’s with sticky warm taffy. Don’t break eye contact even after he or she has finished speaking. When you must look away, do it ever so slowly, reluctantly, stretching the gooey taffy until the tiny string finally breaks.
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