Why Is Eye Contact Important?

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Have you ever said “look me in the eyes and say that?” We all have. Why do we do this? We do it because we tend to trust people who look us in the eyes. In fact, it is this tool that allows people of low integrity to persuade others to believe that they are honest and sincere.

There are a lot of meanings communicated with eye contact. It can signal the start of building a trusting relationship or can signal the start of a fight.

Most of us take eye contact for granted and don’t regard it as a tool or a communication skill worthy of dedicating time to master.

Eye contact is also an important tool in the messages we receive. We may think that listening is a task left to our ears. In face to face communication, eye contact communicates listening more than anything else.

What is it about eye contact that is so powerful in communication? Why is the face the first place we look when we connect with another? Watch an infant interacting with someone. You’ll find that the little one follows the person’s eyes. Anthropologists theorize that our eyes evolved to help us achieve cooperation. From a very young age, we start to look to our caregivers’ eyes to figure out messages – especially when communication is unclear or incongruent. We carry this tool throughout our life.

If you’ve communicated with someone across a room without exchanging a single word, you already know the power of eyes in sending messages. Why don’t we translate this appreciation for the power of eye contact into action?

It isn’t easy.

Looking at others can make us feel vulnerable or insecure. We know that eye contact makes an interaction more intimate. We avoid eye contact with people we don’t like or if we are trying to hide the truth from someone. Masking our emotions is more easily done when we avoid eye contact. If we are concerned about how our message may be received by someone, we may avoid eye contact to avoid the discomfort.

Eye contact is important because people are social creatures. We all may be surprised to discover that we aren’t making eye contact nearly as much as we thought we were. Looking people in the eye and holding their gaze can help us persuade, relate, win over and connect with others.

Rowena Crosbie, President of Tero International facilitates this Tero Tips video.

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