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A comment on Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long?.

Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by joeyrideout on Monday December 28, 2015 @07:03PM (#10804275)
I recently finished an improv class that touched on the importance of eye contact when portraying different levels of "status" while improvising a character. Eye contact was said to be a high-status behavior, and an easy trick to portray yourself as a person in a position of power was to make plenty of eye contact (among other body language hints). The opposite was true for low-status characters. Being comfortable holding eye-contact with someone was akin to seeing them as an equal, which could lead to them liking you more due to in-group bias. A hobby of mine now is to actively play with the level of eye contact I make with people and see how they react - holding eye contact with my boss for a long time, for example.
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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by sleazebreeze on Monday December 28, 2015 @08:45PM (#10804660)
I failed a job interview recently where the interviewer seemed much less comfortable than me with eye contact. He was fidgeting constantly and only briefly looking into my eyes and then quickly looking away. On the other hand, I remained confident, composed and was perfectly comfortable maintaining eye contact.

On paper, the interview went great and I had no problems with the whiteboard questions or any of the other questions. However, his body language was clearly not vibing with mine. He may have felt I came off too aggressive and overconfident. For the record, I did not think it was confrontational, in fact the conversation itself was pretty easy going and fun as far as technical interviews go.

I've been thinking about it and trying to come up with a way of calibrating my body language in the moment to make the other person more at ease. If anyone has any suggestions on reading, I'd love to hear them. I've read that FBI agent's book [1] since then and found it a little bit helpful, but nothing earthshattering. The author is more concerned with cracking/breaking people than making them comfortable.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/What-Every-BODY-Saying-Speed-Reading/d...

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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by brudgers on Tuesday December 29, 2015 @04:19AM (#10805896)
From the description, I would not be surprised if the cause for the interviewer's behavior was that the decision had already been made to hire someone else. Eye contact patterns, if they have significance, probably reflect some internal state, e.g. confidence.
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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by bootload on Monday December 28, 2015 @09:38PM (#10804843)
"The author is more concerned with cracking/breaking people than making them comfortable."

Incorrect. The author is retired FBI Agent, Joe Navarro, [0] an expert on reading and interpreting non-verbal body language. One of the cornerstone of non-verbals, explained in WEBIS, is the comfort/discomfort paradigm. [1],[2]

Is a person comfortable? Why not? Is there a mismatch between verbal communication and non-verbal actions? This is where rapport comes in, the ability to make someone feel at ease and something taught by the FBI when interviewing. They don't "break" people, they charm them by putting them at ease, let them drop their guard and inquire further. The earth shattering point of WEBIS is everybody exhibits these body language responses and I consider it to be a sort of human response API regardless of country, age or sex.

As for eye contact. Hold too little contact and you appear submissive. Too much and you may be signalling to another person you are aggressive.

[0] backgrounder by Octavio Blanco "This former FBI spy hunter fled Cuba at age 9" ~ http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/27/news/economy/joe-navarro-cub...

[1] Navarro, 2007.

[2] read Charles Fifield, "Setting the Sale Through Persuasive Communication" http://www.baylor.edu/business/kellercenter/news.php?action=...

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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by sleazebreeze on Monday December 28, 2015 @10:12PM (#10804961)
Thanks for the links, I'm reading them now. I appreciate the informative correction to my previous post.

I confess I must have misread his points because many of the stories are about criminal interrogations (although there are plenty of business stories too). I just bought his other book Louder Than Words and I will be reading that looking for the charm/rapport aspect instead of "breaking".

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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by kingkawn on Monday December 28, 2015 @10:57PM (#10805097)
This kind of analysis feels flawed because people from different cultures have different body language.
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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by andrewflnr on Monday December 28, 2015 @11:52PM (#10805274)
There are differences, but there are also some [near-]universals. Have you read the book?
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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by flycaliguy on Monday December 28, 2015 @09:01PM (#10804723)
Definitely find a copy of Impro by Keith Johnstone. Most likely the source of the poster's improv games. Really a lot of great insight about status and how to play status like a game.
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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by nmc on Tuesday December 29, 2015 @07:45AM (#10806425)
The Internet Archived has referenced this full scan of the book on PDF.yt: http://pdf.yt/d/KIkLrSPi_3lzPl5v

No idea how legal this is though, download at your own risk.

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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by akamaka on Monday December 28, 2015 @09:57PM (#10804906)
This book is so different from what I normally read that I would have never considered picking it up, but it seems to have only glowing reviews. Thanks for the suggestion!
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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by sleazebreeze on Monday December 28, 2015 @10:13PM (#10804971)
This seems like a very unique book, thank you for the suggestion! I'll be reading this one for sure.
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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by davorb on Monday December 28, 2015 @10:16PM (#10804981)
Try mirroring his body language next time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_(psychology)

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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by kingkawn on Monday December 28, 2015 @10:55PM (#10805091)
If someone is uncomfortable with eye contact I try to make less of it while still being engaged in listening.
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Re:Eye Contact: How Long Is Too Long? by meric on Monday December 28, 2015 @07:33PM (#10804383)
Having read about the same thing and had my own phase of experimentation - I felt bad when I hold eye contact with someone too long and portrayed myself as "higher status" when it's someone who is supposed to have higher status than I am. If I hold the eye contact excessively, it feels like I'm ready to throw them under the bus when the time comes to it. So now I avoid doing it when it's someone who's higher status than I am, who I like and who I want to respect. I think varying eye contact has an effect on relationships, on the other person as well as on myself.
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