6 ways to dramatically improve your eye contact skills
Eye contact: The most important communication tool
Is your eye contact aggressive, is it soft, is it inviting, do you love with your eyes? Eye contact is a very tricky art to master but vital to effective communication. How can you make it better?
Eye contact provides social information to the person you are listening to and talking to. Too much eye contact and you could be seen as aggressive, too little eye contact and you can be seen as having no interest in the person speaking. It is an often overlooked skill to have and an under utilised skill when communicating with people. You can see masters of eye contact in great sales persons, politicians, and good public speakers.
I realised the importance of eye contact when I was counseling people face to face. I noticed when I broke eye contact the person would stop speaking. When I maintained eye contact the person would continue talking knowing that I was interested in what they had to say.
Physiological signs of eye contact
Street traders know the importance of the eyes when using their selling skills to keep their potential buyers interested. When you are aroused or interested in an object your pupils will dilate and this is a big cue for salesmen all over the world.
Also when you are interested in someone sexually your pupils will dilate and you hold the person’s gaze a little longer than normal. When I was single I always knew when a girl was interested in me through her eyes, now that I am married if I get the same signs I discourage eye contact.
Every day conversation and eye contact
We will use eye contact every day of our lives so it makes sense to learn the best ways to use your eyes to your advantage.
Certain situations demand different uses of the eyes. For example if your are arguing it is seen as strong if you can hold your gaze. If you are deferring to someone it is better to lower your eyes, if you are loving someone it is good to stare into the pool of the eyes.
6 Ways to improve your eye contact skills
- Talking to a group - When talking to a group of people it is great to have direct contact with your listeners. However you contact maintain eye contact with just one person as this will stop the other members of the group from listening. To get past this, focus on a different member of the group with every new sentence. This way you are talking to all of the group and keeping them all interested.
- Talking to an individual - It is great to maintain eye contact when talking to a person however it can become a bit creepy and uncomfortable if you stare intensely at them. To combat this, break eye contact every 5 seconds or so. When breaking the eye contact don’t look down as this might indicate the ending of your part of the conversation. Instead, look up or to the side as if your are remembering something. Try it just now: don’t move your head, and think about the first time you started school. You will notice your eyes might move up or to the side as you try to remember this. So when your listener sees this they will think you are trying to remember something and keep on listening to you.
- Listening to someone – When you are listening to someone it can be off putting for the talker if you stare at them too hard. The technique I use when I am counseling someone is to use what I call ‘The triangle’. This is when I look at one eye for about 5 seconds, look at the other eye for 5 seconds and then look at the mouth for 5 seconds and keep on rotating in this way. This technique coupled with other listening skills such as nodding, occasional agreement words such as ‘yes’, ‘Uh –huh’ ‘mm’ etc is a great way to keep the talker talking and to show them you are interested in what they are saying.
- Arguing – Arguing with someone is a skill in itself and if you want to compete in an argument holding the gaze shows strength. If you look away when arguing with someone you have all but lost the argument. Obviously this depends on who you are arguing with but in general it is better to hold the gaze whilst you are making your point and also when you are listening to the other person. We have all come across the person who is great at arguing and making you feel small, you will notice that everyone who is like this try to stare you out. Stare back, it will surprise them, piss them off and put them off what they are trying to say. Staying silent and staring at someone who is trying to rile you is also an affective way to win an argument without saying a word.
- Attracting someone – When you are trying to attract someone and show them you are interested you can talk and listen with your eyes. When a person you like is speaking use the whole face as your focal point. Look at their eyes, listen to what they are saying, smile in the appropriate places, raise your eyebrows in the appropriate places. If you feel you are staring at them move to their other features such as their lips, their cheeks, their nose and then back to their eyes. Smiling when listening to someone is a great way to show you are interested in them, obviously don’t smile when they have just told you their pet died last night. You have to listen with your ears as well as listening with your eyes (yes I did mean listening with your eyes, you listen to someone’s body language with your eyes).
- Loving someone – My wife and I often share a prolonged gaze into each others eyes and it is a very special thing to just stare without talking. My wife’s pupils will dilate and she can my pupils dilating. It creates a strong bond between us. To make your pupils dilate even more you can try this: as you are staring at your partner imagine yourself going inside their body and your two souls making love. You are trying to touch their very soul. This will release adrenalin and make your pupils dilate even more.
Other posts you might be interested in.
I could talk about this topic for ages as I think it is a very important skill to have. However here are some other bloggers and researchers who have studied eye contact.
How to improve your body language
How to handle or strike up conversation
Happiness tip: smile at a stranger
Are you looking at me? Eye gaze and the perception of others
How to attract and seduce single sexy women with your eyes
Integrating social and physical cues when judging attractiveness (pdf)
The eyes have it: The fundamentals of eye contact
Theory of non competitive stare
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Comment by WaterLearner on 11 August 2007:
A great post on eye contact!
My! Even arguing has a strategy!
Thanks!
Comment by kamal on 11 August 2007:
Good post, Steven. I’m surprised when people don’t make eye contact while talking with you. Of course, this line in the post made me laugh out loud:
“obviously don’t smile when they have just told you their pet died last night.”
Comment by puttputt on 12 August 2007:
I have great contact lens skills. I can pop out my contact lens without using my hands.
Pingback by Personal Development Links: weeks 31 and 32 at Scripta manent on 12 August 2007:
[...] 6 ways to dramatically improve your eye contact skills by Steven Aitchison [...]
Comment by Helen on 13 August 2007:
Nice post.
Taking to a group is a good practice indeed. It’s a good way of keeping eye contact to several people and get their attention.
Comment by Pamela on 14 August 2007:
These are great suggestions. The use of eye contact is a useful tool in communication indeed. We usually don’t recognize it when we are speaking, but people are more interested if we keep constant eye contact.
Comment by Fabio on 14 August 2007:
Great post. I like your suggestions. I do need to improve my eye contact. Sometime I catch myself looking around or even looking down when talking to people. You could go further on the “attracting people” subject
Comment by Dorothy Stahlnecker on 15 August 2007:
Great idea, I’m printing and will share information with my sales staff. By day, I sell commercial real estate (28 years) By night and only since January of 07 I blog and work on my new site grammology. This information is invaluable..
Thanks for showing me this site. I’d like to make it a favorite on my site if that’s okay?
Dorothy from grammology
http://grammology.com
Comment by Suzanne McLoone on 19 August 2007:
Ariane told me to come and check out your site and I am so glad that I took an extra moment and did! I absolutely LOVE the eye contact post. From the sex appeal to the strategies, it’s absolutely intriguing and I can’t wait to use it!
Comment by Steven Aitchison on 28 January 2008:
thanks to everyone for your comments on this post i really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment here. I hope you have been using the eye contact skills to good effect. Let me know how you have got on with using this, it would fascinating to hear your stories.
Comment by Neale on 29 January 2008:
thanks Steven this is a great post with lots of good info
Comment by Nicola Cairncross on 20 February 2008:
Really great topic. I have learned a lot from what is written here today. I highly recommend this the everyone
Thanks
Nicola Cairncross
http://www.themoneygym.com
Comment by adamz on 28 February 2008:
really it is great useful post , will try these points and post feedback ,hoping great success in this issue
Comment by sarah millma on 4 March 2008:
i really enjoyed reading ur articles, i am currently studying a degree in conselling and this really gave me some great points to work with.
thankyou..
As an everyday communicator,I feel that we dont relize how important it is to show ppl eyecontact. ppl can can the wrong message if eyecontact is not used in the right context.
thankyou again.
Comment by Home Equity Loans on 27 March 2008:
“If you look away when arguing with someone you have all but lost the argument.” - agree about that and about the rest too.
Things you are talking about in this post may seem not important to many people. But they really are. Thanks for gathering them all in one article.
Comment by Keith on 31 March 2008:
Too funny I found this searching contact lenses. Glad I found it. I’m going to try some of these… Thanks
Comment by Laura on 1 April 2008:
This article help us a lot to improve our eye contact skills, for example, if we want other people hire our services, we should have a good posture for convincing them.
designer clothes
Laura
Comment by Wisdom on 2 April 2008:
It is proved that our behaviour reflects part of our personality, among all our skills, the eye contact skills is one of the most important.
sunglasses
Angel
Comment by Wisdom on 2 April 2008:
It is proved that our behaviour reflects part of our personality, among all our skills, the eye contact skills is one of the most important.
designer clothing
Angel
Comment by Joanne on 17 April 2008:
Thanx A Lot
This Really Helped Me Get Information For My AS Health And Social Communication Coursework.
Comment by puppies on 22 May 2008:
Easy to read and understand, hard to do in theory. Try listening to the other person and giving them all your attention, I find this mor genuine reather than being worrying about how your eyes are working.
Comment by maf on 26 June 2008:
Very Interesting,
I find it very useful for people who try to dominate over me.
You truely use the SuperHighway of information technology for spreading your knowledge.
Thanks
Pingback by eye contact on 8 July 2008:
[...] skills Change your thoughtsAug 11, 2007 … 6 ways to dramatically imrpove your eye contact skills.http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog/2007/08/11/6-ways-to-dramatically-improve-your-eye-contact-ski…Read “RE: Eye Contact” at English Forum… experience of dealing with strangers. Making eye contact [...]
Comment by river on 15 July 2008:
Eye contact turns me on, that’s why I avoid it.
But this is a very very helpful post, thanks