Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Eye Contact, or Not

When I was in business school, eons ago, we had mock interview sessions with employment counselors in our school’s placement office. The purpose of these sessions, which were videotaped so we could carefully review each second of our performance, was to teach us how to impress corporate recruiters who ventured onto campus and secure prestigious, high-paying jobs. One of the things that the people conducting these practice interviews focused on was how much eye contact we made with them. More was rated better, and seats were arranged to make eye contact difficult to avoid. We sat nose-to-nose with the person conducting the pretend interview.

Research indicates that the people leading these mock interview sessions were overzealous about eye contact. Arranging the seats in the interview room so it was difficult to politely avoid certainly wasn’t a good idea.

Across cultures, having the opportunity to make eye contact with another person, when desired, is seen as a good thing. However, cultures differ in their ideas about when eye contact is best. In the West, comfortable amounts of eye contact can signal earnestness, confidence and intelligence, while too much is seen as creepy, and too little is associated with deviousness. Lovers are said to “lock eyes.”

Our culture also contributes to precisely how far apart we want to be from each other in different sorts of situations, when we look into each others’ eyes. When we’re looking into the eyes of a close friend, we’re happier to be nearer to them than we are when we are speaking with our boss, regardless of where we’re from, but the precise distances nose-to-nose vary.

What do we do when we’re so close that eye contact is unpleasant? We look away; this is known in the psych biz as a “compensatory action.” When we’re sitting directly across from each other, breaking eye contact is difficult to do gracefully. The looker-awayer seems to be scheming, at least to Westerners.

Seating areas must be arranged so that people can not only sit at comfortable distances from each other (either because seats are easily moveable or wide enough so that someone can sit on a different part of a chair and be at a different perceived distance) but also so that it’s easy to make eye contact, or not, as desired.

When is it easiest to make eye contact, or not? When seats are at right angles to each other, facing roughly the same direction. Imagine a conversation across the corner of a table and you’ve got the right sort of orientation in mind. In this configuration, it is easy to look slightly to the side when eye contact has been maintained for a desirable period of time (we all should look away sometimes) or the conversation moves to a topic for which a little psychological distance is desirable. In other words, when the conversation topics get more personal or sensitive.

As always, things go best when physical context, such as amount of eye contact encouraged by place design, aligns with the social context or topic being discussed.

It is particularly desirable for people who are breaking eye contact to have a focal point in visual range that their eyes can comfortably and politely rest upon; this should be something that could be construed as having drawn their attention. A piece of artwork, floral arrangement, aquarium or window can be perceived as just such an “eye magnet.”

There are clear cultural differences in the amount of eye contact that is desirable. While my Western “interview trainer” stressed eye contact, it’s unlikely that in an Eastern country the same mantra would have been pursued so relentlessly. In East Asia, eye contact is sometimes actually avoided to signal respect and less eye contact is generally desirable than in the West.

Make it easy for people to sustain desired levels of eye contact by creating many seating options with chairs at right angles to each other, facing roughly the same direction. Add focal points that allow people to take eye contact breaks without distorting the discussion. Conversations will flow more smoothly. People from different cultures will be more comfortable. Understanding will ensue and good impressions will be made.

Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.