Eye Contact: Not As Persuasive As We Thought

[conuly]

A new study finds more eye contact makes people less likely to agree with a persuasive argument, especially if they're already skeptical.

http://tinyurl.com/qbbablu

Comments

[oneill]

Makes sense. Whenever someone does the intense-eye-contact deal, I get the feeling they're trying to stare me down. It becomes a staring contest at that point, and I start to get a little annoyed about it.

(To be fair, my parents pretty much only gave steady eye contact when they were pissed off about something I did, lol. Maybe that's why.)

[siderea]

I am not surprised. What surprises me is how often therapists and social scientists claim that positioning one's body directly and squarely opposite another's and looking them steadily in the face is a neutral or even benign behavior. People, it's called "confrontation" for a reason.

[steorra]

I kind of wonder how valid this study's methodology is. Varying whether the watcher looks at a video speaker's eyes or mouth doesn't seem closely analogous to whether an actual speaker looks at the watcher's eyes or not.