Eye Contact and the Projection of Confidence

The eyes carry a considerable part of conversation, although few men receive any instruction beyond the unhelpful command to make eye contact.

One was taught, and taught early, that a gentleman looks towards the person with whom he is speaking. Eye contact may show attention, though it is only one such signal. Culture, autism, anxiety, trauma, and visual impairment all alter what is comfortable or possible. A person who looks away may still be listening closely.

While speaking, meet the other person’s gaze for much of each thought and allow it to move naturally at the end of a sentence or turn of an idea. Repeated glances at the telephone, door, or another person suggest that your attention has already left, which may sometimes be true but need not be advertised.

When you are listening, the discipline is somewhat different and, one would argue, the more important of the two. Look at the speaker steadily, without staring. A steady gaze shows attention. A fixed gaze, the unblinking regard of a man who has read somewhere that eye contact projects confidence, usually makes people uncomfortable. Blink naturally. Nod where the conversation warrants it. Let your expression respond to what is being said, for the face that does not move is not a confident face; it is a vacant one, and the person speaking to it will feel, quite accurately, that he is addressing a wall.

There is a difference between confidence and dominance, and the eyes are where that difference is most visible. The confident man looks at you because he is comfortable with himself and with the exchange. The dominant man looks at you because he wishes to control it. The former holds your gaze with ease; the latter holds it with pressure. The former breaks eye contact naturally; the latter breaks it only when you do, which is a form of contest disguised as conversation and which any perceptive person will recognise and resent. If you find yourself holding eye contact as a strategy, you have already transformed a human interaction into a competition, and the victory, such as it is, will cost you more than it gains.

Stand without continually shifting the weight or occupying the hands with small objects. Rigidity has its own anxious character, but relative stillness, a measured pace, and the absence of visible impatience give a more convincing impression of confidence than any deliberate attempt to project it.

The telephone is a more dependable sign of divided attention than the direction of a person’s eyes. Put it away during the exchange. Listening, responding to what was said, and allowing another person to use the gaze which suits them are better measures of courtesy than a contest of steadiness.