Body Language of Eye Squinting or Narrowing Eyes
Cue: Eye Squinting or Narrowing Eyes
Synonym(s): Narrowing Eyes, Furrowing Eyes, Compressed Eyelids, Wincing Eyes, Eye Constriction, Eye Blocking, Eye Shield, Shielding The Eyes, Squinting.
Description: Eye squinting happens when the eyelids are compressed together serving to constrict the eyes. It can sometimes occur in just a fraction of a second before disappearing.
In One Sentence: Narrowing the eyes is due to physical or emotional pain.
How To Use it: When you do not like what is being said or seen, simply narrow your eyes. This tells others that you do not like what you are seeing or hearing. You may perform this eye language in brief within just fractions of a seconds. While people may not consciously perceive the signal, it will likely still register subconsciously. If the person for whom the cue is intended, notices, they may revisit their proposal and add additional incentives to ease your negative judgment.
Context: General.
Verbal Translation: “What I’m seeing is causing me emotional or physical pain and to prevent all that negativity from coming into my body I’m going to squint and block to resist.”
Variant: See Anger Facial Expression, Hand To Eye Gesture.
Cue In Action: a) A person will wince when reading objectionable portions of a contract. b) She winced when the student missed the correct note on the piano. It caused her visceral pain.
Meaning and/or Motivation: An eye blocking form of body language designed to prohibit distasteful images or even thoughts from being received at full view. Narrowing eyes indicates contempt, distaste and anger. A person will not only squint from seeing objectionable sights, but also negative thoughts or sounds.
Wincing falls into the category of microexpressions since it can happen in only fractions of a second before disappearing, yet it remains full of meaning.
Wincing can also be due to the sudden approach of projectiles toward the eyes or body as well as the sun’s glare. Eyes can also be squinted in order to help a person see print that is too small. Thus, at times, squinting forms a functional purpose not exclusively driven by emotion.
A delayed opening or prolonged eye closure can be due to negative emotions or displeasure. A full wince with the eyes closed tightly signifies the desire to totally block out information.
Cue Cluster: General tightening of the face will occur such as mouth pursing. We may also see lip biting, hand clenching, shoulders and feet turned away, arms pulled in to protect and arms crossed.
Body Language Category: Attentive, Aggressive body language, Anger, Confused, Closed body language, Closed facial gestures, Dislike (nonverbal), Doubt or disbelief body language, Eye blocking, Eye Language, Microexpressions, Micromessaging, Negative body language, Pensive displays, Protective reflexes, Suppressed facial expression, Suspicious body language.
Resources:
Aviezer, Hillel; Ran R. Hassin; Jennifer Ryan; Cheryl Grady; Josh Susskind; Adam Anderson; Morris Moscovitch and Shlomo Bentin. Angry, Disgusted, or Afraid? Studies on the Malleability of Emotion Perception. Psychological Science. 2008. 19(7): 724-732.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/emotions-read-context-study/
Aaron, Sell; Cosmides, Leda and Tooby, John. The Human Anger Face Evolved to Enhance Cues of Strength. Evolution and Human Behavior. 2014. 35(5): 425-429.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/the-universal-anger-face/
Biehl, M., Matsumoto, D., Ekman, P., Hearn, V., Heider, K., Kudoh, T., et al. (1997). Matsumoto and Ekman’s Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion (JACFEE): Reliability Data and Cross-National Differences. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 21, 3-21.
Brooks, C. I., Church, M. A., & Fraser, L. 1986. Effects of duration of eye contact on judgments of personality characteristics. Journal of Social Psychology. 126: 71–78.
Carroll E. 1994. Innate and universal facial expressions: Evidence from developmental and cross-cultural research Izard, Psychological Bulletin. 115(2): 288-299.
Davis 1978. Camera Eye-Contact by the Candidates in the Presidential Debates of 1976 Source: The journalism quarterly. 55 (3): 431 -437.
Ellsworth, Phoebe; Carlsmith, J Merrill. 1973. Eye contact and gaze aversion in an aggressive encounter. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 28(2): 280-292.
Ekman, P. (1994). Strong evidence for universals in facial expressions: A reply to Russell’s mistaken critique. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 268-287.
Gordon, A. K. and A. G. Miller. 2000. Perspective differences in the construal of lies: is deception in the eye of the beholder? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 26 (1): 46-55.
Gilliam, Harold V. B.; Van Den Berg, Sjef. 1980. Different Levels of Eye Contact: Effects on Black and White College Students. Urban Education. 15 (1): 83-92.
Goldman. 1980. Effect of Eye Contact and Distance on the Verbal Reinforcement of Attitude. The Journal of social psychology 111(1): 73 -78.
Greene 1979. Title: Need-Fulfillment and Consistency Theory: Relationships Between Self-Esteem and Eye Contact. Source: Western journal of speech communication. 43(2): 123 -133.
Galin, D. and Ornstein, R., 1974. Individual Differences in Cognitive Style – Reflective Eye Movements; Neuropsychologia, 12: 376-397.
Craig, Kenneth D. ; Patrick, Christopher J. Hogan, Robert (editor). Facial Expression During Induced Pain. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1985 48(4): 1080-109.
Frijda, Nico H.. What is pain facial expression for? Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 2002. 25(4): 460-460.
Hatz, Jessica L. and Martin J. Bourgeois. Anger as a Cue to Truthfulness. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2010. 46: 680-683.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/anger-nonverbal-cue-truth-telling/
Hermann, Christiane; Flor, Herta. Facial expression of pain more than a fuzzy expression of distress? Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 2002. 25(4): 462-463.
Kunz, Miriam ; Mylius, Veit ; Schepelmann, Karsten ; Lautenbacher, Stefan. Impact of age on the facial expression of pain. Journal of Psychosomatic Research. 2008. 64(3): 311-318.
Keogh, Edmund; Holdcroft, Anita. Sex differences in pain: Evolutionary links to facial pain expression. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 2002. 25(4): 465-465.
Kunz, Miriam ; Peter, Jessica ; Huster, Sonja ; Lautenbacher, Stefan Gray, Marcus (Editor). Pain and Disgust: The Facial Signaling of Two Aversive Bodily Experiences (Comparing Facial Expressions of Pain and Disgust). 2013. 8(12): p.e83277
Konopacki 1987. Eye Movement Betrays a Prospect’s Inner Feelings Source: Marketing news 21(10): 4.
Langer, Julia and Rodebaugh, Thomas. Social Anxiety and Gaze Avoidance: Averting Gaze but not Anxiety. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 2013, Vol.37(6): 1110-1120.
LeResche, Linda ; Dworkin, Samuel F. Facial expression accompanying pain
Social Science & Medicine. 1984. 19(12): 1325-1330.
Mobbs, N.A. 1968. Eye-contact in Relation to Social Introversion-Extraversion. British Journal of Social Clinical Psychology 7: 305-306.
Navarro, Joe. 2008. What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People. William Morrow Paperbacks.
Pantic, Maja; Rothkrantz, Leon J. M. Machine understanding of facial expression of pain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 2002. 25(4): 469-470.
Rutter, D.C; D. C. Pennington, M. E. Dewey and J. Swain. 1984. Eye-contact as a chance product of individual looking: Implications for the intimacy model of Argyle and Dean. Source: Journal of nonverbal behavior. 8(4): 250-258.
Richard Tessler and Lisa Sushelsky. 1978. Effects of eye contact and social status on the perception of a job applicant in an employment interviewing situation. Journal of Vocational Behavior 13(3): 338-347.
Sitton, Sarah C; Griffin, Susan T. 1981. Detection of deception from clients’ eye contact patterns. Journal of Counseling Psychology. 28(3): 269-271.
Sell, A., Cosmides, L. and Tooby, J., The Human Anger Face Evolved to Enhance Cues of Strength. Evolution and Human Behavior. 2014, doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.05.008
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/human-anger-face-signal-strength
Underwood, M. K.. Glares of Contempt, Eye Rolls of Disgust and Turning Away to Exclude: Non-Verbal Forms of Social Aggression among Girls. Feminism & Psychology. 2004 14(3): 371-375.
Vlaeyen, Johan W.S. ; Hanssen, Marjolein ; Goubert, Liesbet ; Vervoort, Tine ; Peters, Madelon ; van Breukelen, Gerard ; Sullivan, Michael J.L. ; Morley, Stephen. Threat of pain influences social context effects on verbal pain report and facial expression. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 2009 47(9): 774-782.
Zhao, Ke; Wen-Jing Yan; Yu-Hsin Chen; Xi-Nian Zuo and Xiaolan Fu. Amygdala Volume Predicts Inter-Individual Differences in Fearful Face Recognition. PLOS one. August 2013. (8): 8: e74096. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0074096.g001
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/fear-amygdala