Body Language of Shifty Eyes
Cue: Shifty Eyes
Synonym(s): N/A
Description: Happens when the eyes dart all over the room to focus on anything but someone else’s eyes.
In One Sentence: Shifty eyes show lack of certainty and nervousness.
How To Use it: Shifty eyes is a cue that should be avoided unless one wishes to draw attention to ones stress and nervousness. As the cue is generally associated with lying it is looked poorly upon. The cue can be used to show nonverbal sarcasm.
Context: General.
Verbal Translation: “I’m feeling the pressure and my eyes are traveling all over the place in search of answers to the stress I’m under. If I look in enough places, I’m bound to find what I’m looking for.”
Variant: N/A.
Cue In Action: To get him to cave, she put him in front of the class and asked him if he would confess. He was obviously lying, she though. His eyes darted about the room as she grilled him about the missing raffle money. She assumed he was lying because he wouldn’t hold eye contact.
Meaning and/or Motivation: Shifty eyes are habitually associated with lying but research shows that most practiced liars hold gaze even more strongly than normal.
Paul Ekman’s research into lying says that people often attribute shifty or darting eyes to liars, however, as a predictor of a lie it actually falls short. Looking away from complicated human faces helps us concentrate. Therefore darting eyes doesn’t really tell us anything concretely. Just that thought is taking place.
Additionally, the stress and nervousness of being put on the spot is enough to cause the eyes to exhibit patterns that seem dishonest. Shifty eyes are a more reliable predictor of stress than lying.
Cue Cluster: Darting eyes is connected to other nervous and stress related body language such as touching the face, neck, nose and ears, shrinking and shrugging, ducking the head and crossing the arms and legs.
Body Language Category: Confused body language, Embarrassment (nonverbal), Escape movements, Eye Language, Negative body language, Nervous body language, Stressful body language, Suspicious body language.
Resources:
Argyle, Michael; Lefebvre, Luc; Cook, Mark 1974. The meaning of five patterns of gaze. European Journal of Social Psychology. 4(2): 125-136.
Argyle, M., and Ingham, R. 1972. Gaze, mutual gaze, and proximity. Semiotica, 1, 32–49.
Argyle, M. and Cook, M. Gaze and Mutual Gaze. London: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Allan Mazur; Eugene Rosa; Mark Faupel; Joshua Heller; Russell Leen; Blake Thurman. Physiological Aspects of Communication Via Mutual Gaze. The American Journal of Sociology. 1980; 86(1): 50-74.
Bowers, Andrew L. ; Crawcour, Stephen C. ; Saltuklaroglu, Tim ; Kalinowski, Joseph
Gaze aversion to stuttered speech: a pilot study investigating differential visual attention to stuttered and fluent speech. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders. 2010. 45(2): 133-144.
Breed, G., Christiansen, E., & Larson, D. 1972. Effect of lecturer’s gaze direction upon
teaching effectiveness. Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 2: 115.
Bond, C. F., Kahler, K. N., & Paolicelli, L. M. (1985). The miscommunication of deception: An adaptive perspective. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 331–345. doi:10.1016/0022-1031(85)90034-4
Burns, J. A., & Kintz, B. L. (1976). Eye contact while lying during an interview. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 7, 87–89.
Chen, Yi-Chia ; Yeh, Su-Ling. Look into my eyes and I will see you: Unconscious processing of human gaze. Consciousness and Cognition. 2012 21(4): 1703-1710.
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.
Foddy, Margaret 1978. Patterns of Gaze in Cooperative and Competitive Negotiation
Human Relations. 31(11):925-938.
Gregersen, Tammy S. Nonverbal Cues: Clues to the Detection of Foreign Language Anxiety. Foreign Language Annals. 2005. 38(3): 388-400
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/what-anxious-learners-can-tell-us-about-anxious-body-language-how-to-read-nonverbal-behavior/
Horley K, Williams LM, Gonsalvez C, Gordon E (2003) Social phobics do not see eye to eye: a visual scanpath study of emotional expression processing. J Anxiety Disord 17:33–44
Hietanen, J. K. (1999). Does your gaze direction and head orientation shift my visual attention? Neuroreport, 10, 3443–3447.
Hemsley, G. D., & Doob, A. N. (1978). The effects of looking behavior on perceptions of a communicator’s credibility. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 8, 136–144. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1978.tb00772.x
Johansson-Stenmen, O. (2008). Who are the trustworthy, we think? Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 68, 456–465. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2008.08.004
Jenkins, R., Keane, J., & Calder, A.J. (2007, August). From your eyes only: Gaze adaptation from averted eyes and averted heads. Paper presented at the Thirtieth European Conference on Visual Perception, Arezzo, Italy.
Kawashima, R., Sugiura, M., Kato, T., Nakamura, A., Hatano, K., Ito, K., Fukuda, H., Kojima, S., & Nakamura, K. (1999). The human amygdala plays an important role in gaze monitoring: A PET study. Brain, 122, 779–783.
Kellerman. 1989. Looking and loving: The effects of mutual gaze on feelings of romantic love. Journal of Research in Personality. 23(2): 145-161.
Kendon, A. Some Functions of Gaze Direction in Social Interaction. Acta Psychologica. 1967. 32: 1-25.
Kleinke, C. L. 1980. Interaction between gaze and legitimacy of request on compliance in a field setting. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 5(1): 3-12.
Katza, Carmit; Irit Hershkowitz; Lindsay C. Malloya; Michael E. Lamba; Armita Atabakia and Sabine Spindlera. Non-Verbal Behavior of Children Who Disclose or do not Disclose Child Abuse in Investigative Interviews. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2012. 36: 12-20.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/reading-nonverbal-behaviour-child-abuse-cases-encourage-children-divulge-information-truth-telling
Langton, S. R. H., & Bruce, V. (1999). Reflexive visual orienting in response to the social attention of others. Visual Cognition, 6, 541–567.
Langton, S. R. H., & Bruce, V. (2000). You must see the point: Automatic processing of cues to the direction of social attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 26, 747–757.
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.
Langton, S.R.H. (2000). The mutual influence of gaze and head orientation in the analysis of social attention direction. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A: Human Experimental Psychology, 53, 825–845.
Leeb. 2004. Here’s Looking at You, Kid! A Longitudinal Study of Perceived Gender Differences in Mutual Gaze Behavior in Young Infants Source: Sex Roles. 50(1-2): 1-14.
McAndrew. 1986. Arousal seeking and the maintenance of mutual gaze in same and mixed sex dyads Source: Journal of nonverbal behavior. 10(3):168-172.
Mulac, A., Studley, L., Wiemann, J., & Bradac, J. 1987. Male/female gaze in same-sex and mixed-sex dyads. Human Communication Research. 13: 323-343.
Moore, Monica. Courtship Signaling and Adolescents: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Journal of Sex Research. 1995. 32(4): 319-328.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/girls-just-want-to-have-fun-the-origins-of-courtship-cues-in-girls-and-women/
Moukheiber A, Rautureau G, Perez-Diaz F, Soussignan R, Dubal S, Jouvent R, Pelissolo A (2010) Gaze avoidance in social phobia: objective e measure and correlates. Behav Res Ther 48:147–151
Mccarthy, Anjanie ; Lee, Kang. Children’s Knowledge of Deceptive Gaze Cues and Its Relation to Their Actual Lying Behavior. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2009. 103(2): 117-134.
Mann, Samantha ; Ewens, Sarah ; Shaw, Dominic ; Vrij, Aldert ; Leal, Sharon ; Hillman, Jackie. Lying Eyes: Why Liars Seek Deliberate Eye Contact. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law. 2013. 20(3): 452-461.
Natale, Michael. 1976. A Markovian model of adult gaze behavior. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. 5(1): 53-63.
Phelps, F., Doherty-Sneddon, G., & Warnock Educational Psychology., 27, 91-107. (2006). Functional benefits of children’s gaze aversion during questioning. British Journal Developmental Psychology. 24: 577-588.
Rosenfeld, H., Breck, B., Smith, S., & Kehoe, S. 1984. Intimacy-mediators of the proximity-gaze compensation effect: Movement, conversational role, acquaintance, and gender. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 8: 235-249.
Riggio, R. E., & Friedman, H. S. (1983). Individual differences and cues to deception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 899–915. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.45.4.899
Slessor, Gillian ; Phillips, Louise H. ; Bull, Rebecca ; Venturini, Cristina ; Bonny, Emily J. ; Rokaszewicz, Anna. Investigating the “deceiver stereotype”: do older adults associate averted gaze with deception?(Author abstract). The Journals of Gerontology, Series B. 2012. 67(2): 178(6).
Sporer, S. L., & Schwandt, B. (2007). Moderators of nonverbal indicators of deception: A meta-analytic synthesis. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 13, 1–34. doi: 10.1037/1076-8971.13.1.1
Sturman, Edward D. Invluntary Subordination and Its Relation to Personality, Mood,
and Submissive Behavior. Psychological Assessment. 2011. 23(1): 262-276 DOI: 10.1037/a0021499
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/nonverbal-submission-men-women-depression-critical-examination-use-disuse-submission/
Straube, Thomas ; Langohr, Bernd ; Schmidt, Stephanie ; Mentzel, Hans-Joachim ; Miltner, Wolfgang H.R. Increased amygdala activation to averted versus direct gaze in humans is independent of valence of facial expression. NeuroImage. 2010 49(3): 2680-2686.
Vrij, A., Harden, E, Terry, J., Edward, K., & Bull, R. (2000). The influence of personal characteristics, stakes and lie complexity on the accuracy and confidence to detect deceit, in R. Roesch, R.R. Corrado, & R. J. Dempster (Eds.), Psychology in the courts: International advances in knowledge. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic.
Vrij, A., & Semin, G. R. (1996). Lie experts’ beliefs about nonverbal indicators of deception. Journal of Nonverbal Behaviour, 20, 65–81. doi: 10.1007/BF02248715
Wirth, James H ; Sacco, Donald F ; Hugenberg, Kurt ; Williams, Kipling D. Eye gaze as relational evaluation: averted eye gaze leads to feelings of ostracism and relational devaluation. Personality & social psychology bulletin. 2010 36(7): 869-82.
Williams. 1993. Effects of Mutual Gaze and Touch on Attraction, Mood, and Cardiovascular Reactivity Source: Journal of Research in Personality. 27(2): 170-183.
Wicker, B., Michel, F., Henaff, M.-A., & Decety, J. (1998). Brain regions involved in the perception of gaze: A PET study. Neuroimage, 8, 221–227.
Wang, Yin ; Newport, Roger ; Hamilton, Antonia F De C. Eye contact enhances mimicry of intransitive hand movements. Biology letters. 2011. 7(1): 7-10.