Tag Archive for Feelings

The Business Gaze

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When engaging people in business it is important to hold the correct eye contact. Eye contact begins as soon as you wish to engage someone, but doesn’t happen continuously and in varies with whom you speak with. In fact, eye contact should be held about eighty to ninety percent of the time when men and women speak or when women speak to each other, but when men speak to each other, eye contact should be held only about sixty to seventy percent of the time.

If gaze is held for too long while men and women speak, men will evoke feelings of discomfort in women whereas women will evoke feelings of sexual interest, context permitting or dominance. If eye contact between men and women is any less than the eighty to ninety percent benchmark, both sexes will read disinterest. On the other hand if gaze is held too long amongst men, it is read as aggression, or if too short, as a lack of confidence or shiftiness. Women who wish to level the field in business can use gaze to their advantage by holding it longer than normal to increase their dominance or conversely can invoke protective feelings in men to gain resources by showing less eye contact and hence appearing more submissive. Women who increase gaze time while speaking with men will make them feel much more insecure and uneasy than that which would be caused by men against women. Men are not accustomed to taking on submissive roles especially when in the company of women, thus any women who wishes to use this tactic should be prepared. Women should always use their discretion and take their rank into consideration to decide which type of gaze is most appropriate.

As we have seen thus far, eye contact indicates that we have someone’s attention or that we are paying attention. We also discovered that while eye contact is important, we shouldn’t hold eye contact for too long lest we appear to be staring or overly dominant and while we are in the company of friends or lovers we might check out the rest of their overall physic, their clothing, their shoes and so forth, doing so in a business setting is not recommended. As noted previously, the friendly gaze travels a triangular pattern from eye to eye and then to the mouth, whereas the intimate gazes travels the same pattern with forays to the lower regions of the body in order to be “sized up”.

In business, it is important not to cast our gaze below the neckline so as not to appear sexually interested. Most of the business gaze is spent traveling from eye to eye and down only as far as the nose. The goal of the business gaze is to show interest and intensity but omit any sexual indicators. To convey an even greater seriousness, the eyes should travel from eye to eye then to the forehead, but never any lower. If you note any up and down gaze patterns from an opposite sex employer, you can be fairly certain they have more than just business on their mind! Also, men with female bosses should never allow their eyes to travel over their boss’s body unless they wish to convey sexual interest (and are prepared for the repercussions that might stem from it!). For every other encounter that is undefined or undetermined use the gaze pattern most likely to yield the response you desire. So if you wish to create friends, use the friendship gaze pattern or if you fancy someone, create intimacy with the intimacy gaze pattern and make eye forays across the face, to the lips and down to the crotch or breasts but if you want to keep it professional, keep all gaze around the eyes, nose and forehead.

The Friendly Social Gaze

by  • March 5, 2013 • 2 Comments

When friends talk to one another they aren’t trying to peer into their souls, rather, they gaze. The gaze is non-threatening and like the intimate gaze, which follows, the eyes travel over the face in a specific pattern. In the friendly gaze, the eyes travel in a triangular pattern from eye to eye then to the mouth with some infrequent looks to the rest of the body. The reason we cast our eyes infrequently over other parts of the body is simply due to the reason that it is of less interest and of less value in friendship which is just the opposite of that which happens in the intimate gaze. With friends, gaze is brief, lasting only about three seconds followed by looking away. The research tells us that about seventy-five percent of the time eyes travel through the triangular pattern from the eyes to the mouth, ten percent of the time is spent on forays to the forehead and hair, and five percent to the chin, with the remaining time split on various other features.

After a period of gaze or mutual eye-contact both people will avert their eyes downward instead of left, right or upward. But if you are really in a comedic mood and want to put the fright into someone, break your eye contact by quickly looking up and taking a step backwards! They will most certainly think that something is about to fall on them which is the likely reason we rarely look up when breaking eye contact. Looking down, on the other hand is a symbol of submission whereas looking left or right can imply disinterest (or interest in something else), or a desire to withdraw from the conversation. Looking past or ‘through’ someone, by having an expressionless face, and unblinking eyes has the same affect, it places importance on other things aside from the conversation at hand. Of course, and as mentioned previously, feelings associated with improper eye contact is noted and held subconsciously, since for most people they are out of the normal range of awareness. That being said, people will attach powerful feelings and judgments to us based on how we use eye contact during conversation regardless of our true personalities.

The extreme end of negative thoughts and feelings related to eye contact comes from prolonged periods of unbroken eye contact – staring!

Summary – Chapter 3

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In this third chapter we examined and compared the various influences on body language: genetic, learned and cultural. We found that in terms of genetics we all show similar roots and so display similarly across cultures, but that learning does play a role in how we might signal. We also covered emblems, illustrators, affect displays, adaptors and regulators which all form a part of what is called kinesics or how nonverbal behaviour relates to movement. Emblems, we found, are quotable gestures that are culturally specific which can be used as replacement for words and have a direct verbal translation. Illustrators are a second type of gesture that we use while speaking to help us paint a more descriptive picture such as talking about a boxing match and using a punching motion. Affect displays is nonverbal language that reveal our emotional state such as smiling or frowning and adaptors are movements or gestures that are used to manage our feelings or control our responses such as postural changes. Sometimes these adaptors have hidden meaning, but other times they do not, so caution is warranted. Regulators on the other hand control turn taking and flow when people speak with one another. Finally we covered high and low context cultures as it relates to touching and the ways various cultures meet and greet one another.

Adaptors

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Is he hot under the collar or is the collar simply uncomfortable?

Is he hot under the collar or is the collar simply uncomfortable?

Adaptors are movements or gestures that are used to manage our feelings or control our responses. Adaptors include movements done to improve comfort or reduce stress and often happen at such a low level they usually escape awareness. Adaptors include movements such as shifting in a chair or postural changes, crossing the legs, pulling at a shirt collar, adjusting a tie, loosening clothing and so forth.

What is interesting to researchers is that some adaptors serve a real purpose and others indicate stress. For example, sometimes our pants really are uncomfortable so we scratch our legs, other times the stress from outside pressure causes us to scratch in an effort to displace energy and distract us. Crossing the legs toward your date might be read as an indicator of interest, but might instead serve to alleviate numbness from loss of circulation. Children will rub their eyes repeatedly when tired, but this is not because they become itchy!

Scratching the nose is another example of an adaptor and could be misread as an indicator of a lying or might actually serve to relieve an itch. Another common adaptor used by adults is the head-grooming gesture where the hand messages the back of the neck or head to relive stress. This gesture is not an authentic gesture motivated by a physical purpose. Rather it used as a method to achieve comfort when facing discomfort applied from the outside. Just about every cue related to body language can be an adaptor. Arm crossing, leg crossing, scratching, fidgeting, twitching, rubbing the eyes, and so on, are all part of the human repertoire and not all have hidden meaning all of the time.

A gestures that indicates anxiety rather than a targeted scratch.

A gestures that indicates anxiety rather than a targeted scratch.

It is the job of the body language reader to decide which movements are motivated by a real physical purpose and which are motivated by an underlying emotional purpose. Usually stress release methods are person specific so once they are detected can be reliable as predictors in future encounters. Some might pull an ear lobe, rub one’s throat, pull on a collar or scratch the back of the hands. I will say that it’s usually pretty obvious when a gesture like scratching is real because it is targeted, quick, non-repetitive and provides instant relief, but when it’s as a response to emotional trauma, it show opposite characteristics. It is general in nature, perpetual, repetitive and provides no discernable relief (at least not instantaneously). The context, meaning high or low stress environment provides strong clues to the purpose of the adaptors. All proper body language reads should take context into consideration.

As we see, movements or adaptors come in two forms. They either have hidden meaning, or they do not. Plenty of emphasis has been given by researchers on these subconscious clues on the grounds that they would unlock secrets. However, the importance placed on adaptors is probably overstated and oversimplified. The real goal of the body language reader is to decipher the difference between adaptors with no meaning and movements and gestures that have actual meaning. Adaptors in cross-cultural meetings can also be potential landmines. For example, emblems, specifically because they are culturally engrained, are emitted without conscious thought. Many Arabic countries see the sole of the foot or the figure-four-leg cross as offensive and rude (an emblem of sorts to them) so they may classify a Westerner as something they intent not to be. It is clear to the Westerner that they wish only to take up a more comfortable seating position. The take-away message is to treat adaptors with the care they deserve instead of jumping to inaccurate, embarrassing or even disastrous conclusions.

Are Men Bad Readers Of Body Language?

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Many beliefs exist about the sexes. Men are thought to be task and goal oriented, more aggressive, dominant and loud when they communicate. Women are thought to be emotional, gentle and sensitive. Women are also thought to talk more and also to be more aware of others’ feelings. But how much of these beliefs are accurate is up for debate. When we talk about reading people and intuition, we are really talking about someone’s ability to read someone’s body language. It can also be called audience awareness or perceptivity and can relate to a speaker or listener.

The research shows us that some of preconceptions are in fact correct but this dismisses a huge variable. That variable is our massive ability to learn. Men reading this book will have a vastly superior ability to read others when compared to women who have no schooling whatsoever in body language. Research has shown that men lack empathy for others and disregard other’s emotions. Is this a simple case of being lazy or are there real notable differences? A second research experiment found that homosexual men and male nurses were also more in-tune with reading others, and that this might actually be related to differences in the brain. However, not all, or even most male nurses would be presumed to be homosexual so obviously there are variation in the ability of men to read emotions.