Nonverbal communication in human interaction (II)

Reflecting cognitive activities

1. Both listeners and speakers have a tendency to avoid gazing at others when trying to process difficult or complex ideas. This averted gaze, which may include closing the eyes, reflects a shift in attention from external to internal matters, as well as an effort to exclude or interrupt external stimulation, such as that inherent in the processing of face-to-face social cues. People avoid gaze more on reflective questions than factual ones and on more difficult questions-more difficult in factual content or in terms of the length of the temporal search required.
2. Further more, when participants were required to answer factual questions, either with their eyes closed or while looking directly at the experimenter, performance was better in the eyes-closed condition, thus demonstrating the functional utility of excluding external stimulation while engaging in difficult cognitive activity.
3. Gaze aversion also benefits children on difficult cognitive tasks, largely by helping them manage the cognitive demands. The use of gaze aversion while answering challenging questions appears to be something that can be taught to very young children, resulting in superior performance.
4. The nature of cognitive activity can also influence leftward or rightward eye movements. When a person moves his or her eyes in a particular direction, it is thought to reflect activity in the opposite hemisphere of the brain: Left hemisphere activity, often involving intellectual and linguistic tasks, is associated with right- ward glances, whereas right hemisphere activity, often involving spatial or emo- tional processing, is associated with leftward glances (Ehrlichman & Weinberger, 1978; Weisz & Adam, 1993; Wilbur & Roberts-Wilbur, 1985). Studies show that electroencephalic activity increases in the hemisphere opposite the direction of the eye movement, and such activity can actually be stimulated by the movements. Individuals vary in their leftward or rightward eye-movement tendencies, with left movers being more susceptible to hypnosis, less scientifically oriented, more involved with feelings and inner experience, more creative, and more prone to psy- chosomatic symptoms and the psychological defenses of repression and denial.

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Expressing emotions

1. A glance at the eye area can provide us with a good deal of information about the emotion being expressed. In fact, greater attention to the eyes might account for why some (women) are better than others (men) at reading emotion states on the face.

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Communicating the nature of the interpersonal relationship

1. The direct gaze of a live person is important to the initial stages of processing his or her facial information, which obviously is relevant to the possibility of some sort of relationship (Pönkänen, Alhoniemi, Leppänen, & Hietanen, 2011).
2. Gazing and mutual gazing are often indicative of the nature of the relationship between two interactants. For instance, relationships characterized by different status or dominance levels may be reflected in the eye patterns; one example was given earlier—the way the leader in a group seems to pick the next speaker by gazing at him or her. The gaze of observers also might reflect a sensitivity to status differ- ences among people. Foulsham, Cheng, Tracy, Henrich, and Kingstone (2010) found that participants watching a video of a decision-making group looked more at the high-status than low-status individuals in the group.
3. Another indicator of status or dominance is the visual dominance ratio—the percentage of time spent looking at another while speaking to him or her divided by the percentage of time spent looking at him or her while he or she is speaking. People with higher status or dominance gaze relatively more while speaking and relatively less while listening, compared to people with lower status or dominance.
4. Although subtle patterns such as these distinguish people with higher and lower dominance, a simple measure of overall gazing does not, accord- ing to numerous studies (as reviewed by Hall, Coats, & Smith LeBeau, 2005). On the other hand, stereotypes about gazing and dominance indicate a belief in such an association.
5. Visual egalitarianism equality among members of a group might be revealed in gaze patterns that suggest all members of the group are being looked at to relatively the same extent. Koch and colleagues found that visual egalitarianism was greater in groups headed by a female team leader than a male team leader.
6. Several studies testify that we gaze more at people and things perceived as rewarding.
7. Increased gazing is often considered in the context of a courtship relationship. The maintenance of mutual gaze longer than otherwise expected is a primary way of signaling desire for heightened intimacy. In movies, we can almost always pre- dict when a first kiss is coming because the characters share an unusually long mutual gaze.
8. An increased amount of gaze can both signal a wish for more involve- ment and be an indication that heightened involvement has occurred. In one study, for example, single men (but not single women) showed more gazing toward an attractive than unattractive opposite-sex interaction partner (Van Straaten, Holland, Finkenauer, Hollenstein, & Engles, 2010). Several sources confirm an increase in gaz- ing between two people who are seeking to develop a more intimate relationship. Rubin’s (1970) analysis of engaged couples indicated more mutual gaze, and Kleinke, Bustos, Meeker, and Staneski (1973) found that longer glances or reciprocated glances were perceived as an indicator of a longer relationship. It may be that the amount of gazing increases as relationships become more intimate, but it may also be true that after maintaining an intimate relationship for years, gazing returns to levels below those observed during more intense stages of the relationship’s development.
9. intimacy equilibrium model : intimacy is a function of the amount of eye gazing, physical proximity, intimacy of topic, and amount of smiling.
10. Gaze is part of a network of other behaviors that have important relations to one another in a total system reflective of the overall psychological intimacy. Clearly, other variables might be inserted into the equation; for example, body orientation, the form of address used, tone of voice, other facial expressions, and forward lean.
11. The central idea behind this proposal is that as one component of the model is changed, one or more of the other components also will change in the opposite direction, as a form of compensation to keep the overall intimacy or stimulation at a constant, desired level. For example, if one person looks too much, the other may look less, move farther away, smile less, talk less about intimate matters, and so on to reestablish the initial desired level of intimacy. Also, when one person is forced to increase the implied intimacy of a behavior—for example, by standing close to another in a crowded elevator—the other will compensate by gazing less, talking about impersonal topics, and so forth.
12. Cross-cultural research shows that in societies that emphasize a greater amount of physical contact between mothers and infants, mutual gaze between them is lower than in societies where the norms prescribe more physical auton- omy and distance. Here again is evidence of a compensatory mechanism, whereby the crucial psychological connection between mothers and infants is maintained in different but equivalent ways. The same trade-off between physical contact and mutual gaze has also been observed in chimpanzee mother–infant interac- tions (Bard et al., 2005).
13. Our tendency to exchange the same behavior (i.e., to reciprocate) or to offset the other’s behavior (i.e., to compensate) is a result of the type and amount of arousal we feel and desire. A general rule suggests that we tend to reciprocate or match another’s non- verbal behavior when the other’s behavior is perceived by us as congruent with our own expectations and preferences, or when we want to initiate an upward or downward spiral in intimacy. When our partner’s behavior is not congruent with our expectations and preferences, we are more likely to enact compensatory or off- setting behavior (see also Chapter 12).