One of the most potent element in body language is the eye
behaviour.You shift
your eye,meet another person`s gaze or failto meet it- and produce an effect out of all proportion to the trifling muscular effort you have made.When two people look searchingly into each other`s eyes,emotions are heightened and the relationship tipped toward greater intimacy
In normal conversation, each eye contact lasts only abuot a second before one or both individual look away.Because the longer meeting of the eye is rare, it is weighted with significance when it happen and can generate a special kmind of human-to-human awareness.Most of the time, alingering look is interpreted as a signof attraction and this should be scrupulously avoided except in appropriate circumstances.A young woman once complained, 'That man makes me so uncomfortable,haif the time when i glance at him he`s looking at me -and he keeps right on looking`.
Proper street
behaviour requiresa balance of attention and intention.You aresupposed to look at a passer-by just enough to show thatyou are aware of his presence.Ifyou look too little,you appear furtive or haughty;too much and you are inquisitive.Usually what happens is that people eye each other until they are about eight feet apart ,at which point both cast down thire eyes.
Much of eye behaviour is so subtle that we reac t to it only on the level.This has been demostrated in elaborate experiment.
Subject sit and talk in the psychologist s `laboratory, innocent of the fact that their eye behaviour is being observe from behind a one-way vision screen.In one fairtypicalexperiment,subject were induce to cheat while performing a task,then were interviwe and observed.It was found that thosse who had cheated met the interviewer`s eye`s less often than was normal, an indication that 'shifty eye' can actually be a tip-off to an attempt to decieve.
However, none of the 'facts' of eye behaviour are cut and dried,for there are variation between indivduals.People use their eyes differently and spend diffrent amounts of time looking at others.Besides, no pattern of eye behaviour is precisely predictable in any normal conversation.