Vancouver: Making eye contact, long considered an effective way of persuasion, might be counterproductive when the listeners already disagree, according to a new study.
The study, published recently in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, was the result of collaborations among researchers from Canada, Germany and the US.
"There is a lot of cultural lore about the power of eye contact as an influence tool," said University of British Columbia professor Frances Chen, one of the first authors of the study.
"But our findings show that direct eye contact makes skeptical listeners less likely to change their minds, not more, as previously believed," Xinhua reported Chen as saying.
With the help of recently developed eye-tracking technology, the researchers investigated the effects of eye contact in situations involving persuasion in a series of experiments.
They found that on various controversial issues, the more participants watched a speaker's eyes, the less persuaded they were by the argument of the person speaking.
Spending more time looking at someone's eyes as they spoke was only associated with greater receptiveness among participants who already agreed with the speaker on that issue, according to the researchers.
"Whether you're a politician or a parent, it might be helpful to remember that trying to maintain eye contact may backfire if you're trying to convince someone who has a different set of beliefs than you," said co-author Julia Minson of Harvard' s Kennedy School of Government.
Comments
| Quick linksNews
National
International
Regional
Politics
Education & Career
Business
Science & Technology
Health
Views & Analysis
The Funny Side
© 2012 Awaz Multimedia & Publications. All rights reserved.
Cabinet unanimously withdraws ordinance, bill on convicted lawmakersInformation and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari made the announcement after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who returned late Tuesday after attending the UN General Assembly, presided over a 20-minute .... More
Error in passport, Indian haji deported back from Jeddah airportIn what can be the most agonising incident in one's life, an Indian Haji is deported back to India even after he reached Saudi Arabia to perform haj this year. The Indian Haji from Marathwada's . ... More
Apart from the cases of corruption, in the last three years, the Supreme Court of India and the High Court of Gujarat have entrusted four cases of fake encounters of Gujarat to the CBI. The cases are that of Sohrabuddin-Kauserbi, Tulsi Prajapati, Javed-Ishrat ... More
"If the temples release some of their gold, the country need not import this for another four-five months. It will be win-win situation for both the government and the temples. The government will save a lot of foreign exchange," he ...... More
