Post to a Helen Fisher website

Post to a Helen Fisher website

I'm a man. Here's my anecdotal two cents about eye contact:  I like to look away when talking most of the time (not all of the time) because meaningful conversations so often involve analyzing and picking things apart, and getting up-to-date with the talk partner's life activities, and planning shared future activities --- all things which require looking inward and building models in your brain.  Like, if the talk partner is saying, "Last Tuesday I did this and that, and next Wednesday I will be doing this and that," this requires seeing a calendar in your head, and seeing simulated mental movies of what the activities are and have been.  So, looking your talk partner in the eye can be distracting because you and your talk partner are collaboratively building a model of one thing or another in your heads, and looking outward takes your eye off the shared ball.  Of course, from time to time you will want to check on whether the talk partner is still with you mentally and emotionally, or if they are really "getting" a complex point, and not just faking that they are getting it, so you'll take a quick look-see into their eyes.  But, otherwise, I like to look away because, as mentioned, maintaining eye-contact interferes with the shared task of building a common mental model of the relationship, and the upcoming shared activities.  Of course, if the content is quite emotion-based, such as a buddy telling me about getting dumped, or that his mom just died, or what have you, then, yes, sustained eye contact is the best data feed available.  Generally, though, sustained eye-contact is inefficient, per my experience. A few eye-to-eye data samples will do in most cases.  

My working assumption has been that men tend to think in terms of schematics and flow charts, and women think in more in terms of emotions, and that's why women use eye contact more. Just throwing out a thought: This can perhaps be related to "caveman" behavior in that men may habitually think more in terms of hypothetical "what-ifs" (as in, "What if there is a sabre-toothed tiger in the neighborhood?") and women perhaps think in terms of immediate emotional realities ("Do you hate me? Are you going to cast me out in the jungle?").  Just thinking out loud here....