Much of our communication comes from our body language. It is very easy for the average person to look around the room and based on body language alone, deduce the level of confidence people are outwardly showing. Look around next time on your bus ride or lunch hour and look at how people are holding themselves, walking, looking around. It is pretty easy to tell those who are very confident and those who are insecure. What about those people in the middle? Watch them for a while. Small gestures and movements on someone who is on the middle of that outward confidence scale mean a lot more now.
One of the confidence cues I have recently been noticing a lot is where people look. While no one glance tells the whole story I noticed that when I exchange glances with someone or am even in a conversation with someone the act of looking straight down creates an almost unconscious evaluation of them in my head.
What interests me is what this act of looking down means. When I meet another man’s eyes there is a subtle, unconscious, dominance play that happens. Whoever looks away first is often the less confident. If he holds my gaze then I have to smile and nod otherwise it could be interpreted as aggressive. If at any time he or I looks down in this exchange rather than to the side, an unconscious statement of dominance becomes apparent. With women a similar thing happens.
When a man and a woman meet it isn’t so bad if a woman looks down at first. In fact it can even be attractive if she is looking at him and when he meets her gaze she looks down and back at him. A more confident woman looking to the side doesn’t betray her interest in him. A woman who looks down shows a bit of vulnerability, which is attractive to most men. However if she is consistently looking down it goes beyond vulnerability and slight submissiveness to insecurity. For men, looking down may be a good thing when the conversation turns to a more personal level but at the early stages of meeting and initiating a conversation, looking down just shows insecurity.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming eye accessing cues show us that where we look when thinking often means something. Looking down is accessing either internal mental dialog or our internal feelings. In the first stages of an interaction either shows a lack of confidence because likely that internal dialogue or emotions are insecurities going through someone’s mind. Due to male and female roles it is ok for a woman to be a bit submissive up front, even doing so can encourage a man to approach, however with either sex confidence is king. The more confident a person is the more attractive they are. Looking down shows someone is in their head or feeling something.
Imagine in your head someone who is insecure and not showing confidence. I envision a person with their shoulders slightly shrugged and forward, shifting and fidgeting and looking down at their feet. A confident person stands tall with their shoulders back and looks people in the eyes, rarely looking down.
Try walking around in public and see when you are naturally looking down after exchanging glances. Notice when you catch someone’s eyes that you find attractive and what you do. I find this to be a great indicator of my outward confidence and if I start being conscious of it my confidence level grows. Much like forcing myself to smile when I am down cheers me up, avoiding looking down helps me feel more confident.
Tags: Body Language, Confidence, Eye Accesssing, Eye Contact
