5 Things You Can Learn About Someone Just By Looking Them In The Eye

Staring directly into someone’s eyes causes an arousal reaction. How that arousal is interpreted, however, depends on the parties involved and the circumstances.

Being stared at by a stranger who appears large or ominous can be seen as a threat and elicit a fear response. This is common in social animals. A direct stare from a human to a dog or an ape can be interpreted as a threat from the large (and strange) human.

Eye contact has also been found to be somewhat linked to social anxiety . However, the gaze of a potential sexual partner causes arousal that can be interpreted positively — as a sexual invitation or a clear sign of interest.

Psychologist Paul Ekman has distinguished between smiles that represent genuine happiness  (“Duchenne” smiles), and fake smiles that might be used to feign happiness, or cover some other emotion.

The key to telling a fake smile from a real one is in the eyes. When forming real smiles, the eyes narrow and create lines, or “crow’s feet,” at the outer corners.

When we are interested in something or someone, our pupils will dilate. Some research has even found that men rate a woman who has larger pupils as more attractive than women with fuller irises.   

Research on love and attraction has found that a mutual gaze — staring into each other’s eyes — is a good predictor of two individuals being “in love.” Eye contact could be a very important part of dating.

The research discovered that even those who were already a couple found that when they continued to have eye contact with their partner , they had a greater affection and feeling of passionate love between them.

Everyone assumes that a liar won’t look you in the eye, but research on the nonverbal cues associated with deception suggests that a liar engages in more eye contact than a truth-teller.

The explanation is that the deceiver goes the extra mile to try to convince you of his or her veracity and so “overdoes” the eye contact in order to appear truthful.