The first experiment where I gave complete eye contact through out the entire conversation, ended up turning into a blinking contest. Apparently I was taking the experiment a little to seriously and my friend that I was doing it on realized that I hadn't blinked in a while so she assumed I was trying to start a blinking contest. I won! This was not the reaction I was going for at all.
When I payed no attention to eye contact at all, there was a much better reaction from her. She asked me numerous times if I was even listening to her and I repeated back what she was talking about and told her to continue on. I could just tell by the way she changed her tone of voice and the way she was acting that it made her feel insignificant when I wasn't giving her any eye contact. After debriefing with her that is exactly what she said it made her feel like.
The second experiment turned into a wrestling match. I must not be a very good actor because these experiments just got really fun and humorous instead of getting a negative or positive reaction out of the people I did them on.
I think that there are many people that would feel extremely uncomfortable with some of these nonverbal behaviors if I didn't know the people so well. There are unwritten rules in nonverbal communication. It makes someone feel so much better when you give them eye contact in your conversation to show that you are truly interested in what they have to say. If you do not give someone eye contact while speaking with them it could be seen as very rude and make the other person feel insignificant. Personal space is extremely important to us.
question: How does it make you feel when you can tell that the people you are having a conversation with are not paying attention to you or what you have to say?
Okay I have a friend who texts all the time and obviously is more involved in her text than whatever you're saying. This is the most frustrating thing in the world to me. I feel like the person you are actually with should take priority over the person you can text back at any point in time. I feel like technology is making everyone horrible listeners. I just feel like if a text is more important than what I'm saying then obviously whatever I'm saying is completely unimportant, which shouldn't be true.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you Cheryl. I also find it super frustrating and rude when people I am with are texting.
ReplyDeleteWhen people don’t make eye contact with me when I am talking to them I get very irritated. I feel that they are not paying attention to me and do not care about what I am saying to them. I take this a nonverbal cue that they do not want to talk to me.
I agree, when people ingore me I will feel offended and frustrated. If people ignore me, I generally stop talking. However, I don't mind if people don't keep eye contact with me. I can see how that might frustrate someone like Jordan, but I find it very uncomfortable keeping eye contact with someone in many circumstances. What bothers me most, however, is when people text message when in a conversation with me. I despise that. Any time that happens, I think to myself "either listen to me or text, but don't do both."
ReplyDeleteWhen people do not pay attention to what I have to say, it is very irritating to me. If I am going out of my way, or trying to have a conversation with someone I would like their full attention. If I don't feel like I'm getting their full attention, I will typically stop speaking and ask if they're even listening. I think it is very rude to not listen to a person when they're talking to you, and I don't do that to others, so I don't want them doing it to me!
ReplyDeleteUgh!! This is exactly why I hate technology! So many people are distracted by stupid texting or facebook or video games to actually be able to sit down and have regular conversations with someone. I absolutely hate when people act like they are listening when they truely are not.
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