Abstract
Eyes have a universal language in different cultural backgrounds. Humans utilize the eye contact information to learn about the interests and mental states of others, as well as to keep social ties going. It was hypothesized that the need to engage in coordinated social conduct led to changes in the structure of the human eye. Controlling a face-to-face connection relies heavily on maintaining eye contact, and recognizing one’s self-directed gaze is frequently the starting point for conversations with other people. The topic of cultural differences in the perception of eye contact appears relevant to the study due to the rise in mobility and social interaction between persons of varying cultural backgrounds. The meaning of making eye contact is interpreted differently in European society than it is in Japanese culture.
It is more important in the culture of Europe to make and keep eye contact during conversations with other people than in Japan’s culture. Although maintaining eye contact in the European culture is positively evaluated, it is not the case in the Japanese culture. In Japanese culture, people are discouraged from maintaining eye contact with others because it shows disrespect. For instance, in Japan, young children are instructed to gaze at people’s necks rather than their eyes to maintain their peripheral vision and see what is happening around them. This is done so that they can continue seeing what is happening around them. Because of their extensive visual experience in perceiving eye contact and because they may be more motivated to search for and detect others’ direct gazes during social interaction, people from Western Europe may be less likely to mistakenly interpret slightly averted looks as being self-directed. This is because of their extensive visual experience perceiving eye contact (Sicorello et al., 2019).
The perception of eye contact in European culture differs from that of the Japanese culture when interpreting other people’s emotions. There is a difference in the emotional intensity obtained through eye contact between these two cultures. According to the findings of a study that was carried out in 1999 by Matsumoto, it was found that Japanese participants recognized the facial expressions of a model’s subjective feelings with a greater degree of intensity than North American participants did (Matsumoto, 1999). In a different study that Matsumoto (2002) carried out, participants from Japan and the United States were asked to rate the severity of a model’s facial expressions and share their ideas about what the model was going through inside. When the model expressed emotion at a low-intensity level, the Japanese participants judged their internal experience of the model as more intense than the model’s external display of emotion. This was the case even when the model neutrally displayed emotion. One recent study investigated how people from different cultures reacted to the direct and averted gazes of persons from the same culture displaying neutral faces and how those emotions varied depending on the culture. They found that Japanese respondents evaluated faces that were gazing directly at the viewer to be more hostile, less approachable, and somewhat less agreeable than faces that were not looking directly at the viewer. In addition, participants in Japan, but not Finland, rated faces with an open expression as having a sadder appearance than those with an expression in which the eyes were turned away (Matsumoto, 2002).
According to the equilibrium theory, people strike a balance between their inclinations to approach and avoid another person during encounters, with the optimal level of closeness dictated by the unique environment. According to this line of thinking, people should make more effort to look each other in the eye to make up for the unnecessarily vast distance between them. However, the application of this principle varies greatly depending on the culture being considered. Additionally, the idea explains cultural differences by relating motivating forces to non-verbal communication, such as eye contact. For instance, the importance of approach motivation in Japanese culture is given less weight compared to its prominence in European culture (Sicorello et al., 2019).
In European culture, maintaining eye contact is a sign of confidence and attentiveness. European people believe that when having a conversation with someone, it is rude to look away because it shows a lack of interest in the conversation. Additionally, in a formal setting in the European culture, maintaining eye contact in an interview is encouraged since it is a sign of self-belief and confidence. On the other hand, in Japanese culture, maintaining eye contact during a conversation seems confrontational and aggressive. For example, in the Iranian culture, people avoid eye contact at all costs by looking away or down when looked at. It is a form of showing humbleness, while direct eye contact may be interpreted as rude and hostile (Sicorello et al., 2019).
Conclusion
The perception of eye contact in European culture differs from that of Japanese culture. Japanese people make less eye contact than Europeans and Americans. In Japanese culture, making eye contact with another person is considered rude. For Japanese people to develop a peripheral vision that encompasses other people’s eyes, they are instructed to stare at people’s necks rather than their eyes. Western Europeans may have more visual experience than people in other parts of the world regarding recognizing eye contact. As a result, they are less prone to mistakenly interpret moderately averted gazes as being self-directed. During social interactions, they may also be more driven to look for and recognize the direct gaze of other participants.
References
Sicorello, M., Stevanov, J., Ashida, H., & Hecht, H. (2019). Effect of gaze on personal space: A Japanese–german cross-cultural study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 50(1), 8-21.
Matsumoto D, Consolacion T, Yamada H, Suzuki R, Franklin B, et al. (2002). American-Japanese cultural differences in judgments of emotional expressions of different intensities. Cogn Emot 16: 721–747.
Matsumoto D, Kasri F, Kooken K (1999). American-Japanese cultural differences in judgments of expression intensity and subjective experience. Cogn Emot 13: 201–218.
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