Seeing Eye to Eye - Or Not?
- Shiv Martin
- Jun 16
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 2
By Shiv Martin
Updated: June 2025 Version 1: February 2025
In recent mediation and conciliation workshops, I’ve been faced with a deceptively simple question: should cameras be on or off in online meetings? And when we have the option, should we insist on in-person mediation or allow online engagement?
At the heart of these questions lies a fundamental, but often misunderstood, element of human connection, particularly in the context of conflict: eye contact.
Whether you’re mediating a workplace grievance, facilitating a community dispute, or conducting conciliation in a regulatory setting, understanding how nonverbal communication, particularly eye contact and body language, affects outcomes is essential. As dispute resolution practitioners, we can’t afford to apply one-size-fits-all communication rules. Context, culture, and trauma history matter. And sometimes, insisting on eye contact or face-to-face engagement can unintentionally increase tension or reduce psychological safety.
So I’ve done some research, and in this article I’m sharing my insights, from my research but also my professional practice.
What the Science Says: The Deep Power of Eye Contact
Neuroscience confirms what many of us sense intuitively in mediation and conciliation work: eye contact is not a neutral act. It’s powerful, deeply social, and sometimes overwhelming.
As Dr Christian Jarrett summarises in the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, locking eyes with another person triggers a cascade of unconscious processes in the brain. When we meet someone’s gaze, our attention narrows, our awareness of our surroundings fades, and we become acutely aware that another mind is seeing and evaluating us.
This instant recognition of the other’s agency, their thoughts, feelings, and perspective, causes us to become more self-conscious, attentive, and emotionally responsive. Even portraits with apparent eye contact can activate brain regions linked to social cognition.
But this power comes at a cost. Depending on the context and the relationship between the individuals involved, eye contact can either bring us together, or drive us further apart.
Read more about Dr Jarrett’s insights here: Why meeting another’s gaze is so powerful
When Eye Contact Becomes a Barrier in Mediation and Conciliation
Cognitive Load and Nonverbal Demand
In mediation or conciliation, participants are often under emotional strain. Asking them to maintain constant eye contact, especially on camera for long periods of time, adds to their cognitive load. For neurodivergent individuals or those experiencing anxiety, this can reduce their ability to express themselves clearly (Helminen et al., 2011).
Autistic Lived Experience: A Richer Understanding
Within the Reframing Autism community, a range of perspectives on eye contact challenges the common myth that avoiding gaze equals social disinterest. Many Autistic individuals describe eye contact as uncomfortably intimate, overwhelming, or disruptive to communication. Some themes that emerged from their experiences include:
Eye contact disrupts information processing: “Forced eye contact during a conversation makes me lose track of what’s being said… I just can’t process it.” - Jewel Rose Oshan
It intensifies sensory overload: “It feels like staring into those super-bright lights.” - Carrie Bishop “When I’m near sensory overload, I cannot make eye contact at all.” - Rainah Miqueli
It’s context-dependent: Some find eye contact easier when listening, harder when speaking or thinking, and especially draining during times of stress or with unfamiliar people.
As a dispute resolution practitioner, recognising this diversity of experience helps you foster genuine inclusion and engagement, not through conformity, but through flexibility and responsiveness.
In practice: A party trying to recall workplace events may struggle more if they’re simultaneously worried about how they appear onscreen. Avoiding eye contact may simply be a form of self-regulation, not disengagement.
Cultural Safety in Dispute Resolution
As a mediator, I regularly work across culturally diverse contexts. What’s respectful in one culture may be inappropriate in another. In many Indigenous Australian communities, avoiding eye contact, particularly with Elders or authority figures, is a mark of deep respect. In East Asian and Pacific Islander cultures, prolonged eye contact may be perceived as intrusive or aggressive (Sue & Sue, 2012).
Eye contact carries different meanings across cultures, while it’s often seen as a sign of respect, confidence, or sincerity in many Western contexts, in others, such as Indigenous Australian, East Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures, avoiding eye contact may signify respect, humility, or deference. These differences can lead to misunderstandings in mediation and conciliation, where one party’s behaviour is misread as evasive or disrespectful. This raises an important question for dispute resolution practitioners: Could removing the expectation of eye contact altogether especially in early or high-stakes conversations, create space for parties to engage more openly, free from the weight of cultural assumptions and misinterpretations?
Implication for practice: If we force eye contact in these contexts, we risk undermining cultural safety and the trust-building process so vital to effective mediation and conciliation.
🌪️ Trauma-Informed Practice in Conflict Resolution
Many participants in mediation or conciliation have experienced some form of interpersonal harm, be it bullying, harassment, or systemic disadvantage. From a trauma-aware lens, eye contact can trigger fight-or-flight responses. This is especially important in restorative practices, where reparation and emotional vulnerability are involved (Herman, 1992).
In trauma-informed or power-imbalanced situations, eye contact can become overwhelming rather than connecting. For individuals who have experienced interpersonal violence, bullying, or systemic discrimination, direct gaze may trigger a physiological stress response - activating hypervigilance, fear, or emotional shutdown. Similarly, in cases where there is a significant power differential, such as between a junior employee and a senior executive, or a complainant and a government authority, sustained eye contact can feel intimidating or coercive, rather than respectful. In these contexts, expecting or requiring eye contact may inadvertently reinforce feelings of vulnerability or exposure, making it harder for individuals to speak openly or feel safe in the process. Trauma-informed mediation and conciliation practices recognise this and prioritise creating a psychologically safe environment over adhering to conventional communication norms.
What this means: For some, turning off the camera or looking away isn't avoidance, it's safety. Good dispute resolution practice should never prioritise performance over wellbeing.
When Eye Contact and Body Language Enhance Resolution
While caution is necessary, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Eye contact and body language remain essential tools in dispute resolution, when applied thoughtfully.
Connection and Co-Regulation
Eye contact activates neural pathways associated with social connection and empathy (Senju & Johnson, 2009). In mediation and conciliation, these are the building blocks of trust and rapport. A warm, soft gaze can say, “I’m here with you,” even when words fall short.
Nonverbal Listening
Dispute resolution isn’t just about what’s said, it’s about what’s shown. A party saying “I’m fine” while folding their arms and avoiding gaze is sending mixed signals. Recognising this helps mediators invite clarification and dig deeper, respectfully.
Credibility and Clarity
While intense or forced eye contact can trigger defensiveness (Chen et al., 2013), consistent and gentle visual engagement improves perceived sincerity. Combined with a calm tone and open posture, this boosts mediator authority while maintaining psychological safety.
Practical Strategies for Students and Early-Career Practitioners
As you build your mediation and conciliation practice, here are strategies I recommend when navigating body language and visual engagement:
Don’t over-rely on visual cues. Many people communicate most honestly when they feel unobserved. Listen for tone, rhythm, hesitation and not just gaze direction.
Use “soft gaze.” Look near, not directly into, their eyes. Focus gently, with curiosity rather than scrutiny.
Be explicit about choice. In online mediations or conciliations, say: “You’re welcome to have your camera on or off, whatever feels most comfortable for you.”
Model openness. Whether on camera or in person, maintain open posture, avoid crossing arms, and mirror calm breathing. You’re regulating the room more than you think.
Make space for difference. Acknowledge that comfort with eye contact, body language, and camera presence varies widely. There’s no “correct” way to engage, just what works in context.
FAQ: Eye Contact in Mediation, Conciliation, and Dispute Resolution
Q: Should I expect participants to keep their camera on during online mediation? Not always. Online dispute resolution should centre participant comfort. Allowing flexibility often results in greater participation and emotional safety.
Q: What if one party expects eye contact and the other avoids it? This is common. Acknowledge it explicitly: “People have different comfort levels with eye contact and screen use. Let’s focus on listening and working through the issues together.” My personal default is that if one party has their cameras off, then we all keep our cameras off.
Q: Can body language replace verbal cues? In many cases, yes. Open posture, calm tone, nodding, and steady presence do as much, if not more, than any single word to promote trust in mediation and conciliation. These same cues can also undo all the good work that is done with one eye roll or shoulder turn. It is absolutely essential the dispute resolution practitioners consider the nonverbal elements of communication closely in their work.
References
Argyle, M., & Cook, M. (1976). Gaze and Mutual Gaze. Cambridge University Press.
Chen, S., Minson, J. A., Schöne, M., & Tormala, Z. L. (2013). In the eye of the beholder: Eye contact increases resistance to persuasion. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2254–2261.
Helminen, T. M., Kaasinen, S. M., & Hietanen, J. K. (2011). Eye contact and arousal: The effects of stimulus duration. Biological Psychology, 88(1), 124–130.
Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and Recovery. Basic Books.
Hopper, E. K., Bassuk, E. L., & Olivet, J. (2010). Shelter from the storm: Trauma-informed care in homelessness services settings. The Open Health Services and Policy Journal, 3(2), 80–100.
Jiang, J., Dai, B., Peng, D., Zhu, C., Liu, L., & Lu, C. (2016). Leader emergence through interpersonal neural synchronization. PNAS, 113(14), 4139–4142.
Senju, A., & Johnson, M. H. (2009). The eye contact effect: Mechanisms and development. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(3), 127–134.
Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2012). Counselling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice (6th ed.). Wiley.
Zaki, J., Weber, J., Bolger, N., & Ochsner, K. (2016). The neural bases of empathic accuracy. PNAS, 106(27), 11382–11387.
Shiv Martin is a nationally accredited mediator, practicing solicitor, conciliator, decision-maker, and certified vocational trainer. With extensive experience in complex dispute resolution, stakeholder engagement, and team building across business, community, and governmental sectors, Shiv brings over a decade of unique and diverse expertise in Law, Management, Vocational Education, and Mediation.
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