Cross-cultural variation in eye contact comfort

Abstract

Eye contact is one of fundamental components of nonverbal communication, yet affective evaluations of direct gaze are complex and highly context-dependent. Cultural background appears to play a crucial role in shaping the interpretation and social function of gaze behaviors, likely leading to significant cross-cultural variation in preferences for eye contact. However, cross-cultural empirical research on eye contact comfort remains limited. The present study addresses this gap using a large and diverse sample of 10,387 participants (aged 18–73) from 51 study sites, who reported their comfort with direct eye contact when interacting with strangers, acquaintances, and close others. In line with expectations, individuals report feeling most comfortable making eye contact with close others, followed by acquaintances, and finally strangers. Beyond geosocial factors such as socioeconomic status, Human Development Index, and climate, our analyses identify collectivism and gender equality as important predictors of eye contact comfort. These findings suggest that cultural variation in gaze behavior is more multifaceted than commonly assumed and cannot be reduced to simple regional dichotomies. Although the present study is exploratory and based on self-reported assessments of eye contact comfort, it provides one of the first large-scale cross-cultural examinations of this construct and generates novel, testable hypotheses regarding the cultural and socioecological foundations of gaze behavior. Overall, the findings highlight the need to consider both individual-level and contextual variables when examining nonverbal communication across societies and provides a unique, large-scale dataset documenting global variation in eye contact comfort.