Abstract
The present experiment was conducted to examine the hypothesis that extended eye contact might intensify direct relations in a social encounter with another individual. Organized into same sex dyadic pairs, 64 students (32 male, 32 female) were divided into two groups (high- and low-eye contact) and assigned to either a positive or negative condition defined in terms of the verbal content of the confederate. With respect to the affective components of these dyadic interactions, it was found that under the positive evaluation condition, greater liking occurred in the high-eye contact group. In contrast, greater liking occurred in the low-eye contact group under the negative evaluation condition. Similar patterns were found with respect to the evaluation of “sincerity”, “interest” and “attraction” toward the confederate. All these findings were in accordance with the hypothesis stated above. However, findings related to the qualification factor of the interaction as indexed by “skill of address”, “attentiveness” and “confidence” were not in accordance with expectations. It was concluded, therefore, that increasing eye contact selectively intensifies the affective elements in a dyadic relationship while leaving the qualification aspects unaffected.
