Verbal content and affective response in an interview : as a function of experimenter gaze direction

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate the effects of one's looking or not looking at another's eyes upon the content of the other's speech and his affective response to the encounter. The relationships between experimenter gaze direction and subjects' verbal content and affective response to an interview were investigated by having 20 male and 20 female subjects participate in an interview in which experimenter gaze, problems discussed, and sex of subjects were varied in a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design. The independent variables were experimenter gaze direction (High versus Low Looking), problems discussed (Big versus Small), and sex of subjects. The dependent variables were the subjects' verbal content of speech (usage of self-references) and affective response to the interview (favourable or unfavourable).