Mimicry and the Judgment of Emotional Facial Expressions

Lipps (1907) presented a model of empathy which had an important influence on later formulations. According to Lipps, individuals tend to mimic an interaction partner's behavior, and this nonverbal mimicry induces—via a feedback process—the corresponding affective state in the observer. The resulting shared affect is believed to foster the understanding of the observed person's self. The present study tested this model in the context of judgments of emotional facial expressions. The results confirm that individuals mimic emotional facial expressions, and that the decoding of facial expressions is accompanied by shared affect. However, no evidence that emotion recognition accuracy or shared affect are mediated by mimicry was found. Yet, voluntary mimicry was found to have some limited influence on observer' s assessment of the observed person's personality. The implications of these results with regard to Lipps' original hypothesis are discussed.     

Eye-contact as a chance product of individual looking: Implications for the intimacy model of argyle and dean

From time to time during social encounters, people look at one another in the region of the eyes, and sometimes their eyes meet to make eye-contact. According to Argyle and Dean (1965), eye-contact in dyadic encounters signals the intimacy of the interaction and is controlled largely by the competing approach and avoidance forces that motivate the pair. In the present paper, new analyses are reported of three published experiments that were designed originally to test aspects of the intimacy model and it is shown that the duration of eye-contact is no more than a chance product of how long the two subjects look individually. Looking and not eye-contact, it is argued, should be the basis for models of visual interaction, and the intimacy model is ill-founded conceptually; the role of emotion in gaze has been overstressed at the expense of the concept of information; and the most important aspect of vision is in any case not looking and eye-contact but visual access to the whole person. The more cueless the encounter—that is, the fewer the social cues from vision and all the other senses combined—the greater the psychological distance; and the greater the psychological distance, the more task-oriented and depersonalized the content of what people say and, in turn, the less spontaneous their style of speech and the less likely a debate to end in compromise.Research for this article was sponsored by the Social Science Research Council of Great Britain.     

The effects of distance and individual differences in arousability on nonverbal involvement: A test of discrepancy-arousal theory

Mutual influence in human interaction refers to the tendency for persons to alter their verbal, vocal, and kinesic behaviors in response to the intensity, frequency or duration of those behaviors emitted by their partners. Numerous explanations of these processes have been put forward involving principles of approach-avoidance conflict, arousal, reward, and cognitive processes. These explanations are reviewed with special attention given to an arousal based theory, discrepancy-arousal. This theory holds that mutual influence is primarily the result of arousal changes due to the degree of discrepancy of partner's behavior from the receiver's expectation.The theory predicts that persons who differ in reaction to arousal should also differ in their response to a partner's immediacy. This hypothesis was tested on high and low sensation seekers under conditions of near and normal distances during an interview. Several different behavioral responses were coded, including eye gaze, posture and orientation, smiles and laughter, object- and body-focused gestures, vocalization, pauses, and latencies to respond. The hypothesized interaction did not materialize with a median split on sensation seeking. A measure of state-trait sensation seeking (STSS) was developed. The interaction between distance and a median split on the state-trait measure was significant for eye gaze and posture and orientation, with the high STSS subjects compensating less than the low STSS subjects.     

Arousal change and cognitive labeling: Pursuing the mediators of intimacy exchange

In recent years a considerable amount of research on nonverbal behavior has focused on identifying patterns of exchange in the component behaviors of interpersonal intimacy. The rapidly developing empirical research, occasionally giving hope for some convergence in the results, has precipitated efforts at explaining the processes underlying the exchange of intimacy. This paper attempts to analyze issues surrounding two of the more promising mediators of intimacy exchange—arousal change and cognitive labeling. This speculative discussion is offered as a means of stimulating several specific and empirically testable questions which may promote our understanding of the intimacy exchange process.This article is a revision of a paper presented as part of a symposium on Nonverbal Intimacy and arousal: Theoretical approaches and issues at the American Psychological Association Convention, San Francisco August 1977. The author would like to express thanks to the other panel members—Jack Aiello, James Dabbs, Jr., Phoebe Ellsworth, Eric Knowles, and Steve Worchel—for their symposium participation which facilitated the evolution of this paper.     

Effects of gaze on hiring,credibility, attraction and relational message interpretation

Two competing models of the social meaning and effects of eye gaze exist. One holds that different levels of eye gaze have clearly identifiable meanings that will yield main effects on such communication outcomes as hiring and interpersonal evaluations. The other holds that deviant levels of eye gaze are ambiguous in meaning and that interpretation depends on contextual cues such as the reward value of the violator. An experiment required 140 Ss to serve as interviewers during a structured interview in which six confederate interviewees sytematically varied three levels of eye gaze (high, normal, low) and two levels of reward (highly qualified, highly unqualified for the advertised position). Results favored a social meaning model over a violations of expectations model: Subjects were more likely to hire and rate as credible and attractive interviewees who maintained a normal or high degree of gaze than those who averted gaze. Interpretations given to higher amounts of gaze were more intimacy and similarity, more immediacy and involvement, and more composure, informality and nonarousal.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

—Guillaume de Salluste

—T.S. Eliot

     

Intentions and ethical behavior in trust games

This paper explores if knowledge of one's partner's intention affects cooperative behavior. Results of a trust game experiment show that Player 1's elicited intentions are consistent over an imperfect information treatment, when Player 2 is not aware of her partner's intention, and a perfect information treatment, when she knows it. Evidence highlights that people's intentions on one side of the games shape their beliefs as to how their partner wants them to act when the roles are reversed. Moreover, in the perfect information treatment, participants act in a manner consistent with their own intentions, suggesting that ethical considerations permeate behavior.     

Preference for Dynamic Human Images and Gaze‐Following Abilities in Preterm Infants at 6 and 12 Months of Age: An Eye‐Tracking Study

Preterm children are reported to be at higher risk of social communication problems such as autism spectrum disorder compared with full‐term infants. Although previous studies have suggested that preference for social stimuli in infancy is a possible indicator of later social communication development, little is known about this relation in preterm infants. We examined the gaze behavior of low‐risk preterm and full‐term infants at 6 and 12 months' corrected ages using two types of eye‐tracking tasks, which measured 1) preference for social stimuli by biological motion and human geometric preference and 2) ability to follow another's gaze direction. We found that preterm (compared with full‐term) infants at both 6 and 12 months of age spent less time looking toward dynamic human images, followed another's gaze less frequently, and looked for a shorter time at an object cued by another. Moreover, we found a positive correlation between looking time toward dynamic human images and frequency of gaze following at 12 months of age in full‐term, but not preterm, infants. We discuss the relation between the atypical patterns of gaze behavior in preterm infants and their higher risk of later social communication problems.     

Gender pairing bias in trustworthiness

We experimentally examine whether partner's gender information influences trust and trustworthiness behavior. We conduct an experiment where subjects make their choices, first with a completely unknown partner and then a partner of known gender (or vice versa). We find limited influence for gender information on trust behavior. Conversely, the results show a strong gender interaction with regard to trustworthiness both at the aggregate and individual levels. The proportion returned is significantly larger when the trustor and the trustee are of the same gender, bringing into light a gender pairing bias in trustworthiness.     

Gaze in married couples

This study examined the looking behavior of married couples during a 10 minute interaction segment. The variables examined included marital adjustment level, interaction role (speaking or listening) and type of message. Wives were more likely to look at their spouses than husbands were, and speakers were more likely to look at their partners than were listeners. While high marital adjustment spouses looked less over all types of mesages, low marital adjustment spouses particularly looked more than the highs on negative messages, suggesting either a confrontation component to the looking, or a strong need to monitor the partner's reactions in such situations. There was also evidence of more displayed competitiveness in the low marital adjustment couples. Correlational analyses revealed that there were different relationships between the looking behavior of the speaking spouse and the looking behavior of the listening spouse, and between the spouses' patterns of looking when speaking or listening and that these differences were dependent on marital adjustment level.     

Intimacy-mediators of the proximity-gaze compensation effect: Movement,conversational role,acquaintance, and gender

Reduction of interpersonal gaze in response to close proximity was hypothesized to be affected by four intimacy-related variables: movement (active relocation vs. static location), conversational role (listener vs. speaker), acquaintance (strangers vs. friends), and gender (males vs. females). Hypotheses were tested in a factorial experiment with 72 university students as subjects. In general, the effects of the four variables on compensatory gaze were interactive. Gaze reduction in response to a same-sex confederate's presence in a subject's personal-intimate (vs. social) distance zone was more likely for subjects with less intimate histories—males (vs. females) and strangers to the confederate (vs. friends). Furthermore, these effects were more likely when the close distance was the result of movement by the confederate from an established farther distance than when a consistently close distance condition was compared to a consistently far distance condition, and also when gaze was assessed during the subject's conversational listening periods in contrast to speaking periods. The identification of limiting conditions under which the compensatory response occurs supports a more refined conception of the intimacy-equilibrium and proxemics models of interpersonal behavior.The research reported herein and preparation of this article were supported in part by NIMH postdoctoral grant #PHS T32 MH 14588-04, held by author Breck, and by Biomedical Sciences Support Grant 40827118, to author Rosenfeld. Preliminary results were reported at the 1981 annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago. The authors wish to thank Katherine Wu and Sonya Clark for their assistance in data analysis.     

The Microstructure of Infants' Gaze as They View Adult Shifts in Overt Attention

We presented infants (5, 6, 9, and 12 months old) with movies in which a female model turned toward and fixated 1 of 2 toys placed on a table. Infants' gaze was measured using a Tobii 1750 eye tracker. Six‐, 9‐, and 12‐month‐olds' first gaze shift from the model's face (after the model started turning) was directed to the attended toy. The 5‐month‐olds performed at random. Following this initial response, 5‐, 6‐, and 9‐month‐olds performed more gaze shifts to the attended target; 12‐month‐olds performed at random. Infants at all ages displayed longer looking times to the attended toy. We discuss a number of explanations for 5‐month‐olds' ability to follow a shift in overt attention by an adult after an initially random response, including the possibility that infants' initial gaze response strengthens the representation of the objects in the peripheral visual field.     

Infant Looking Behavior in Ambiguous Situations: Social Referencing or Attachment Behavior?

Is infant looking behavior in ambiguous situations best described in terms of information seeking (social referencing) or as attachment behavior? Twelve‐month‐old infants were assigned to 1 of 2 conditions (Study 1); each infant's mother provided positive information about an ambiguous toy and an experimenter provided positive information. In Study 2, 12‐month‐old infants were assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: mother provided positive information about the toy, mother was inattentive, or mother provided negative information; the experimenter was inattentive. The infants preferred to look at the experimenter in almost all conditions and they regulated their behavior in accordance with information obtained from the experimenter. None of the studies lends support for an explanation in terms of behaviors deriving from the attachment system, and they raise questions concerning social referencing interpretations of infants' looking behavior. Other alternatives for explaining infant looking behavior in social referencing situations (e.g., associative learning) are discussed.     

12‐Month‐Old Infants' Perception of Attention Direction in Static Video Images

Twelve‐month‐old infants' ability to perceive gaze direction in static video images was investigated. The images showed a woman who performed attention‐directing actions by looking or pointing toward 1 of 4 objects positioned in front of her (2 on each side). When the model just pointed at the objects, she looked straight ahead, and when she just looked, her hands were hidden below the tabletop. An eye movement system (TOBII) was used to register the gaze of the participants. We found that the infants clearly discriminated the gaze directions to the objects. There was no tendency to mix up the 2 object positions, located 10° apart, on the same side of the model. The infants spent more time looking at the attended objects than the unattended ones and they shifted gaze more often from the face of the model to the attended object than to the unattended objects. Pointing did not significantly increase the infants' tendency to move gaze to the attended object, irrespective of whether the pointing gesture was accompanied by looking or not. In all conditions the infants spent most of the time looking at the model's face. This tendency was especially noticeable in the pointing‐only condition and the condition where the model just looked straight ahead.     

Patient assertiveness in ethnically diverse older women with breast cancer: Challenging stereotypes of the elderly

Patients' views of patient-physician interactions—particularly the perspectives of older, ethnically diverse women—are poorly understood. The older patient's attitude toward and understanding of the medical encounter, however, are essential to the design of strategies to improve patient-physician communication. To date, investigations have primarily emphasised the ways in which the therapeutic relationship is influenced by immutable patient characteristics. This qualitative study extends previous research findings by looking beyond the effect of ascribed categories (such as age, race, and gender) and focusing on aspects of patient behavior, specifically assertiveness. Focus groups were conducted with older African-, Chinese-, European-, and Hispanic American breast cancer patients from sites in the eastern and western United States. The study explores the potential of a form of patient activation for challenging stereotypes of the elderly and changing health care practitioners' behavior.     

Selectivity in Infant Social Referencing

In laboratory studies of social referencing, infants as young as 12 months have been reported to prefer looking at the experimenter over the caregiver for clarifying information. From an expertise perspective, such behavior could be interpreted as if the infant seeks information from others and can discriminate between persons who have or do not have relevant information to provide in the laboratory. If this is the case, higher order cognitive capacities might be involved in infant selectivity in looking in social referencing situations. However, it has also been proposed that associative learning processes might account for infant preferences in such studies. To examine whether an expertise perspective or if more basic learning processes best explain infant selectivity in looking, 40 12‐month‐old infants were assigned to 1 of 2 comparable conditions. The experimenter versus the caregiver presented an ambiguous toy and delivered positive information about the toy. The infants preferred to look at the experimenter and they regulated their behavior more in accordance with information coming from the experimenter. Thus, an associative learning account cannot explain infant preferences in looking. The results are discussed in terms of an expertise perspective.     

Differential Gaze Behavior towards Sexually Preferred and Non-Preferred Human Figures

The gaze pattern associated with image exploration is a sensitive index of our attention, motivation, and preference. To examine whether an individual's gaze behavior can reflect his or her sexual interest, this study compared gaze patterns of young heterosexual men and women (M = 19.94 years, SD = 1.05) while they viewed photographs of plain-clothed male and female figures aged from birth to 60 years old. The analysis revealed a clear gender difference in viewing sexually preferred figure images. Men displayed a distinctive gaze pattern only when viewing 20-year-old female images, with more fixations and longer viewing times dedicated to the upper body and waist–hip regions. Women also directed more attention at the upper body on female images in comparison to male images, but this difference was not age-specific. Analysis of local image salience revealed that observers' eye-scanning strategies could not be accounted for by low-level processes, such as analyzing local image contrast and structure, but were associated with attractiveness judgments. The results suggest that the difference in cognitive processing of sexually preferred and non-preferred figures can be manifested in gaze patterns associated with figure viewing. Thus, eye-tracking holds promise as a potential sensitive measure for sexual preference, particularly in men.     

People in a World Between: Psychodynamic Themes in the Treatment of Bisexual Patients

Normal sexual behavior is on a continuum—with homosexuality at one end, heterosexuality at the other, and bisexuality at the midpoint. Most people have some bisexual potential. A bisexual person is capable of having intimacy with either a man or women but may be made uncomfortable by the ambiguity of their libidinal longings, feel different, isolated, and long to make a clearer gender choice—homosexuality or heterosexuality. The sacrifice to the self and the psychic conflicts that block such a lifestyle resolution brings these bisexuals into treatment and clinicians are confronted with a need to apply psychodynamic theory in new and more flexible ways. Using two case studies this paper discusses forms of androgynous transference, pregnancy fantasy, and dream interpretation that can unfold in the psychotherapy of bisexual patients.     

Gender differences in the initiation and attribution of tactile intimacy

Cultural norms may restrict the demonstration of intimacy between men, such that male adults are relatively unlikely (in comparison to females) to display affection in public by hugging or putting hands around one another's waists. Study 1 examined via a role playing technique how the gender composition of a dyad and types of friendship influence tactile greetings. Males displayed less physical intimacy with male friends than with female (platonic or dating) friends and less than females displayed with their same-sex friends. Study 2 examined subjects' perceptions of and attributions about reciprocal touch. Male-male behavior was rated as less normal as a function of the level of physical touch (going from no touch, hugging, to arms around the waist). The normalcy rating of opposite-sex pairs did not vary as a function of the touch manipulation, but female, same-sex pairs' behavior was rated as less normal in the arms around the waist than in either the no touch or hug conditions. In the male same-sex pairs, hugging was seen as more likely to reflect a sexual relationship than no touch, while arms around one another's waist was rated as even more likely to represent a sexual relationship. It was suggested that homophobia, the fear of appearing or being homosexual, may operate to inhibit physical intimacy between men.     

Differences in How 12‐ and 24‐Month‐Olds Interpret the Gaze of Adults

This study examined the hypothesis that toddlers interpret an adult's head turn as evidence that the adult was looking at something, whereas younger infants interpret gaze based on an expectancy that an interesting object will be present on the side to which the adult has turned. Infants of 12 months and toddlers of 24 months were first shown that an adult head turn to the side predicted the activation of a remote‐controlled toy on that side of the room. After this connection had been demonstrated, participants were assigned to 2 conditions. In the head turn condition the toys were removed but the adult continued to produce head turns to the side. In the toy condition the adult stopped turning but the toys continued to be activated when the participant turned toward them. Results showed that, compared to 12‐month‐olds, 24‐month‐olds were more likely to continue to turn to the side when the adult continued to turn even though there was no longer anything of interest to see. In contrast, compared to 24‐month‐olds, 12‐month‐olds were, if anything, more likely to continue to turn to the side in the condition in which the adult stopped turning. The latter result was replicated in a condition in which the activation of the toy was not contingent on the child's own head turn. These results imply that the meaning of gaze following may change significantly over the 2nd year of life. For 12‐month‐olds, gaze is a useful predictor of where interesting sights may occur. In contrast, for 24‐month‐olds, gaze may be a signal that the adult is looking at something.