Gaze toward and avoidance of the handicapped: A field experiment

Kleck has discovered more eye contact directed toward a handicapped than a nonhandicapped confederate. He suggested that this was due to the information seeking function of eye contact. Langer et al. argued that this occurred because a handicap is a novel stimulus and that, when socially acceptable, people are motivated to look at something unusual. The present study posited that Kleck's findings occurred because of the experimental setting and that the Langer et al. hypothesis holds true only when interaction with the handicapped person will not occur. A field experiment indicated less gaze toward and more avoidance of handicapped than nonhandicapped confederates when conversation was required and more staring toward the handicapped than the nonhandicapped when conversation was not likely.Portions of this article were reported by Teresa L. Thompson and Bonnie Bell Cundiff, Communication between the handicapped and nonhandicapped: Avoidance and uncertainty, Presented at the Annual Convention of the International Communication Association, Philadelphia, 1979. The author would like to thank Louis P. Casella for helpful assistance.