Targets of gazing and eye contact during interviews: effect on Japanese nonverbal behavior

The gaze direction of both the subject and his interviewer were varied independently, such that either looked at the other's eyes or at the other's knees in a 2 X 2 design. A repeated measures design was used with nonverbal vehaviors of Japanese manes as dependent variables. When the interviewers gazed at the subjects' eyes, the response latencies of the subjects were shortened and their torso movements were reduced. Results from other studies of Japanese nonverbal behavior suggest that this pattern of response indicated greater subject invlovement in the interaction. The magnitude of these effects was unchanged whether the subject was reciprocating the interviewer's gaze and making eye contact or looking at the interviewer's knees. It was thus reasoned that effects produced by eye contact in other research may have resulted from subjects' knowledge that they were being gazed at and not from the unique properties of eye contact. When the subjects gazed at the interviewer's eyes, the hand self-manipulations of the subjects increased, reflecting the upsetting effects of monitoring the interviewer's face during interaction. The consequences of gazing at another's eyes thus appear to be different from having one's eyes gazed at by another.