Tuning social modulations of gaze cueing via contextual factors

Gaze cueing reflects the tendency to shift attention toward a location cued by the averted gaze of others. This effect does not fulfill criteria for strong automaticity because its magnitude is sensitive to the manipulation of different social features. Recent theoretical perspectives suggest that social modulations of gaze cueing could further critically depend on contextual factors. In this study, we tested this idea, relying on previous evidence showing that Chinese participants are more sensitive to gazes on White than on Asian faces, likely as a consequence of differences in perceived social status. We replicated this effect when we made group membership salient by presenting faces belonging to the different ethnicities in the same block. In contrast, when faces belonging to different ethnicities were presented in separate blocks, a similar gaze-cueing effect was noted, likely because no social comparison processes were activated. These findings are consistent with the idea that social modulations are not rigid but are tuned by contextual factors.