The effect of duration of eye contact on American college students' attributions of state, trait, and test anxiety.

Male and female US college students were randomly assigned to one of six groups, in which they viewed a 60-s videotape. The content of the tape was derived from the factorial combination of sex of model on the tape and duration of eye contact (5 s, 30 s or 50 s) maintained by the model with an interviewer. After viewing the tape, participants completed three inventories as they thought the model in the tape had viewed would. The inventories measured state, trait, and test anxiety. The results showed that, as eye contact maintained by the model increased, the model was judged to have less state anxiety, less trait anxiety, and less test anxiety. This effect was more pronounced for the female model than for the male model. The data extended previous experimental and correlational findings that, as eye contact increases, an individual is judged more positively. Also, the results show that these positive attributions are made with respect to both situational and dispositional personality characteristics.

Attributions of self-esteem as a function of duration of eye contact.

American male and female college students who were randomly assigned to one of six groups viewed a 60-s videotape. The content of the tape was derived from the factorial combination of sex of model (both American and White) on the tape with duration of eye contact (5 s, 30 s, or 50 s) maintained by the model with an interviewer. After viewing the tape, the subjects completed the Multidimensional Self-Esteem Inventory (O'Brien & Epstein, 1988) as they thought the model in the tape would. For all 10 self-esteem component scales, scores significantly increased as amount of eye contact increased. For 7 of the 10 scales, self-esteem scores for the female model were higher than those for the male model. The data generally extend and support previous research demonstrating that, as eye contact increases between Americans, American observers rate them more favorably.