Zhai Manman, Hietanen Jari K
Human Information Processing Laboratory, Faculty of Social Sciences/Psychology, Tampere University, 33014, Tampere, Finland.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2025 May 27. doi: 10.3758/s13423-025-02704-7.
We investigated whether trait inference about others' social desirability influences perceivers' judgments of eye contact with them, measured by the cone of direct gaze (CoDG) width-the range within which slight gaze deviations are perceived as direct. We also explored how the effect is modulated by participants' gender and gazers' sex. In Experiment 1, participants read descriptions of a likeable female and an unlikeable male (or vice versa). Subsequently, they judged whether they were being looked at or not by these individuals displaying various gaze directions. In Experiment 2, participants inferred trait desirability and performed eye contact tasks sequentially for two faces of the same sex, either beginning with a likeable face followed by an unlikeable face or vice versa. In Experiment 3, participants first performed eye-contact judgment for an individual without trait manipulation. They then inferred trait desirability for a second same-sex individual whose traits were manipulated as likeable or unlikeable, followed by eye-contact judgment for that individual. Results showed that CoDG width was wider for female faces associated with socially desirable traits than for those associated with socially undesirable traits. Desirable traits inferred from women's social behaviors may align with individuals' expectations of stereotypical women, enhancing their perceived likeability. The widened CoDG may result from individuals' approach-related action tendency, self-referential positivity bias, or a combination of both mechanisms.
我们研究了关于他人社会合意性的特质推断是否会影响感知者对与他们眼神接触的判断，该判断通过直接注视锥（CoDG）宽度来衡量——在这个范围内，轻微的注视偏差会被视为直接注视。我们还探究了这种效应如何受到参与者性别和注视者性别的调节。在实验1中，参与者阅读了关于一个讨人喜欢的女性和一个不讨人喜欢的男性的描述（反之亦然）。随后，他们判断这些展示不同注视方向的个体是否在看他们。在实验2中，参与者推断特质合意性，并依次对同性别两张脸执行眼神接触任务，要么从一张讨人喜欢的脸开始，接着是一张不讨人喜欢的脸，要么反之。在实验3中，参与者首先对一个没有特质操纵的个体进行眼神接触判断。然后他们推断第二个同性别个体的特质合意性，该个体的特质被操纵为讨人喜欢或不讨人喜欢，随后对该个体进行眼神接触判断。结果表明，与社会合意特质相关的女性面孔的CoDG宽度比与社会不合意特质相关的女性面孔更宽。从女性社会行为推断出的合意特质可能与个体对刻板女性的期望相符，增强了她们的感知吸引力。CoDG变宽可能是由于个体的趋近相关行动倾向、自我参照积极偏差或这两种机制的结合。
