Heart-Rate Changes in Response to Shifts in Interpersonal Gaze from Liked and Disliked others

Abstract

32 male subjects were asked a series of intimate questions by a liked or disliked male confederate who either avoided eye-contact or shifted to continuous directed gaze in the middle of an interview session. Analyses of subjects' cardiovascular responses showed a relative increase in heart-rate following eye-contact in the negative affect condition compared to a decrease in heart-rate following eye-contact in the positive affect condition. No differences in heart-rate changes were observed between positive and negative affect conditions in the no eye-contact group. Results are discussed in relation to M. Patterson and his colleagues' arousal and multistage models of exchange of nonverbal intimacy.