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Gazing Behavior During Mixed-Sex Interactions: Sex and Attractiveness Effects

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Abstract

We investigated to what extent the length of people’s gazes during conversations with opposite-sex persons is affected by the physical attractiveness of the partner. Single participants (N = 115) conversed for 5 min with confederates who were rated either as low or high on physical attractiveness. From a mating strategy perspective, we hypothesized that men’s increased dating desire towards highly attractive confederates would lead to longer periods of gazing, whereas women’s gazing would be less influenced by their dating desire towards highly attractive confederates. Results confirmed our hypothesis, with significantly increased gazing for men in the high attractiveness condition but no significant differences in women in the two attractiveness conditions. Contrary to past research findings, there was no significant sex difference in the size of the effect of physical attractiveness on dating desire. The results were discussed in terms of preference for physically attractive partners and communication strategies during courtship.

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Notes

  1. In the analyses, we focused on mean gaze duration, for total gaze duration did not allow any interpretation of what constitutes its length, that is, short glances or long gazes (Grammer et al., 1999). The same is true for the number of gazes, which did not give any information about the time actually spent gazing. Since mean gaze duration is the product of both total gaze duration and number of gazes, it contains information about both. However, in order to compare our results to gazing studies that used total gaze duration, we included and analyzed this as well.

  2. That is, shorter mean no-gaze durations by the male confederates lead to shorter female participant gaze durations during these instances (for the maximum time spent gazing is determined by the gazing state of the other individual). Because confederates in the low attractiveness condition gazed longer, the durations of participants not gazing during these gazes are longer as well.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9104, 6500 HE, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Ischa van Straaten, Rob W. Holland & Rutger C. M. E. Engels

  2. Department of Social Psychology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Catrin Finkenauer

  3. Department of Psychology, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Tom Hollenstein

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  1. Ischa van Straaten
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  2. Rob W. Holland
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  3. Catrin Finkenauer
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  4. Tom Hollenstein
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  5. Rutger C. M. E. Engels
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Correspondence to Rutger C. M. E. Engels.

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van Straaten, I., Holland, R.W., Finkenauer, C. et al. Gazing Behavior During Mixed-Sex Interactions: Sex and Attractiveness Effects. Arch Sex Behav 39, 1055–1062 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-009-9482-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-009-9482-x

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