BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES - Universitatea de Medicină şi Farmacie

o Many Asian cultures suppress facial expression as much as
possible.
o Many Mediterranean (Latino / Arabic) cultures exaggerate
grief or sadness while most American men hide grief or sorrow.
o Some see “animated” expressions as a sign of a lack of control.
o Too much smiling is viewed in as a sign of shallowness.
o Women smile more than men.
Eye gaze
Eye contact is an event in which two people look at each other's
eyes at the same time. It is a form of nonverbal communication and is
thought to have a large influence on social behavior. Frequency and
interpretation of eye contact vary between cultures and species. The study
of eye contact is sometimes known as oculesics. Eye contact can indicate
interest, attention, and involvement. Gaze comprises the actions of looking
while talking, looking while listening, amount of gaze, and frequency of
glances, patterns of fixation, pupil dilation, and blink rate.
Eye contact and facial expressions provide important social and
emotional information; people, perhaps without consciously doing so,
probe each other's eyes and faces for positive or negative mood signs. In
some contexts, the meeting of eyes arouses strong emotions. Eye contact is
also an important element in flirting, where it may serve to establish and
gauge the other's interest in some situations.
A 1985 study published in the Journal of Experimental Child
Psychology suggested that "3-month-old infants are comparatively
insensitive to being the object of another's visual regard". A 1996
Canadian study with 3 to 6 month old infants found that smiling in the
infants decreased when adult eye contact was removed. A recent British
study in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience found that face recognition
by infants was facilitated by direct gaze. Other recent research has
confirmed the belief that the direct gaze of adults influences the direct
gaze of infants.
A study by University of Stirling psychologists concluded that
children who avoid eye contact while considering their responses to
questions had higher rates of correct answers than children who
maintained eye contact. One researcher theorized that looking at human
faces requires a lot of mental processing, which detracts from the cognitive
task at hand. Researchers also noted that a blank stare indicated a lack of
understanding.
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