Social Skill and Visual Interaction

Summary The study of visual interaction has been organized around motivational constructs. On the other hand, Argyle and Kendon have stressed the importance of persons' abilities to perform visual behavior. The present study was designed to demonstrate the importance of a social skill to visual interaction. Mixed-sex dyads, constituted of unacquainted college students (n = 46) who reported dating relatively frequently or unfrequently and who scored high and low, respectively, on two other measures of social skill, engaged in informal conversations. The importance of social skill was demonstrated by findings that the high-skill Ss engaged in more eye contact, looked more at their partners while speaking, and shared their total speaking time more equally. These results suggest that the coordination of interaction may require skills whose levels are not congruent with participants' needs.