The Effects of Dependency and Social Reinforcement upon Visual Behaviour during an interview*

Thirty‐four male college students categorized as to dominance or dependency in their control orientations towards others were given great or small amounts of social reinforcement for eye contact when speaking to an interviewer. Results showed S s' eye contact with E when speaking to him to be a function of the interaction of social reinforcement and dependency orientation. Dependent S s looked significantly more at E when given low as compared to high amounts of verbal social reinforcement, and also looked significantly more at E than non‐dependent S s given low amounts of such reinforcement. It is suggested that the results support a feedback rather than a reward model to explain the effect of social reinforcement on eye‐contact in discussion. Limits on the generality of the results were suggested. The results were also discussed in terms of Argyle & Dean's equilibrium theory of the emission of affiliative behaviours. Implications of the procedures and results for certain kinds of personnel selection were considered.