The Psychological Record, 1998,48,317-324 PERCEPTION OF A MODELS SELF-ESTEEM AS A FUNCTION OF OBSERVER SELF-ESTEEM AND MODELS DURATION OF EYE CONTACT

College students were given the Multidimensional Self-Esteem Inventory. For each subscale of the inventory, they were classified as having either high self-esteem (top 40 % of the scorers) or low self-esteem (bottom 40 % of the scorers). Several weeks after the assessment of self-esteem, they watched a 60-s videotape in which a model maintained eye contact with an interviewer for either 5 s or 50 s. After viewing the tape, the students again completed the Multidimensional Self-Esteem Inventory, but this time as they thought the model in the tape would complete it. The general pattern of the results was that high self-esteem students perceived greater self-esteem in the model in the 50-s tape compared to the 5-s tape, whereas low self-esteem students perceived greater self-esteem in the model in the 5-s tape compared to the 50-s tape. The results show the importance of an observer's own self-esteem in the formation of impressions based on eye contact. Implications for further research are discussed. Maintaining eye contact in situations such as a job interview is a characteristic that generally creates a favorable impression for an observer (e.g., Wheeler, Baron, Michell, & Ginsburg, 1979; Wiens, Harper, & Matarazzo, 1980). The early studies investigating eye contact as a social variable were correlational; participants view videotapes, photographs, or actual interview situations and then make ratings of the characteristics of the person. These ratings are then correlated with patterns of eye contact