EYE‐CONTACT, DISTANCE AND AFFILIATION: A RE‐EVALUATION

Argyle & Dean (1965) presented and tested the affiliative–conflict theory of eye-contact and the Intimacy model which stems from it. Their finding that, as the distance between subjects in a dyadic discussion increased, recorded eye-contact increased, was held to support the theory and model, and has assumed a central place in Argyle's work on social skill. The present experiment tests the hypothesis that, with increasing distance, gaze directed at the ear and shoulder is increasingly recorded as eye-contact by observers in the Argyle & Dean situation. The hypothesis is strongly confirmed: recorded eye-contact increases with distance but as a function of observer performance, not subject performance. It is suggested that Argyle & Dean's results may have been an artifact of observer performance, not subject performance. Implications both for the methodology of work on eye-contact and for the models of Intimacy and social skill are discussed.